In our daily conversations with clients - current and perspective - most often, some part of the discussion turns to the topic of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. "Does OrchestraCMS support SEO?". Of course, the answer is yes in all of the usual ways, and then some with some addtional creativity applied.
But what rarely gets discussed, is the ultimate weapon in SEO - Great Content! A whole industry has formed around SEO, which is also another way of 'gaming the system'. While you may chose to spend time and money on this activity, there is no substitute for great content. Even if you showed up as number one on every Google, Bing, Yahoo (oops, same thing!) search, if someone clicks on it and finds out that they've been duped into going to a site with mediocre content, they're just frustrated and likely won't come back, regardless of where you rank on their next search.
The best long term answer to SEO always comes back to great content. But here's the rub. First, great content is hard. You have to work at it; be creative; be persistent. It is organic. You won't get 5,000 fake followers immediately. Second, most Content Management Systems (CMS) are written by Developers for Developers - not for the people who actually create the content, in most cases. So, they're hard to use. The need to keep calling on technical resources slows down the publishing cycle and great content is left in a Word document, rotting, waiting to be published.
Recently, one client told us that it takes 6 weeks to get a page onto her site! Six weeks!
As an avid reader of Seth Godin's blog, the first thing you are struck by is the fact that he publishes a post every day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. His rank? Near the top of the 100+ million blogs. The content is great and it arrives everyday. And it's always timely. Can you imagine if it took 6 weeks to publish each post after it was written? Is it any wonder that many smaller companies have turned to blogging platforms to deliver their web presence? This is a sad state of affairs. We live in the most connected period of human history, but too often the tools get in the way. Seth uses Typepad for his blog. He can't do any more SEO on his blog than any other Typepad user. And yet, his rankings are above 99.99% of all other blogs in the world. So, it can't be the platform.
When we set out to design OrchestraCMS, our first and most important area of focus, was on ease of use for the business and marketing user. Putting 250 features on a menu is not easy, unless you're a geek. Publishing content shouldn't be hard. But too often it is. The result is websites and blogs full of stale content.
When you're creating that new website, it's a good idea to get some advice on SEO. From there on, it's great content all the way. And to publish great content, you need it to be easy and timely. That's where we come in...
