E107 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Optimize e107 for Google Ranking (12-1-06) Version 2.0 by Chris West

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a technique combination of website design, website re-coding, and content writing. Its result is higher ranking on major search engines, of which the only one I care much about is Google (takes more than half of the quality hits on search engines). e107 allows for various SEO techniques to be employed that give search engines a better idea of what your site is about. This article was written specifically for e107, and was updated December 1, 2006 for e107 version .77 Meta Tags e107 allows for setting of all meta tags, but adds the same tags to every page of your site. To access meta tags, go to admin area > meta tags. The description tag should be no longer than 250 characters, containing keywords for your site, not repeating more than twice. The keyword tag should containg your keywords for your main pages on your site. Ex- "search engine specialists, search, engine, specialists, seo downloads, seo, articles, seo articles" is something similar to what I use. You can repeat keywords in your keyword tag, but dont spam it. The author and copyright tag should both contain the name of your company, or site name. The only other tag I recommend adding is .

Adding menus to specific pages On pages that I want to get the most hits from search engines in e107, I create a custom menu in the admin area. In the custom menu, I add the heading 1 tag, and add the page title to that heading. I then write a paragraph using heavy keywords, in their key phrases, and individually. Make this menu's visibility (in your admin area > menus section) only SHOWN on the page it is for. This menu is what search engines will read first in your page. It is very important to search engines.

Putting menu on right side of site, and other menu tips Search engines read the left column of your site first. You want this to be the highest keyword density, and be page-specific information if possible. The main menu for most sites has a lot of code, cluttering what search engines see with information that isnt about the page it is on. Putting the main menu links on the RIGHT side of the site allows your users to still see a menu, while search engines look at it as 'less important' text beacause it sees it farther down in the text version of your site. At the same time, move your important, or page specific menus to the left side of site, making the most relevant text the first for search engines to read. If you have any menus you can bear to NOT show on important pages, disable them in the menus secion of admin area, by setting their visibility to hidden on those pages you want to optimize. This results in an increase in keyword density for your page, by removing the filler.

Content: (prominence, density, clustering) The higher to the top of your site certain keywords are, the more impact they have on what search engines think your site is about. Try making your content have your most important keywords at the top of your page, in headngs, bold, or just in writing. Make your keyword density for each keyword or key phrase about 5% of your page (you can find 'keyword density checkers' on Google). Clustering your keywords on your page gives you a combo score, just like SSX tricky. If you get 2 keywords close to eachother you get a double bonus. While doing all this, remember NOT to spam your keywords. Make it sounds as natural as possible.

Robots.txt This file, in your main directory of your site allows you to tell search engines NOT to visit certain pages on your site. If you have pages that you dont want picked up (print.php, email.php, etc) in e107, and you also dont want search engines to visit yoursite.com/personal/ directory, you would add this to your robots.txt file: User-agent: * Disallow: /print.php Disallow: /email.php Disallow: /personal/

.htaccess File The .htaccess file can only be found on Apache servers. The only modification here that I recommend is to remove the news.php from your address when on your main page. The code for this is as follows, in your .htaccess file: DirectoryIndex news.php

Replace news.php with your front page URL. Now, when you go to your site, you see just yoursite.com/ and no news.php (unless you direct your browser to news.php, so enter your URL manually without it)

Custom Pages: Creating custom pages allows for one main feature: custom URL. Create custom pages for your main pages. This task can be tedious, but URL keywords make a big impact (not as big as titles though). Make the page name your-main-keyphrase.php and the page title "Your Main Keyphrase". Try to focus on one main keyword or phrase for this. If you need the guide to making custom pages, http://wiki.e107.org/?title=HOWTO:Create_a_standalone_Custom_Page is a link to the page on e107 wiki.

These steps will help the average user increase their ranking in major search engines for e107 greatly. Make sure you focus on one or two keyword phrases per page, and dont spam, or search engines WILL hate you. If you are thinking about submitting your site, DONT. Get 3 links from pages with a pagerank 2 or above to your site. Have the link text from these sites say your main pages keyword, and link to your main page.

Good luck and happy optimizing e107 for SEO!