SEO Guide

4 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: July 15, 2010   (RSS)

By degreesnorth - July 14, 2010

Do you by chance have a simple stupid guide to maximising the SEO capabilities of CMS Builder available? I've read piles of posts, but none seem to relate to the basics such as how to "use CMS Builder to update the content between the <title> tags of your pages where you can place relevant keywords" in plain (easy to understand instructions, and if there's any way to add other metatag info easily?[/#000000]

And question 2 - a simple 1-2-3 step on how to choose the filenames for the pages that CMS Builder updates (e.g. your-webpage.php), so you can also place your targeted keywords in the URL. You had a post in January this year mentioning this is possible, but I can't seem to find any instructions (step by step instructions would be lovely [tongue]) for someone who is new to php.[/#000000]

Specifically, my client want to change the http://www.worldshores.com.au/travel.php?2 with the ending (ie, travel.php?2) being something more relevant (eg. cruisetourItaly). (Note that each of the travel.php?1 (1-9) are a different destination). And advice/info/help would be gratefully received. Thanks in advance.[/#000000]

Re: [degreesnorth] SEO Guide

By Jason - July 14, 2010

Hi,

Well we don't have an actual SEO guide to CMS Builder, it can do all of the things that you described.
For example, on a normal CMSB php page, you selected your records up at the top before any of the HTML on the page:
example:
list($articleRecord,$articleMetaData)=getRecords(array(
'tableName' => 'articles',
'limit' => 1,
));
$article = $articleRecord[0];


In this example, we're selecting the first article record in our database and assigning it to the variable $article. This means that we now have access to all of the information associated with that record. We can, for example, put it's title into the <title> tags:
<title><?php echo $article['title'];?></title>

You can actually output this information anywhere you want: in the title, in a meta tag, etc.

I'm not really sure what you're looking to do with your second question. There are no real rules for what you can call a .php file. You can give it pretty much any name you want. Are you looking at how variables get appended to your file name (ie. mypage.php?var1=abc&var2=efg) ?
If that's the case, take a look at this page:
http://www.interactivetools.com/docs/cmsbuilder/viewer_search.html
You can take a look at the "Alternative Search Urls (Advanced)" section near the bottom.

I'm not sure if this answers your last question as well or not. For most detail pages, the really important information is the number. As long as this is the last thing in your URL string, you can put anything you want in front.
For example if you had a record that looked like this:
title = My Vacation
record Number = 2

Instead of having your url look like this:
travel.php?2

it can also look like this:
travel.php?My-Vacation-2

As long as the number is at the end, it won't affect how the page works.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction. CMS Builder is so flexible, there isn't a lot it can't be made to do. You're best bet would be to experiment with it and let us know if you run into any issues.
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/

Re: [degreesnorth] Field Field names

By Jason - July 15, 2010

Hi,

The field names are the names are values that are appended to the end of the url to make it more descriptive.
So, if you have property_type in your Filename Fields, your link would be in this format:
lease_Detail.php?property_type-recordNumber

However, if you property_type was empty for that field, it would only show the recordNumber. If you have multiple fields in your list, it will only use the first non-blank field.

Hope this helps.
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

Hire me! Save time by getting our experts to help with your project.
http://www.interactivetools.com/consulting/