Pagenames for website content has now been implemented for content pages, content categories and blogs, and for galleries. The information below applies to all of these forms of content.
Website Addresses and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Web pages get higher results if, the search terms the page is being targeted for, include the search term in the website address (Url).
In the SmartSpace system, the default web address for an ordinary page of content is something like:
http://www.mywidgetsite.com/infopage/1243.
If the targeted search term for that page is "Special Acme Widgets" it would be far better if the web address was:
http://www.mywidgetsite.com/infopage/special_acme_widgets.
You can now achieve this with the Page Name feature in SmartSpace, by simply inserting the required Page Name in the "Page Name" field.
To ensure that Page Names actually work, you must ensure that Page Names are enabled in the Content Preferences.
Make sure you adhere to the following guidelines:
- Page Name should be a concise targeted search keyword or term - it should not be a story within itself
- The field size is limited so you must fit all the keywords fully into the space available
- If possible, leave out "stop words" like "a", "an", "for", "the", "but" etc.
- Only use alpha numeric characters e.g. abcdefg etc. and 123456 etc.
- Do not use a number by itself - it will cause the system to break and you defeat the purpose of using Page Names in the first place
- The system will make the name lowercase and insert a dash (-) to replace any spaces in the text to ensure the Page Name works effectively
- Before you decide on what the targeted search term should be, consider the alternatives very carefully
- Once you create a Page Name, you should not change the name as it may well be stored as a favourite or bookmark on your visitors computers
- Changing the name will mean that old bookmarks will no longer work
- Use the tools we have suggested here to find the most effective search term
- You must set the Content Preferences to use Page Name for content where available
- If someone uses the old name of the page (with the ID of the page) it will be automatically redirected to the new name
- The system will ensure that no Page Name on yout site is ever used twice;
- If the system changes your page name slightly because it is identical to another previously created, you should consider changing it
- The system will rename identical pages. E.g. my-page-name-1 has been slightly renamed to avoid being identical to my-page-name
- You might consider changing it to my-new-page-name or something similar.
Naming Galleries
It is especially important that when naming galleries, you get the Page Name right. Even consider a slightly longer name for a gallery.
Because galleries have smaller amounts of content, it is even more important to get the naming right.
You should also ensure that the names given to the images are an accurate reflection of what the image is and that the names contain keywords of what the page represents with respect to SEO.
