Aem Seo
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) provides businesses with an agile web content management system to centrally manage digital assets and content across their organization.
As one might anticipate, enterprise organizations attempting to streamline workflows often turn to ECM systems for support.
However, this can often present challenges from an SEO standpoint; thus it is essential that AEM SEO be planned for early in the build process.
Semantic HTML
Semantic HTML is a form of markup language designed to give website pages meaning and structure, making them easier for both humans and machines to comprehend, increasing accessibility.
Developers use HTML tags to define different parts of a page’s content – from headers and main elements, footers, etc. These elements include headers, main elements and footers – while semantic tags help improve usability, accessibility and SEO of a website.
At first, HTML did not feature structural elements such as headers and main elements that are now essential to website layout and structure. Today, they serve both search engines and assistive technologies that convert text and images to speech or Braille output – such as screen readers – by making content available via speech output or Braille output.
Use of semantic HTML can assist search engines in better comprehending and comprehending the context and importance of your website’s content, helping it rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs) and increase traffic to it.
As part of an AEM SEO strategy, it is critical that your website features up-to-date semantic HTML tags. This can have a huge effect on how your site ranks with search engines as well as how easily it is discovered, scanned and crawled by them.
Google and other search engines use virtual spiders to crawl the web for relevant content, so having a properly coded website with semantic HTML tags allows them to identify, index and rank it based on keywords you optimize your content for.
Though content creation should always remain fresh and new, creating a uniform look across your site should also be prioritized. Integrating semantic HTML elements is one way of creating this consistent look that gives it more of a professional appearance.
Though semantic HTML might seem minor, its benefits can make an enormous impactful statement about your site and search engines alike. This is especially important for visually impaired visitors who rely on screen readers to access your content.
XML Sitemaps
XML Sitemaps are created to give search engines a list of pages on your website that can help index more of its content more quickly and efficiently. They can either be created manually or with the aid of web applications; either way they allow Google to discover more content faster.
When creating an XML sitemap, make sure it is optimized for search engine crawling by including only pages relevant to your business or brand and no non-indexable pages (adding these could confuse search engines). Also avoid including too many URLs as this will take up unnecessary space on the server and potentially slow down your website.
Another key element to keep in mind when creating an XML sitemap is consistency across your entire website, so search engines can easily understand what information you want to convey and in what manner.
If your website is expansive, creating multiple XML Sitemaps might be necessary. This is particularly true if there are numerous blog posts, or more than 50,000 URLs on it. In addition, compressed Sitemap files may help reduce their size and increase speed.
As well as creating an XML Sitemap itself, it is also wise to generate a Sitemap index file which compiles all of your Sitemaps within it. It should open and close with sitemapindex> tags while each individual Sitemap can be accessed using its respective tag name (sitemap> or sitemapindex>).
One effective strategy for increasing AEM SEO is creating an XML Sitemap of each page on your site. This will allow search engines to understand the structure of your site more efficiently while simultaneously showing off new content and encouraging visitors to check out more pages of your website.
To create an XML Sitemap easily and effortlessly, the YOAST SEO plugin offers an effortless solution. This free tool makes the creation process straightforward.
Manual XML Sitemap generation can also be done with ease by using a web app such as Lumar. Lumar will assist in producing an XML Sitemap tailored specifically for your website that follows all necessary markup rules.
Content Fragments
AEM Content Fragments provide businesses with a simple yet efficient means of managing website content. Their page-independent nature makes editing effortless, while wrapping each fragment with context-sensitive experiences to maximize engagement and business growth.
Content Fragments in AEM require careful thought to their structure. If possible, creating a Content Fragment Model would serve as the base for your reusable components and templates.
Once your model is in place, it is essential that all content and assets are structured correctly so search engines can understand what each page or asset represents. This is especially relevant if using Structured Data as part of your content strategy.
When creating new pages and templates, it is crucial that they contain URLs with specific names that reflect what each one is about and encourage users to click through. Search engines need this information in order to properly index pages that users visit and click through to.
Remember that URLs you assign your content and assets need to be human-readable so search engines can easily recognize it. To achieve this goal, use lowercase instead of uppercase when creating URLs, as well as using hyphens instead of spaces when specifying name fields.
Finally, it is imperative that your content and assets remain responsive across all devices. AEM’s responsive layout feature can assist with this effort by adapting its layout depending on which emulator is being used to view the site.
Test your site across different viewports and make adjustments to Core Component sizes accordingly, this can especially come in handy on responsive pages where multiple containers don’t stack automatically.
Finally, it’s key that all page components adhere to standard features and functions in order to avoid any overlap in functionality and decrease development time. Doing this can help avoid any overlapped elements and shorten development cycles.
Friendly URLs
URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are the addresses for all web pages and resources on the internet, making them an integral component of AEM SEO as they enable search engines to determine its relevancy while offering users an easy way to share it.
Create SEO-friendly URLs is easier than you may think – simply focus on writing them with your readers in mind, adding any necessary keywords where necessary.
An SEO-friendly URL should be short, keyword-rich and consistent while still offering an enjoyable user experience for everyone.
According to Google, URLs serve an invaluable purpose by clearly depicting what a webpage or content page is all about and where it can be found. Like a library’s call number, a URL tells search engines where and what they can expect when accessing a page.
URLs offer another SEO benefit in that they’re easy to remember and share, usually being less than 100 characters long and without filler words like “and” or “the.”
If your product comes in multiple versions on your website, canonical tags can help search engines distinguish them without confusion and prevent duplicate content issues that could damage your search engine ranking.
Matt Gooch of Digital Marketing Institute believes the ideal SEO-friendly URLs are those with both primary domains and subfolders, since subdomains can be treated as separate entities from primary domains with regard to SEO effects.
Search-friendly layered navigation extensions such as those offered by Mageplaza, Amasty and Aheadworks are also highly beneficial in improving SEO efforts for any online store. These features enable visitors to navigate their way around using filters and sliders.
Netcentric can assist in building SEO-friendly URLs if you’re feeling intimidated by this task. Our team of specialists can offer customized solutions tailored to meet the individual needs of our customers – you can view our services here or reach out directly so we can discuss how best we can support your vision for SEO.
