In the last five (5) years another key phrase hit the Web Design scene and hit it hard. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is that phrase. It deals with optimizing the content and code on a website to cause the page to rank better in different search engines. Gone are the days when you slap some keywords and a description in the META tags and call it a night.

Now SEO is an entire business by itself, sometimes completely separate from the design process, so it should not be taken lightly. But, a little is always better than none. So here are some basic tips that you can use to help your pages rank better for your desired keywords.

1. Structure Is Everything - Titles, Headings, etc

As I said before, ye ole’ meta tags are less effective. As a matter of fact, some search engines completely ignore them. There are, however, tags that search engines do consider:

• title
• h1, h2, h3, etc
• strong, em, b, i

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The power of CakePHP has a lot to do with conventions. The framework (like many others) harnesses its power by enforcing certain conventions and standards that users must follow. You name your database tables, file names, etc; a particular way and boom, models, views and controllers are automatically created and ready for use. This is the beauty of the MVC structure. Your URLs also follow thing structure: www.site.com/controller/action/params.

Straying From Convention

But sometimes, conventions suck. Sometimes you want greater control over things, but still don't wanna do them from scratch. The strictness of the MVC structure dictates how your URLs will look. Consider this: CakePHP has a basic pages controller, which you can use when you don't need a model or controller. You just enter the view and voilà , a page. But your pages have a URL of:

www.site.com/pages/page

Wouldn't you rather:

www.site.com/page.htm

The Routes Configuration examples in the CakePHP manual are a bit simple. Here's how to use a bit more advanced routing:

This says, consider everything that comes in with an HTM extension and send the URL as a parameter to the display action on the pages controller.

The idea was stolen from Lumad CMS. They use the following in Rewrite in .htaccess for their pages:

RewriteRule ^~(.*) content_pages/displayurl/$1 [L]
They use a prefix of '~' instead of a suffix of '.htm', but you get the picture. I'm sorry to disappoint you, I'm not as creative as you thought.

Popularity: 27%

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OK, I know I said beginner. Actually, they said beginner, but this article goes very much in depth into SEO. I've beein applying different SEO techniques to my websites, websites I've done in the past, and just SEO for certain clients. I've been doing this for a bout two years now and even I learned some things from this article.
SEOmoz | Beginner's: They go into the following topics. Trust me, it's long but it's a great read.

1. What is SEO?
2. How Search Engines Operate
3. How to Conduct Keyword Research
4. Critical Components of Optimizing a Site
5. Building a Traffic-Worthy Site
6. Growing a Site's Popularity
7. Conclusion: Crafting an SEO Strategy

Popularity: 4%

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I like how they put it, "SEO isn't rocket science it's more like magic". I'm not saying that these steps should replace major SEO from experts. Well, maybe I am. If you're started out from zero SEO I would suggest these tips to you. This way you would understand what SEO and why it is important. That way when you do get into the position (money-wise) where you do need an expert you'll know what you're paying for.
Search Engine Optimization Made Simple from WebDesign at About.com

1. Pick a Target Phrase
2. Analyze Your Competition
3. Write Your Page
4. Promote Your Page
5. Check Your Results and Tweak

Popularity: 3%

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