Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or unpaid search results. Additional optimizations to Emerald's Websites were activated the week of April 15th 2011. They include:
Readable Page URLs
This enhancement replaces the generic page URLs with descriptive readable ones that incorporate the topic of the page.
For example, depending on what the page is titled, "section1.cfm" becomes "About-My-Firm.1.htm", and "content.cfm?ContentID=135" becomes "Roth-IRA-Conversion.c135.htm".
Search engines prefer unique and meaningful page URLs, and when these appear in a list of search results they will increase the likelihood that someone will click through to your site.
XML Site Map
This enhancement places a new page, sitemap.xml, in the root directory of your site, which contains a listing of all of the pages of your site. This page is not seen by visitors, search engines like Google look for the XML sitemap and use it for crawling the site.
Microformats
Microformats are a method of marking your contact information with tags so that search engines can reliably find and catalog it. Microformat tags are not visible to the site visitor; Google uses them to identify your address, phone numbers, e-mail, etc.