Database Driven Sites and Search Engine Optimisation
By: Patrick Altoft | Posted: 20th April 2006
In modern days, most of the sites built are database driven. That means that your site is actually an application which retrieves data from a database managementsystem, parses the data and shows the result to the user. With the evolution ofthese database driven sites a niche market for database internet marketingprofessionals has evolved. 18 months ago I was a person looking for a SEOprofessional for a database driven site I owned. Many professionals told me that it was impossible to do! My results show a different story, 6 months later my newdatabase driven site is now ranking exceptionally well for its keywords (at the top ofSERP's for over 75 keywords).
The key to search engine optimizing a database driven site is in building splashpages which link into the database. These splash pages should have titles, h1 tags,content and inbound links relevant to the database result the page is linking to. For example if linking to a page about accommodation the splash page should haveaccommodation in the title, h1 tag, anchor text of links and in the content of the page. Then this splash page should link into the database results with the anchortext 'accommodation'. This way both the splash page and the results page are listed in Google, MSN and Yahoo!
The mod rewrite code is also a great way of making database results more friendly to the search engines. It is a great way of getting keywords into the URL of the pageand is also human friendly as well. A little time spent in implementing this code canresult in improved search engine results. I tested this on two of my sites, 1 with thecode and one without. The results: Both sites ended up getting the database resultspage indexed and page ranked but the mod rewrite site got there quicker!
In short there is no need to higher a specialist SEO professional to work on your database driven site you just need to be creative in showcasing the results to your potential visitors
Written By Shaun Stenning Managing Director of Integrated Marketing Solutions Australia - Internet Marketing AustraliaArticle Available At: http://www.itmsaustralia.com.au/articles/database-driven-sites-and-seo.html
About the Author
Occupation: Internet marketing consultant
Patrick has been creating and marketing remarkable websites since 1995, Google me for more details.
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Tags: search engines, google, yahoo, search engine results, msn, anchor text, different story, niche market, inbound links, little time, evolution, managing director, accommodation