A major part of maintaining SMU’s web presence is ensuring that our website stands out in search engine results. I recently sat down with OIT’s Director for Web Application Services, Aren Cambre, to go over some of the recent progress made in getting our www.smu.edu the attention it deserves in web results.

Understanding SEO:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about making our website more attractive to search engines like Google. When our site ranks higher in search results, it becomes more likely that prospective students, faculty, and partners will visit our pages. For instance, if someone searches for “mechanical engineering Dallas,” we want SMU to be one of the top results. However, this isn’t always the case, indicating the need for improved SEO practices.

“Now, that doesn’t mean that we are cynically gearing our pages to align to the search terms” Aren points out, “But with that bigger picture there’s a vocabulary that our prospects are using and we want to make sure that we are using their vocabulary as much as we can and adapting our use of words to be receptive to how our users are going to converse with this. Not only does that potentially help our placement on search results, it just helps us be more understandable to people who may be our prospects.”

Technical Enhancements:

Aren shared several key technical improvements currently being implemented:

301 vs. 302 Redirects

301 Redirects are permanent and tell search engines that a page has moved to a new URL, transferring the SEO value to the new page, while 302 Redirects are temporary and retain the old URL in the search engine’s index, which is not ideal for permanent changes. Work is mostly complete on identifying temporary redirects that should be converted to permanent redirects to help search engines see what is most current and accurate.

Standardizing Lowercase URLs

To prevent confusion and dilution of SEO scores, all URLs are being standardized to lowercase. This is crucial because search engines treat differently cased URLs as separate entities, affecting our search rankings.

Canonical Tags

These tags are added to pages to inform search engines of the preferred URL, reinforcing the use of lowercase and ensuring consistency.

Sitemap

A sitemap is essentially a XML-based directory of all the pages on our website. Submitted to Google on May 8, our site map showed no change in indexed pages, which is a positive sign. It indicates that our site already had good navigation and linking practices. Currently, the site map includes only Cornerstone 2.0 pages, with plans to include more as sites are migrated.

Google Tag Manager Cleanup

Reducing the number of tags from around 500 to 361 as of press time has been a significant step. Tags are small pieces of JavaScript code that can slow down a website if overused. By cleaning up unnecessary tags, we’re ensuring a faster, more efficient browsing experience for our users.

Practical Tips for Content Editors

For those of you working with Sitecore, Aren emphasized a few key points:

• Focus on creating valuable, problem-solving content rather than just SEO for SEO’s sake!
• Avoid keyword stuffing, which can make your content seem inauthentic and can negatively impact rankings.
• Use the URL redirect field in Sitecore only for temporary redirects. For permanent redirects, please request them from the OIT Help Desk, then delete the original items from Sitecore once the redirects are working.

At the heart of these efforts is a commitment to making SMU’s digital presence as strong as possible. By staying updated with the latest SEO practices and focusing on delivering valuable content, we’re ensuring that our website remains a top destination for all our visitors.