And SEO specialists know that search engines love new content, above everything else.

2) Create a Solid Website Structure

While search engine spiders can maneuver your website like a human being can't, they too are fond of websites with good structures and easy-to-find content. Most CMS software can automatically create menus and navigation from categories that you set. Once you create a new category or subcategory, you can instantly publish it on all your pages, with click of a button.

According to popular SEO wisdom, search engines spiders do not index pages more than 3-4 levels deep on your website structure. In response to this, some CMS software also allows you to put all your content on first level, for example "http://www.yoursite.com/article236.html'. However, using CMS' control panel, you will still be able to see all content within their respective folders and subcategories.

3) Search Engine Friendly Capabilities

This is perhaps most significant development in Content Management Systems. As more businesspeople and SEO begin to dig deep into CMS, need for spider-friendly pages has taken center stage. Recent advancements have enabled CMS users to install modules (sometimes already built in) to make it appealing to search engines. The latest CMS software can create keyword rich pages, titles, meta tags and even anchor text.

That, coupled with advanced search engine spiders being able to go deep into databases to index pages, is set to turn Content Management Systems into next big organic SEO tool. In fact, search engine friendly CMS even makes organic SEO specialists, sad to say, sort of 'obsolete'.

Make CMS Work for Your Web Business

Most content management systems are available for free, or at a minimum costs, under GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/). While there are literally hundreds of available CMS out in market, these websites are a good guide for choosing a right one for your website or internet business:

Compare various CMS : http://www.cmsmatrix.org

Try a CMS: http://www.opensourcecms.com/

Search-engine Friendly CMS: http://pss.sfidreamteam.com

Your website is competing with over 8-billion (at last count) other pages on Internet. It will be "lost" by not having it visible to search engines - akin to putting up a flashing billboard on a deserted island! It can be greatest billboard ever designed, but because of its isolated location very few people will see or read it, and thus, it will be a poor source of revenue generation.

The fact is, there are lots of great websites on Internet. So what? What's use of having a great website if no one knows about it or can find it? And even if people do know about it, you are still not reaching largest Internet demographic: 85 to 90% of ALL Internet users who find what they are looking for by conducting searches on search engines!

The top-4 search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL (CyberAtlas, May 2003). How do they compare in terms of traffic? The info below shows top 5 results of Top-50 Internet Property Rankings for October 2003 (ComScore Media Metrix, Nov. 2003). Keep in mind that table shows total number of unique visitors, not total number of searches. So while MSN is tops in terms of traffic, Google is still king of search. Rank Property Unique Visitors (in thousands) 1 MSN-Microsoft sites 109,334 2 Yahoo! sites 108,673 3 AOL Time Warner Network 108,394 4 eBay 62,454 5 Google sites 58,209

The point of table is that four out of top five most-visited sites are search related sites. SEO is your mechanism for becoming visible to this group. SEO is critical to success of your online venture. Rebuilding is also important, but it can wait.

Other considerations -Ask yourself, what will deliver more results to my business: rebuilding or SEO? -What is purpose of your site? If you use it to bring in customers or sell products, then SEO is definitely one to do first. If visitors and sales aren't important, but having a beautiful, stylish site is, then by all means rebuild it. -To deliver maximum benefits your website has to be both people and search engine friendly. Will rebuilding accomplish this? -Some owners think they'll rebuild site first and then perform SEO, only to discover afterwards that their budgets won't allow for it. Ask yourself, do I want to be stuck with a nice looking site that delivers NO more traffic than its predecessor? -Your website should be an asset, not an expense. It should be generating you income or leads, or providing useful information about your company. If it isn't then why have it? -In US, 13% of traffic to a website comes from search engines, up from 8% for previous year. International figures were even more striking with some countries having search engine referral rates as high as 21%! (WebSideStory, Mar. 2003). SEO makes your site search engine friendly. Rebuilding it may or may not, depending on how skilled in SEO your webmaster is. There's far, far more to SEO than just inserting META tags (title, description, keyword tag).

SEO first, rebuild second It really is a much wiser choice to perform SEO first. Later if results indicate need to make improvements, then proceed with rebuilding your website. Involve your SEO in rebuilding process - their input/ advice will be invaluable!