Best practice for SEO and accessibility for new site

David F.

Vote:

I'm somewhat new at Episerver and have been tasked with creating a new info site. I would like to make the site SEO- and accessibility-friendly from the start and am looking for some examples of best practices in this area. I've searched through the forums and found single suggestions, but what I'm looking for is if anybody has some documentation on what's good to implement from the get-go.

I know I can validate and test the site for WCAG and SEO afterwards, but I'm looking for code suggestions that will ease this process.

#120068

Apr 09, 2015 16:01

Marcus Lindblom

Vote:

I can't give you any code samples but the thing is that developing an accessible and SEO friendly website is no different then if you would create a static HTML site. Start from a clean project and add clean semantic HTML just like you are used to do, and then add EPiServer properties for the dynamic stuff.

Good luck!

/Marcus

#120077

Apr 09, 2015 22:36

Vote:

The classic SEO feature that almost every project has is to have Title (for use in HTML-HEAD-TITLE) and Heading (for HTML-BODY-H1) string properties that both fallback to PageName when empty.

#120254

Edited, Apr 14, 2015 9:30

David F.

Vote:

Thanks for your feedback Marcus, and yes, I realize the SEO basics should be applied to any CMS.

Johan, thanks for your valuable suggestion on how to code intelligently. Fallback options are a great idea (especially in those situations where the backend can "correct mistakes" when an editor has forgotten to fill a field, for example).

#120281

Apr 14, 2015 16:02

Vote:

Another popular practise is to define an interface, for example:

public interface ISeoWebPage
{
	string GetTitle();

	string GetHeading();
	
	string GetKeywords();
	
	string GetDescription();
}

Implement this for a base template/viewmodel class and use in your MasterPage/Layout. Then override on pages that, for example, vary content by querystring values.

#120336

Edited, Apr 15, 2015 12:39