The technology platform of your website has serious implications in your search engine optimization efforts. Often times in the development of sophisticated content management systems and ecommerce engines marketing and SEO take a back seat to functionality.

But that should not happen. If you build a system right, it will not only be “SEO friendly”, but often times can help streamline your SEO efforts. The trouble is that it is very rare to find a development team that understands the implications for SEO and coordinates with your online marketing agency.

A great search engine optimized technology platform should, at a minimum, allow for the following:

• Creation and management of unique page titles, meta tags, and URLs
• Output of clean XHTML code
• Mechanisms to maintain the integrity of the above

So how do you evaluate if your content management system or technology platform put SEO in the back seat? Look for these signs -

• Long complicated URLs (index.php?content=aboutuspagenumber12)
• Messy HTML code (multiple header or body tags, random CMS generated style sheets)
• Short non-descriptive or repetitive title tags (ie: Company Name - About)
• The inability to control any of the above

Optimizing a technology platform can be a lot of work, so be sure to evaluate if you are better off just rebuilding the platform rather than trying to plug a sinking ship.