photo credit: Cappellmeister

Today I started a discussion with Eric Layland of Point It about content management systems (CMS) and it occurs to me that there is a serious tension between the intended function of CMS and their use. Content management systems are intended to reduce the barriers to content change and to allow people that are not tech-savvy to have input. The surge of business blogs is a way to let people who know about the business drive the content their company produces.

So how are content management systems used. The answer is that they are not. Companies that use management systems rarely have multiple people that understand how the system interface works. Instead of having a person who knows HTML or PHP your bottle neck is the person that knows how to use the software. The people that is intended to serve are not empowered because they are not tech-savvy enough to care about learning the system. So what makes a CMS SEO friendly may be a very moot point — because many of the people that would have a need for an SEO friendly CMS don’t have anyone to use it. There are some scenarios where content management can make a difference but many of them are fleeting at best.

The basic things that an SEO friendly Content Management System (CMS) needs:

• Unique input for Title
• Unique input for URL
• Ability to input full tags on images
• Ability to specify a redirect
• Ability to specify meta data

The basic things an SEO friendly Content Management System user needs to know:

• What to do with Titles
• What to do with URLs
• How to use image tags
• Why do do a redirect
• How to use meta data

If you have these skills what are your content management needs?

So, who is the right market for an SEO Friendly CMS?