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SEO

Brightspot gives editors the ability to characterize their content such that search engines can more easily find it and list it in search results.

Search results page

This section explains how to configure SEO fields in Brightspot CMS.

SEO overview​

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of characterizing an asset so that search engines can easily find and list it in search results. While individual search engines have their own methods for finding and listing assets on the Internet, they all generally look for specific tags within the <head> element.

<title> and <meta> tags

SEO text often appears in the <title> and <meta> tags.

<head>
    <title>Brightspot's mission is to transform the way content is created and presented.</title>
    <meta name="description" content="Brightspot gives you all of the tools you need to easily drive your brand storytelling."/>
</head>
  • 2. Shows SEO in the <title> tag.
  • 3. Shows SEO text in the <meta description> tag.

Open Graph properties

SEO text often appears in Open Graph Tag properties used by social networks.

<head>
     <meta property="og:title" content="Brightspot's mission is to transform the way content is created and presented">
    <meta property="og:url" content="https://brightspot.com/brightspots-mission-is-to-transform-the-way-content-is-created-and-presented">
    <meta property="og:description" content="Brightspot gives you all of the tools you need to easily drive your brand storytelling forward and transform your digital customer experiences—without compromise">
    <meta property="og:site_name" content="Brightspot">
    <meta property="og:type" content="article">
 </head>
  • 2. Specifies the asset's title when appearing in a social network.
  • 3. Specifies the URL to which visitors arrive after clicking on the link in a social network. For example, if Malcolm shared an item on his Facebook page, Facebook includes this URL in the share. When Amy clicks on the shared item, she arrives at this URL.
  • 4. Shows the tag line appearing in a social network.
  • 5. Specifies the site name to display in the social network.
  • 6. Specifies the type of asset.

How Brightspot populates SEO text

Depending on the asset you create, Brightspot automatically populates the SEO fields. For example, text you type in Headline and Subheadline fields automatically appears in the Title and Description fields under the SEO tab.

How Brightspot populates SEO text

You can add or modify an asset's SEO entries as described in the section on configuring SEO for an asset below.

How search engines use SEO text

Generally speaking, when a search engine lists your asset in search results, the text it displays comes from the <title> and <meta description> tags—which Brightspot populates from your entries in an asset's SEO tab. In addition, Google sets the search terms in boldface.

Configuring SEO for an asset​

You can help search engines better index your site by providing SEO settings for each asset you publish.

Note

This topic assumes that you have enabled enhanced SEO (Sites & Settings > Global or Site > CMS tab > UI cluster) and therefore includes the fields that appear as a result of this, which include Focus Keyword, Focus Keyword Density, and Disable SEO Recommendations.

To configure an asset's SEO settings:

  1. Search for and open the asset to which you want to configure SEO settings.
  2. Click the SEO tab.
  3. Using the following table as a reference, complete the fields as needed.
  4. Complete your site's workflow and publish the asset.
Field
Description
Title

Text appearing in the asset's <title> tag. Brightspot automatically populates this field from data on the Main tab, and you can override this as needed by entering a new title.

validates the SEO strength of text entered into this field by the following criteria:

  • Character count—How strong the length of the text entered into this field is according to industry recommendations.
    • Red—Bad rating; the character count is between 0-30 characters.
    • Yellow—Middle rating; the character count is between 31-65 characters.
    • Green—Good rating; the character count is 66 characters or more.
  • Focus keyword-count—Whether the value entered into the Focus Keyword field is referenced in this field.
    • Red—Bad rating; the focus keyword is not referenced in this field.
    • Green—Good rating; the focus keyword is referenced in this field at least once.
Suppress SEO Display NameIf toggled on, your site's name will not appear in the <title> tag and subsequently in search results.
Site name in search result
Description

Description

validates the SEO strength of text entered into this field by the following criteria:

  • Character count—How strong the length of the text entered into this field is according to industry recommendations.
    • Red—Bad rating; the character count is between 0-120 characters.
    • Yellow—Middle rating; the character count is between 121-159 characters.
    • Green—Good rating; the character count is 160 characters or more.
  • Focus keyword-count—Whether the keyword entered into the Focus Keyword field is referenced in this field.
    • Red—Bad rating; the focus keyword is not referenced in this field.
    • Green—Good rating; the focus keyword is referenced in this field at least once.
RobotsText appearing in the item's <meta name="robots"> tag.

For an explanation of the available options, see Robots Meta Directives.
Focus Keyworddisplays an analysis of the keyword in the Focus Keyword Density field.
Focus Keyword DensityIndicates the number of times the Title and Description fields contain the Focus Keyword as a percentage. For example—

  • The focus word is content.
  • There are 50 words in the Title and Description fields combined.
  • content appears only once in both fields.
In this scenario, the focus keyword density is (1 ÷ 50) × 100 = 2.00.



As a best practice, use a focus keyword in your Title and Description fields that have a density of 3.00 or greater.



Note: Computing keyword densities requires toggling off Disable SEO Recommendations.
Disable SEO RecommendationsToggle on to disable computation of density values for a word you type in the Focus Keyword field.
AMP DisabledToggle on to disable generation of an AMP version of this asset.

For details, see AMP.

Configuring sitemap generation​

A sitemap is a special file on your site that improves search-engine optimization; it gives indications to search engines regarding all of the published assets on your site, when they were last modified, and other metadata. When you provide a sitemap to search engines, they potentially provide more accurate and timely results—and more click-throughs to your site.

Brightspot generates a default sitemap file sitemap.xml which you can manually submit to search engines or specify in your sites' robots.txt files. This topic explains how you can customize the sitemap's generation.

To configure sitemap generation:

  1. Click > Admin > Sites & Settings.

  2. To initiate generation of sitemap files, do the following:

    1. In the Sites widget, select Global.
    2. Expand CMS > Advanced, and in the Default Task Host field, enter the name or address of the host where the sitemap background tasks will run.
    3. Click Save.

  3. If you want to configure generation of sitemap types for all sites, do the following:

    1. In the Sites widget, select Global.

    2. Under Front-End, expand Sitemap Settings.

    3. From the Site Map Types list, select the sitemap types you want to generate.

      • News—generates sitemap entries for blog posts, articles, and press releases.
      • Video—generates sitemap entries for videos.
      • Standard—generates sitemap entries for all other content types.

  4. If you want to configure sitemap generation for a particular site, do the following:

    1. In the Sites widget, select the site for which you are configuring a sitemap.
    2. Under Front-End, expand Sitemap Settings.
    3. From the Site Map Types list, select the sitemap types you want to generate. See the descriptions in step 5.c.
    4. In the Site Map Default URL field, enter set the sitemap's default URL. If you enter https://brightspot.com, Brightspot creates a sitemap at https://brightspot.com/sitemap.xml. If blank, Brightspot creates a file sitemap.xml at the URL in the field Main > Default Site URL.

  5. Click Save.

See also:

Customizing a site's robots.txt​

A robots.txt file provides crawling guidance to search engines, such as the following:

  • Which user agents are allowed to crawl or not crawl
  • Which URLs to crawl or not crawl
  • Locations of sitemaps
  • Limiting the frequency of crawling

Properly configuring your site's robots.txt enhances search-engine optimization.

Brightspot provides a default robots.txt with the following directives:

User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 10

Brightspot creates the file robots.txt at the location in the field Main > Default Site URL. For example, if your site's default URL is https://brightspot.com, Brightspot creates the robots.txt file at https://brightspot.com/robots.txt.

To customize a site's robots.txt:

  1. Click > Admin > Sites & Settings.
  2. In the Sites widget, select the site for which you are configuring robots.txt, or select Global to configure robots.txt for all sites.
  3. Click , located to the left of , and type robots.txt.
  4. In the robots.txt field, enter directives for the search engine. See the search engine's documentation for the list of honored directives.
  5. Click Save.

See also: