SEO & URL Management

Who Does What

SEO on CAS.org is a shared responsibility across roles:

Content Editors & Solution Marketers manage page-level and CMS item-level SEO: writing title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph text, alt text on images, and setting slugs when creating new items. This is the majority of day-to-day SEO work.

Web Developers handle site-level SEO: sitemap configuration, robots.txt, canonical tags, structured data (Schema.org markup), redirect management, site speed optimization, and any custom code needed for advanced SEO implementations.

Title Tags

The title tag is the most important on-page SEO element. It appears in search engine results, browser tabs, and social sharing previews.

Where to Set It

Static pages: In the Designer or Editor, open page settings (gear icon) and fill in the SEO Title field.

CMS items: Most CMS collections have a dedicated Meta Title or SEO Title plain text field. Fill this in when creating or editing the item. On the CMS template page, this field is bound to the page's title tag.

How to Write a Good Title Tag

• 60 characters maximum. Google truncates titles longer than approximately 60 characters. Aim for 50–60.
• Lead with the primary keyword. Put the most important keyword near the beginning of the title.
• Include the brand. End with " | CAS" for brand recognition. Example: mRNA Patent Landscape 2026 | CAS.
• Be specific. "CAS Insights" is too vague. "How AI Is Transforming Retrosynthesis Planning | CAS" tells search engines and users exactly what the page is about.
• Don't stuff keywords. One primary keyword and one secondary keyword is sufficient. Keyword stuffing hurts rankings.
• Make each title unique. No two pages should have the same title tag. Duplicate titles confuse search engines about which page to rank.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description appears below the title in search results. It doesn't directly affect rankings, but a compelling description increases click-through rate.

Where to Set It

Static pages: In page settings, fill in the Meta Description field.

CMS items: Fill in the Meta Description or SEO Description field in the CMS item.

How to Write a Good Meta Description

• 150–160 characters. Google truncates descriptions around 155–160 characters.
• Include the primary keyword naturally. Google bolds matching terms in the description, which draws the eye.
• Write a compelling summary. Think of it as a mini ad for the page. What will the visitor get if they click?
• Include a call to action when appropriate. "Learn how" or "Discover" or "Download the report" can increase clicks.
• Don't duplicate descriptions. Each page needs a unique meta description. A missing description is better than a duplicated one because Google will auto-generate a snippet from the page content.

Open Graph Settings

Open Graph (OG) tags control how pages appear when shared on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, and other social platforms. If OG tags are not set, social platforms will guess which image and text to show, often with poor results.

Where to Set It

In page settings (static pages) or in the CMS item's dedicated OG fields. Webflow provides separate fields for OG Title, OG Description, and OG Image.

Best Practices

• OG Title: Can match the SEO title or be slightly more conversational. Social sharing is more casual than search.
• OG Description: Can match the meta description or be shorter. LinkedIn truncates aggressively.
• OG Image: Upload a dedicated social sharing image. Recommended dimensions: 1200×630px. If no OG image is set, Webflow falls back to the site's default OG image, which is usually the CAS logo and not ideal for individual page shares.

Webflow has a "Copy from SEO" toggle that copies the SEO title and description into the OG fields. This is a reasonable default, but customizing OG text for social context often performs better.

Slugs and URL Best Practices

Slugs are covered in detail in the Navigation & URL Conventions doc. Here are the SEO-specific considerations:

• Include the primary keyword in the slug. /resources/cas-insights/mrna-patent-landscape-2026 is better for SEO than /resources/cas-insights/article-47.
• Keep slugs short. 2–5 words. Shorter URLs tend to rank slightly better and are easier to share.
• Use hyphens, not underscores. Google treats hyphens as word separators but does not treat underscores the same way. patent-landscape is read as two words; patent_landscape may be read as one.
• Never change a published slug without a 301 redirect. This is the single most damaging SEO mistake you can make on the site. See Navigation & URL Conventions for redirect setup.

Heading Structure for SEO

Search engines use heading hierarchy to understand page content structure. This directly affects how pages rank and whether they appear in featured snippets.

• One H1 per page. The H1 is auto-set by the CMS Name field or the page title. Never add a second H1 in the content body.
• Use H2s for major sections. These are the headings most likely to trigger featured snippets in Google.
• Use H3s for subsections. These add semantic depth and help Google understand the relationship between topics.
• Make headings descriptive. "Key Findings" is generic. "mRNA Patent Filing Trends 2020–2026" tells search engines exactly what the section covers.
• Include keywords in headings naturally. Don't force keywords into every heading, but include them where they fit naturally.

See Rich Text Formatting Guide for the complete heading hierarchy rules.

Image SEO

Images contribute to SEO through alt text, file names, and page load speed.

• Alt text is required on every image. This is both an SEO requirement and an accessibility requirement. Descriptive alt text helps images rank in Google Image Search and provides context for the page's content. See Image & Media Guidelines for alt text writing rules.
• Use descriptive file names. cas-insights-mrna-patents-feature.avif contributes to SEO. IMG_4392.jpg does not.
• Optimize file size. Page speed is a ranking factor. Unoptimized images slow page load, which hurts rankings. Always convert to AVIF via TinyPNG before uploading.

Sitemap

Webflow automatically generates a sitemap at cas.org/sitemap.xml. The sitemap tells search engines which pages exist and when they were last updated.

What's Included

All published pages and CMS items are included in the sitemap automatically. Draft, archived, and password-protected pages are excluded.

What You Can Control

Individual pages can be excluded from the sitemap by checking the Exclude from sitemap option in page settings. Use this for:

• Thank you / confirmation pages (visitors shouldn't find these via search)
• Internal testing or staging pages
• Landing pages that should only be reached through campaign links
• Utility pages that have no value in search results

Sitemap changes take effect after a full site publish. Search engines recrawl the sitemap on their own schedule, typically within a few days.

Submitting the Sitemap

The CAS.org sitemap is registered in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. This is a one-time setup handled by the Web Developer. If you add a new section of the site with substantially different URL patterns, notify Jimmy so the sitemap submission can be verified.

Robots.txt

The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which areas of the site they can and cannot access. Webflow manages a default robots.txt automatically.

Custom robots.txt rules can be added in Site Settings > SEO > Robots.txt. This is a Web Developer task. Content Editors and Solution Marketers should never need to modify robots.txt.

If you need to block a specific page or section from search engines, the preferred method is to use the Exclude from sitemap toggle and/or add a noindex meta tag (which requires a Web Developer to implement via custom code).

Structured Data (Schema.org)

Structured data helps search engines understand the type and context of page content. It powers rich results in Google (FAQ dropdowns, event listings, article cards, breadcrumbs, etc.).

Currently Implemented

• FAQ Schema — Used on pages with accordion/FAQ components. This generates expandable FAQ results in Google search.
• Organization Schema — Site-wide structured data identifying CAS as an organization with logo, contact info, and social profiles.
• Article Schema — Applied to CAS Insights articles via custom code on the template page.
• Event Schema — Applied to event pages where applicable.

How to Request New Structured Data

If you are creating a new content type or page that would benefit from structured data (e.g., a new webinar series, a product comparison page, a how-to guide), submit a ClickUp task to a Web Developer. Include the page URL, the type of Schema.org markup needed, and any relevant documentation.

Structured data is implemented via custom code embeds in the page head or body. This is exclusively a Web Developer task.

Canonical Tags

Canonical tags tell search engines which version of a page is the "official" one when multiple URLs serve similar or identical content. Webflow sets canonical tags automatically, pointing each page to its own URL.

Custom canonical tags may be needed when:

• A page exists at multiple URLs (e.g., a campaign landing page that duplicates content from a product page)
• A localized page should defer to the English version for search ranking purposes
• A CMS item is displayed on multiple template pages

Setting custom canonical tags requires a Web Developer to add custom code to the page head. If you suspect a canonical issue (e.g., you see the same content ranking from two different URLs in Google), notify Jimmy.

SEO Checklist for New Content

Run through this checklist before publishing any new page or CMS item:

• SEO title set. 50–60 characters, primary keyword near the beginning, ends with " | CAS".
• Meta description set. 150–160 characters, includes primary keyword, compelling and specific.
• Slug is clean and keyword-rich. Lowercase, hyphens only, 2–5 words.
• H1 is set correctly. Matches the page topic. Only one H1 on the page.
• Headings use proper hierarchy. H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections, no skipped levels.
• All images have alt text. Descriptive, specific, no "Image of" prefix.
• Image files are optimized. AVIF format, descriptive file names, under size targets.
• Internal links use relative paths. /solutions/cas-scifinder not https://www.cas.org/solutions/cas-scifinder.
• External links open in a new tab.
• OG title and description set (at minimum, copied from SEO fields).
• OG image uploaded (1200×630px) if the page is likely to be shared on social.
• Page is not excluded from sitemap unless it should be (thank you pages, test pages).

Common SEO Mistakes

• Duplicate title tags. Every page needs a unique title. If two pages share a title, search engines struggle to determine which one to rank. Use Google Search Console to find duplicate titles.
• Missing meta descriptions. While Google sometimes auto-generates descriptions, they are often pulled from random page text and rarely compelling. Always write a custom description.
• Changing slugs on published content. This breaks every inbound link and resets any search authority the page has built. Set up a 301 redirect first.
• Thin content pages. Pages with very little text content (under 300 words) struggle to rank. If a page is mostly images or videos, add descriptive text that gives search engines enough context.
• Ignoring localized SEO. Each locale should have its own SEO title and meta description in the local language. Leaving English SEO fields on a Japanese page hurts both locales.
• Not optimizing for featured snippets. Format content with clear H2 questions followed by concise paragraph answers. Google pulls these directly into the search results page.
• Orphaned pages. Pages that have no internal links pointing to them are invisible to search engine crawlers. Every important page should be linked from at least one other page on the site.