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Transcript

All right. Hello all. Good morning. Welcome and thank you for joining today’s session focused on mastering AM sites, your beginner’s guide to templates, navigation, and SEO. My name is Tesh Chandarana and I work at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ’s Ultimate Success Org as a senior strategist where we focus on helping ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ customers get as much value as possible from their ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ I’m going to go ahead and kick off our session today. First and foremost, thank you for your time and attendance today. Please note that this session is being recorded and a link to the following recording will be sent to everyone who has registered. This live webinar is a listen only format, but do feel free to share any questions into our chat pod. Our team will answer as many as possible. If we aren’t able to get through your questions, the team will follow up after this webinar. Please note there will be a short survey at the end of this webinar and we appreciate your feedback. So now I’d like to introduce our speaker for today’s session, Kaley Turnbull-Martinez. Kaley is a DX customer success strategist with ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ’s Field Engineering and Ultimate Success team based in Denver, Colorado. Kaley excels at translating complex digital challenges into clear actionable strategies for enterprise clients. With over a decade of experience across SaaS, FinTech, and IT, Kaley empowers teams to accelerate their digital transformation journeys using ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Experience Cloud products through collaboration, empathy, and a deep understanding of digital strategy and value realization. And with that, I’ll hand it over to you, Kaley. Thank you so much, Tesh. Hello everyone and a big welcome. As you said, my name is Kaley. I’m a customer success strategist on our Field Engineering and Ultimate Success team, and I’m excited to have you all here today as we dive into mastering AEM sites.

We’re going to focus on three areas today, understanding AEM page templates, website navigation, and search engine optimization or SEO. Think of this as your practical guide to making your digital content shine and ensuring your audience can find it with ease. We’ll keep it informative, engaging, and focused on actionable insights. So without further ado, let’s jump right in.

Let’s start with the absolute foundation of your website in AEM, page templates.

So what are they? Think of a template as the blueprint for your web pages. When you create a new page, you aren’t starting with a totally blank screen. Instead, you pick a template and it instantly lays down the essential structure for you. The blueprint approach gives you three huge advantages. Consistency. Templates make sure every page look like it belongs to the same family. Your logo is always in the right spot, your colors are correct, and the overall layout is consistent. This builds a seamless experience for your visitors.

Efficiency. This is a big one. Templates will save you a ton of time. Instead of building a new page from scratch every single time, the core elements are already in place. This frees you up to focus on what really matters, creating great content. And then you have control. Templates define where you can and can’t add content. This isn’t about limiting creativity. It’s about preventing mistakes and making sure the right components are used in the right places. This keeps the site clean and functional. If you’ve ever used a pre-designed resume or presentation layout in a program like Microsoft Word, you already get the concept. You pick a look you like and the structure is there. You just fill in your own information. AEM page templates do the exact same thing, which gives you a powerful head start so that you can build better content faster. So what’s actually inside one of these blueprints? A template is made up of a few key parts that all work together. So let’s break them down. First you have the frame or the fixed elements in the layout. Think of this as the permanent structure of the house. It’s your header with the logo, the main menu, and your footer with the copyright and the legal links. These parts are locked in the template to ensure your brand is consistent on every single page. Then you have starting content or your initial content. Many templates give you a little head start by including some placeholder content already available to you. It could be a banner that says add your headline here or a preconfigured image component. It’s a simple feature that guides you on how to use the space and get you started more quickly.

Then you have what we like to call the playgrounds or your editable regions. These are the most important parts for you as a content author.

Editable regions are the flexible spaces on the page where you get to add your content. Think of them as empty picture frames on a wall where you can drag and drop text, images, videos, and other components to build out your unique page. And then we have the rules of the playground or your policies. Policies are simply the rules that dictate which components you can use in which playground. So for example, a policy may say that the main body area can have text, images, and videos, but the smaller sidebar can only have text and images. In this scenario, this prevents a wide video from breaking the layout of a narrow sidebar and ensures design integrity. Crucially, policies also define how these components can be used. So for instance, a policy can limit headline tags like header one to ensure that pages are properly structured for screen reader accessibility and optimized for SEO. When you put these four pieces together, you get a template that provides a strong, consistent framework while still giving you the creative freedom that you need to produce really great content. Now that we know what templates are made of, let’s walk through how you’ll actually use them to create a new page. So this process is really straightforward and is broken down into two main concepts.

So step one is create the new page. And as you can see from the workflow here, I built an example of creating a page for this webinar.

So let’s say that you need to create a new About Us page. So what are you going to do? First you’ll navigate to the section of the site where you want the new page to live.

You’ll click the create button and choose page, as you can see in step one here. AEM will then ask you to choose a template. You’ll see a list of options like article page, product page, or landing page. You simply select the one that best fits your needs and then you’ll give your page a title, like about our company. Or in this instance, I used the title for this webinar, which was Mastering AEM Sites.

You can see in my example here that I named it and then I published it. So for step two, once the page is created, you’ll open it within the editor. This is where you’ll see those playgrounds or the editable regions that we talked about previously. They’ll have a prompt that says something like drag components here. This is your canvas. You can open the component library, your toolbox, and see all of the components you’re allowed to use for that part of the page. Need to add some text? Drag a text component and start typing. Do you want to add a photo? Drag an image component and upload your picture from the AEM assets library. You can rearrange these components by dragging them up or down or configure their settings to get them just right. This whole process is designed to be intuitive. So by using templates, you get to skip the repetitive parts of page setup and jump right into the creative work of adding and arranging your content. Okay, let’s look at some best practices. So templates are powerful, but using them smartly is what makes them truly effective. So let’s cover two key best practices that will make your life and the life of your fellow authors so much easier. First, it’s so tempting, but do not create a one size fits all template. It is really tempting to build one master template that tries to do everything, but that often leads to confusion. So instead, a best practice that we recommend is to design templates for specific purposes. You should have a unique template for a blog post, a different one for a product page, and another one for press releases.

A good way to think about this is that you wouldn’t use the same blueprint for a skyscraper and a single family home, right? Using templates makes it clearer for authors on what to do and keeps the site more organized and makes future updates so much simpler.

Second, aim for freedom within a framework. The best templates will strike a balance between brand consistency and author flexibility. The framework is the consistent part, right? You have the header, the footer, the overall brand elements that should never change. These will be locked. The freedom part comes from the editable regions, giving authors enough space and good variety of components to build compelling content, but with those predefined areas. This ensures that no matter what content is added, the page still feels polished and on brand. Following these best practices will help you build a system that empowers authors to get great work efficiently while keeping your site scalable and easy to manage. All right, so we’ve built our pages. Now how do people find their way around? Let’s talk about navigation. Okay, so navigation is so much more than a menu. It’s the directory and the street signs for your entire website. Good navigation is critical and it directly impacts your success. So how does it help? Starting at the top here, it creates better user experience. Good navigation makes a journey through your site feel effortless. When people know where they are and they can easily predict where to go next, they feel in control and are less likely to get frustrated and leave. It helps people discover your content. Clear navigation acts as a guide and it encourages users to explore parts of your site that they might not have found otherwise. This is also really huge for SEO as search engines use your navigation to find and understand all of your content.

So now let’s take that and apply that to some numbers that really matter. Bounce rates.

So a bounce is when someone visits a single page and then they leave immediately. If your navigation is confusing, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Clear navigation helps users orient themselves and find what they’re looking for, which keeps them on your site longer and it will also dramatically reduce those bounce rates that we’re talking about.

Then we have conversion rates. So a conversion is when a user takes an action that you want, like buying a product or filling out a form. If they can’t find the products page or the contact us button, they simply can’t convert and good navigation will lead users right where you want them to go. So in short, great navigation isn’t just a nice to have. It’s a business strategy that leads users to better visibility and stronger results. Okay. Effective navigation isn’t just one tool. It’s a combination of different patterns that work together. In AEM, you’ll typically use these three patterns to guide your users.

Primary navigation, secondary navigation, and breadcrumbs. So we’ll start with primary navigation. Often this is your site’s main menu. This is the big one. The menu that sits at the top of every single page. Its job is to provide immediate access to the most important high level sections of your site. So thinking of your products, services, about us, and content.

Think of this as your site’s main highway, so to speak.

Then you have your secondary navigation. These are your sidebars and your footers. This is navigation that provides more detail within a specific section. So for example, if you’re in the product section, a sidebar menu might show you all the different product categories.

Footers are also a form of secondary navigation. These are perfect for less critical, but still important links like your privacy policy or your link for your careers pages.

Then you have breadcrumbs. This is simple, but incredibly helpful tool. So breadcrumbs are the little trail of links, usually at the top of a page, that will show you the path that you took to get where you are. So for example, home to products to laptops. They show you how to get back. This gives users a clear sense of place and makes it easy to jump back to a previous section. So by thoughtfully combining these patterns in AEM, you create a website that is easy to explore and also helps your visitors find exactly what they need without any real friction. All right, the AEM Navigation Core component. So AEM simplifies the creation and management of website navigation through its set of built-in components. For this section, we’ll focus on the one primary tool here, the Navigation Core component. Think of this component as the engine that drives your site’s navigation. Its most powerful feature is that it dynamically generates navigation menus based on your website’s content hierarchy. So this means that you don’t have to manually create and link every single menu item. Instead, the navigation component will automatically read that parent-child structure of your pages, the exact structure that you see in the AEM Sites console, and it renders the corresponding menu and links for you. This dynamic approach is incredibly efficient and comes with several key features for authors. First, you can configure the depth of the navigation. So this means that you can decide if a menu should show the main top-level pages or if it should also include multiple levels for dropdowns.

Second, the navigation will update automatically. So when you create a new page or you rename an existing one or move pages around, the component will reflect those changes in the menu once you publish. So this eliminates the tedious manual work and the risk of broken links that come with static menus.

And third, you have fine-grained control to exclude specific pages from the navigation. So this is perfect for things like landing pages or seasonal content that you want to be live but not necessarily featured within your main menu.

And now a couple of considerations here. So for complex menus like dropdowns or mega menus, this is more of a partnership between the AEM Navigation Core component and your team. So AEM will provide the necessary data and structure, but the actual visual implementation, so how the dropdowns look and behave or how the menu collapses on mobile devices, is then handled by your team’s front-end code. So this leads to a crucial best practice for managing navigation, and I wanted to give this, I wanted to call this out. So to ensure consistency and efficiency, the navigation component is often built inside of an experience fragment. So think of this as a reusable block of content, right? This ensures that you only have to configure your header or your footer for navigation once, and any future updates will be made in one single place and then reflected across the entire site. So this experience fragment would then be included directly on your page templates, meaning that the correct navigation automatically appears on every new page without an author ever having to add it manually. So by leveraging this component, you can build maintainable and a user-friendly navigation system for your website. Okay, creating and managing navigation. So we’ve established the AEM’s navigation component automatically builds your menus based on your site structure.

But a really important part of managing your website navigation is creating and managing a logical site hierarchy. So your strategy as a content author in this realm is to also be a digital architect. So because the navigation is a direct reflection of your content structure, the way you organize your pages has a profound impact on several key areas. First and foremost, user understanding. A well-organized, predictable structure helps users form a mental map of your site, and this allows them to find what they need with less effort. Second, a clear hierarchy is vital for SEO. Search engines are crawling your site structure to understand how content is related and which websites are most important. So this will directly improve your site’s visibility.

Third, it impacts maintainability. A logical content tree is simply easier for you and your colleagues to manage, update, and maintain over time. With that in mind, here are a few practical tips for you as an author. Pay close attention to your page names. The page title that you set is typically what users will see as the link text in the menu. So use clear, concise, and user-friendly language.

Next, leverage the hide in navigation property strategically. So this is an essential feature for pages that need to be live but shouldn’t clutter your main menu, like promotional landing pages, seasonal offers, or post-form thank you pages.

And finally, always try to plan for growth. Ask yourself if the structure you’re building today will still make sense a year from now when you’ve added twice as much content. Ultimately, mastering navigation in AEM is less about configuring a single component but more about the thoughtful strategic organization of your content. So by creating a logical hierarchy, you deliver a site that is more usable, discoverable, and scalable. Okay, best practices. So as we wrap up our discussion on navigation, let’s distill everything down to three core principles that you can apply every day. We call them the three Cs of great navigation. If you’re counting, it’s technically four Cs, but hear me out. You’re keeping it clear and concise, consistent, and compatible. So first, clear and concise. The goal of navigation is to get users to their destination with zero friction. This means prioritizing the most essential sections of your main menu, ideally five to seven items here. Use short, intuitive labels that your audience will immediately understand, avoiding internal jargon at all costs. Finally, stick to familiar patterns such as users expect the logo to lead home and the main menu to be at the top. Meeting these expectations will make your site feel intuitive for visitors.

Second, make your navigation consistent. Consistency builds trust and reduces the mental effort required from your users. So if a section is called services in the header, it must be called services in the footer and then again on every other page. This extends to capitalization and even the meaning of icons. Once a user learns how your site works, their experience should be predictable everywhere they go. Finally, your navigation must be compatible, both with all devices and with all users.

So in today’s world, this means designing for mobile screens just as much as for desktops, ensuring that links are large enough to be easily tapped. But compatibility also means accessibility. A user who can’t use a mouse must be able to navigate to every part of your menu with a keyboard. This isn’t just a best practice, but it’s essential for creating an inclusive digital experience.

So by focusing on these three principles, clear and concise, consistent and compatible, you’ll move beyond simply building menus in AEM and designing truly effective navigation that serves your users and drives your business goals. Okay, you’ve built a fantastic website with great navigation. But if people can’t find it on Google, does it even exist? This is where search engine optimization or SEO comes in. So what is SEO and why does it matter? Put simply, SEO is the process of making your website more attractive to search engines like Google. So when you do it right, you show up higher in the search results. The goal is to get more organic traffic. Think of it this way. Paid traffic is when you run an ad. Organic traffic is when someone finds you naturally because you were the best answer to their question. This traffic is incredibly valuable because it’s sustainable and the people who find you this way are often actively looking for what you offer.

So why is this critical today? Because when you need an answer, a product or a service, where do you go first? Google. Your customers do too. If you’re not on that first page of results, you’re practically invisible. Good SEO helps you stand out from your competitors, reach your target audience the right way when they need you, and build trust. People will naturally trust the top search results more.

In the end, SEO is what connects the great content you build in AEM with the audience that you want to reach. Without it, even the best website can feel like a billboard out in the middle of the desert. The great news is that AEM gives you direct control over the most important SEO elements right from the page editor. So let’s create a quick SEO to-do list for every page that you build.

So starting with page titles and meta descriptions. This is your three-second ad on Google. The title is the clickable headline, and the description is the short sales pitch underneath it. In AEM, you’ll need to find these fields in page properties. Your job is to make them clear, compelling, and include the words that people are searching for. URL structure.

AEM automatically helps you by creating clean, readable URLs based on your page names. Your job is just to give your pages simple logical names that would make sense to a human, right? Then we have heading tags. Your H1, H2, et cetera. So think of these as the outline for your page. The H1 is the main title. H2s are major sections, and so on. Use the text component to structure your content with these tags. This helps both readers and Google follow the flow of your information.

Then we have image optimization. So big, heavy images will slow down your sites, and Google hates slow sites. You have two main tasks here. First, alternative text. So this is a short description of an image. It’s crucial for accessibility and helps Google understand what the image is about. Please fill this out in the image properties always. File size.

Don’t worry about manually shrinking every single image. AEM’s built-in tools can automatically serve smaller, faster loading versions of your images, but your job is simply to use them. This directly boosts your page speed. Then we have internal linking. This is just linking to other relevant pages within your own website. So when you’re writing about a topic, link to another page where you can offer more detail. This helps users discover content and shows Google how your information is connected. So by paying attention to these five elements on every page, you’re no longer just a content author. You’re actively contributing to your site’s success in search. Okay. AEM SEO tools and features. So beyond the page level controls, AEM has some built-in features that act as your technical SEO helpers. Let’s look at how AEM solves some common SEO challenges.

So I’m going to state these as a problem and a solution. So problem. How do you give Google a complete list of all of your pages? AEM solution, XML site maps. AEM can automatically generate and update a site map. Think of it as a guest list that you’re handing search engines to make sure that they don’t miss any important pages.

Problem. How do you keep Google out of private or otherwise irrelevant sections? AEM solution is the robots.txt file. This file is like a do not enter sign for search crawlers. AEM lets your admins easily manage it. Problem.

What if you have two pages with the same content? Google will get confused. AEM solution here is canonical tags. A canonical tag points to the one master copy of a page, telling Google, this is the one that matters. Ignore all the others. This prevents any duplicate content penalties that you could incur that would otherwise impact your SEO.

Problem. What happens if a page’s URL changes? You don’t want to send users to a dead link. AEM solution here are redirects.

AEM manage redirects which automatically forward users and search engine values from an old URL to the new one so that you never lose out on any traffic there. Finally, integration.

AEM is built to work with the tools that you already use. Like Google analytics, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ analytics, Google search console. This allows you to track your performance and get the data that you need to make even smarter decisions. These tools work in the background to ensure your site is technically sound, freeing you up to focus on creating what matters, the quality content on your site. Key SEO best practices in AEM. Managing SEO effectively is about building good habits. Here are five best practices to make part of your routine. Start with keyword research.

Before you write, know the words and the phrases that your audience is actually searching for. This research should be the foundation of your page titles, headings, and all of your content.

Optimize every single page. Don’t just focus on the home page. Every page is an opportunity to be found. Make sure that each one has a clear title, a compelling description, and a logical heading structure that serves a specific user need.

Prioritize speed and mobile. Your site must load quickly and look perfect on a phone. There’s no negotiating this, especially in today’s world. We are conducting almost everything on our phones. Using AEM’s image optimization features is a huge step in the right direction. Remember, Google hates slow pages, so for your SEO to be good, you need to have your images load quickly.

Connect your content. Actively use internal links to create a web of information. This guides users deeper into your site and helps search engines understand your expertise on a topic.

Finally, monitor and adapt. SEO is not a set it and forget it kind of task. Use tools like Google Analytics to see what’s working. Which pages get the most traffic? What are people searching for? Use that data to refine your strategy over time.

By making these practices a regular part of how you work in AEM, you’ll build a site that consistently performs well and attracts the right audience. All right, let’s bring it all together. Since we’re wrapping up, we’ll be launching a quick feedback poll for this webinar. You should see it popping up right about now. Okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground today, but it all comes down to a few key ideas. We started with the blueprints, and we’ve covered the top three. First, we’ve covered the footprint, your page templates, which give you consistency and speed. Then we talked about building the roads, your navigation. The big takeaway here is that your navigation is a direct reflection of your site structure. So organizing your pages logically is the most important thing that you can do. Finally, we put up the signposts for the rest of the world, your SEO. This is how you ensure that all the great work that you’re doing inside AEM can actually be found by the people who need it. Okay, your learning journey doesn’t stop here. If you want to dive deeper, these are some of the best places to go. You can go and check out the official ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Experience Manager documentation for detailed guides, the AEM community forums to connect with other users and experts, Experience League for a huge library of tutorials and courses and articles that you would be looking for, and for the absolute latest in SEO, go check out straight to the source, Google Search Central. Thank you all so much for joining today’s webinar. We hope that you leave with practical insights to enhance your AEM site’s experience and improve your digital presence. As you continue to explore and implement these strategies, please remember that your dedicated ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ team is an excellent resource for deeper discussions and tailored support on this. So don’t hesitate to connect with them if you’re looking for more information. Thank you again and have a great day.