Joomla - SEO Tips

[Tipster]

Hello everyone.

Most of you or us have a Joomla based web site.

If you would give a Top 5 list with tips about plugins, modules. tricks or other methods-tools that helps your site to get ranked higher in Google, what would that Top 5 list be ?

Cheers ...

[Smoking]

what are your top 5?
my list only has 3 components, modules, or plug ins that are used for seo purposes!

[RayUK]

I am not sure about a 'top 5' tip list but I would say make the most of what Joomla does out of the box. For instance a little while ago I dumped the sh404SEF plugin (which I swore by before) and swapped to using the built in SEF URL functionality in Joomla (I think this came in in a fairly recent release) and it works really well. Use the meta fields and fill those out on a per page basis (i.e. don't have a general one for the whole site that is the same on all pages). Pretty standard (white hat unless go you go keyword stuffing) stuff and it is all built in and made easy for you.

Now, I know others may well not agree with me here - it is the same with Wordpress where I use just two plugins and others seem to use dozens and dozens. But Joomla does a lot without you having to add extras so do check all that out first would be my advice. *Then* add in plugins once you know you really need them.

I did have a bunch more here but realised it is general SEO stuff that applies to any site not just a Joomla one.

I shall know watch this thread with interest and see what everyone else suggests as I am sure I can improve my own use of Joomla!

[baldidiot]

I am not sure about a 'top 5' tip list but I would say make the most of what Joomla does out of the box. For instance a little while ago I dumped the sh404SEF plugin (which I swore by before) and swapped to using the built in SEF URL functionality in Joomla (I think this came in in a fairly recent release) and it works really well. Use the meta fields and fill those out on a per page basis (i.e. don't have a general one for the whole site that is the same on all pages). Pretty standard (white hat unless go you go keyword stuffing) stuff and it is all built in and made easy for you.

Now, I know others may well not agree with me here - it is the same with Wordpress where I use just two plugins and others seem to use dozens and dozens. But Joomla does a lot without you having to add extras so do check all that out first would be my advice. *Then* add in plugins once you know you really need them.

I did have a bunch more here but realised it is general SEO stuff that applies to any site not just a Joomla one.

I shall know watch this thread with interest and see what everyone else suggests as I am sure I can improve my own use of Joomla!

Can I ask what made you stop using sh404SEF? I've been pretty impressed with it so far.

To go back to the original question, there's a great site map generator called xmap that generates both a regular html site map (ie: for your users) and an XML sitemap (for you to submit to google etc..).

A second plug in I would highly recommend is akeeba backup. I know it's not SEO related but have a good back up system is essential!

[RayUK]

sh404SEF worked really well, there is nothing wrong with it except that the author at one point was no longer updating it, and sold it to a commercial company who were going to charge for it. When I updated Joomla to the latest version offered in Fantastico a few months ago I decided to avoid this potential future charge as I didn't really use anything that couldn't be replaced with other functionality in Joomla or with extensions (plugins or otherwise) that were still free. Please note that I think sh404SEF is great, and if I used more of its functionality I would have happily paid for it!

I checked the page for it and it seems like the commercial company took it over, and it is $35 a year for using it. The built in Joomla SEF URL thing got a lot better with one of the fairly recent releases. And yes, a second vote for xmap here, I use that and it works really well (better than some of the others e.g. joomap which I tried for a while). Poking around my extension manager it looks like the only other 3rd party extension I use is DFcontact for the contact form, as it give a bunch more options than the standard Joomla contact form. But as I said either above or in another post, I try to get away with as few plugins (Wordpress) or extensions (Joomla) as possible, just the way I do things. Others use lots and lots of the things, and I suspect most webmasters take a central line of using a few!

I hope this reply comes out formatted correctly as although the site seems to be working better for me (I, and only I apparently, have been having trouble over the last week or two) it keeps putting my text all in one block. So I apologize if it does that.

[best.hands]

Hello everyone.

Most of you or us have a Joomla based web site.

If you would give a Top 5 list with tips about plugins, modules. tricks or other methods-tools that helps your site to get ranked higher in Google, what would that Top 5 list be ?

Cheers ...

Joomap - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/202/details
SEOSimple - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/4102/details
JoomSEO - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/4102/details
Joomla SEO/SEF Component - http://www.artio.net/en/joomla-exten...-artio-joomsef
J!Redirect301 - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...n/7996/details

[Tipster]

Hello all and thanks for the input.

Personally I use few plugins and and 2 components.

SEO Generator : http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...-metadata/7171
SEF Service Map (The best) : http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi.../site-map/6563
Internal linking which most of the webmasters avoid using it (This is great) : http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...ent-links/4010
And at last. JoomlaTag : http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...-a-clouds/7718

BUT and extra very helpful tool and script that I have just discovered is this one : http://www.seopanel.in which will be tested


Hope more tricks and and tested tools will show up in this thread ...

[Tipster]

what are your top 5?
my list only has 3 components, modules, or plug ins that are used for seo purposes!

And those are?

[clearlyportals]

Having done a few sites in Joomla now, i'd have to say don't worry about any seo plugins too much.

The only plugins I have is xmap (for my sitemap) and another one which allows me to give section and category metadata which Joomla fails on somewhat.

Other than this I make sure I have sef urls turned on (under global configurations), then if you want to do anything else, look up .htaccess in google. This is a file where you can do lots of url re-writting and more!

In this file I:

1) Create clean urls for my affiliate links:

http://www.clearlycasino.com/visit/intercasino.html

       redirect 301 /visit/inter-casino.html   http://www.intercasino.co.uk

2) Gzip files for faster load times and smaller file size:

<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>
		AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript
</ifmodule>

3) Add some file caching

<FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=290304000, public"
</FilesMatch>

4) Rewrite any other urls I see fit

5) Ensure there is not two versions of my homepage (e.g clearlycasino.com and clearlycasino.index.php

6) A few other things as well

[sansoftonline01]

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 9"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/CHANDR%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msoclip1/03/clip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <woNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Wingdings; panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:2; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 268435456 0 0 -2147483648 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1 -369098753 63 0 4129279 0;} @font-face {font-family:"\@Arial Unicode MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1 -369098753 63 0 4129279 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} h2 {margin-right:0in; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-outline-level:2; font-size:18.0pt; font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"; font-weight:bold;} h3 {margin-right:0in; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-outline-level:3; font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"; font-weight:bold;} p {margin-right:0in; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:878978897; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:-203937668 -2008890174 -1179632236 -579195000 -210179456 -1309083766 646728570 528233772 1754852320 -1214242058;} @list l0:level1 {mso-level-number-format:bullet; mso-level-text:; mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Symbol;} @list l0:level2 {mso-level-number-format:bullet; mso-level-text; mso-level-tab-stop:1.0in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @list l0:level3 {mso-level-number-format:bullet; mso-level-text:; mso-level-tab-stop:1.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Wingdings;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} --> </style> 1: Find the Best Keywords<o></o>

2: Discover What Your Competitors are <o></o>
3: Write Very Linkable & Sharable Content<o></o>

4: Optimize Your Title and Meta Tags<o></o>
5: Optimizing Your Headings and Subheadings<o></o>

6: Use Title and ALT Attributes<o></o>

7: Optimizing File Nomenclatures<o></o>

8: Tell the Search Engines What to Index<o></o>

9: Feed Search Engines Static and XML Site Maps

10: Use Checklists and Validators<o></o>

There are several ways to validate the accuracy of your website's source code. The four most important, in my opinion, are validating your search engine optimization, HTML, CSS and insuring that you have no broken links or images.


Local SEO Company
<o></o>

[freeeasy]

Got to say that the x map add on from jopomla is excellent and took me (an absolute idiot on these things)- about 5 minutes to install .

The following link may help when trying to get it to work

http://joomla.vargas.co.cr/en/documentation/27-xmap

[Tipster]

Its a bit strange why most of the Joomla users prefer xmap instead of SEF Service Map ?! The difference is big ... to me at least.