Search Engine Optimisation for Joomla Websites

My name is Chris Diprose and I am the Manager of Web Design Australia firm Kanga Internet.  I have been an energetic member of the Joomla Community for many years and have an established business primarily based upon Joomla Development in Melbourne, Australia.  My main focus is search engine optimization for Joomla Content Management System.

This article focuses on the primary few steps within the Web Development and Design of a decent search optimized website in Joomla.  Okay let’s get into it.  Once I’ve got setup the quality Joomla installation there are a few part types that are obligatory to install and I think these to be:- a sitemap part and a SEF URL changing component.  These are by way the most vital parts to possess on any Joomla Installation.

What’s a SEF URL changing element and how will it relate to Internet Design in Joomla?  SEF stands for Search Engine Friendly and a traditional installation of Joomla contains a URL like this: index.php?choice=com_content&task=read&id=5&Itemid=half-dozen

When it comes to search engines they’re really sensible in many ways however the conventional Joomla URL describes nothing about the net page and its contents and therefore they really do dislike it in many ways.  It is what I decision, Search Optimization Stunted (SOS).  I prefer this term as a result of it describes exactly what it desires; some facilitate!  This is often where a SEF URL changing part comes into play.  These types of parts take the conventional Joomla URL and amendment it into one thing more meaningful to each us and therefore the search engines. e.g.: purchase-blue-widgets-here.html

From my Internet Style & Development expertise this can be the single most vital element installation you’ll be able to build on a Joomla Website.  I want to detail my personal best picks.  There are some out there to us but I believe the JoomSEF part to be the simplest of the most effective when it involves Search Engine Friendly URL’s.  There is solely one drawback to picking this part and that’s a hidden advert in the code from the initial makers.  If you search on Google for “Joomsef patch” then you ought to be ready to seek out a decent article on how to induce around this problem.  Looking at the “best of the remainder” of the SEF elements we tend to notice a new element (Could 2007) called sh404SEF that is ad free, if you search on the Joomla extensions website you’ll notice this one.  I feel it to be strongly based mostly on JoomSEF; in look, feel and functionality I have noticed this.  Another SEF friendly part for Joomla is OpenSEF.  When OpenSEF was released regarding a year ago it absolutely was great but since that point there has been no updates and therefore the project has lagged approach behind Joomla development.  Having said though, it still does a cheap job of converting Joomla URL’s to go looking engine friendly but I found in my testing that it proved to be duplicating too several URL’s.

Which ever one you choose, download the part and then using the Joomla Administration interface install the component.  Then attend Website->World Configuration->seo (tab) and guarantee “Search Engine Friendly URL’s” is ready to yes.  Guarantee your htaccess.txt file in the foundation directory of the Joomla installation is modified to .htaccess and follow the directives in the file in the way to turn on “mod_rewrite” – this can be straight forward.  Then simply head to the JoomSEF component and configuration and flip it on.  Once this is often done you must be generating friendly URL’s on the front end interface thus you ought to go and check.  It’s as straightforward as that!!

Okay therefore lets move on to what I contemplate the subsequent most vital thing to do to your Joomla installation once the SEF part is put in and operating a Sitemap.

In my books there is really solely one legitimate and tight sitemap component and it’s referred to as Joomap.  The standard version of this component will not output a good XML file for Google thus I conjointly recommend looking on Google for “joomap patch” and you must be ready to seek out an editorial to guide you through editing the Joomap element also.  The installation of this part is the same as before, we tend to do it through the Joomla Administration interface.  With no other configuration once installation we tend to will simply go straight to the element and select it.  Now we tend to just select the menu’s we want to incorporate in our sitemap.  Usually these are main menu and high menu.  Now we have a tendency to just produce a new menu item and choose the element to link to it, being Joomap and the rest takes care of itself.  Straightforward!!

One other advantage of Joomap is that it allows you to hook in to Google Sitemaps.  On the admin interface these could be a Google Sitemap URL given.  All we want to try to to to get a dynamic Google sitemap is to repeat paste this URL into Google webmaster interface and currently whenever Google desires to download your whole web site sitemap it gets a dynamic version – which is significantly higher than simply hoping Google will realize all of your pages!  With this sitemap it tells Google all your pages and where they’re thus it can scan them more affectively.

Okay now I’ve got lined off the primary 2 steps in search engine Optimization for the Joomla Content Management System.  These are the primary 2 steps each Net Designer and Developer ought to take once they wish to Search Optimize Joomla.

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