Search Engine Optimisation for Joomla Websites
My name is Chris Diprose and I’m the Manager of Net Style Australia firm Kanga Internet. I have been a vigorous member of the Joomla Community for several years and have a longtime business based upon Joomla Development in Melbourne, Australia. My main focus is Search Engine Optimization for Joomla Content Management System.
This article focuses on the first few steps within the Web Development and Design of a tight search optimized web site in Joomla. Okay let’s get into it. Once I have setup the standard Joomla installation there are a few element types that are mandatory to install and I believe these to be:- a sitemap part and a SEF URL changing component. These are by far the most vital parts to possess on any Joomla Installation.
What’s a SEF URL changing element and the way does it relate to Net Style in Joomla? SEF stands for Search Engine Friendly and a traditional installation of Joomla has a URL like this: index.php?choice=com_content&task=read&id=5&Itemid=half-dozen
When it comes to search engines they’re very smart in several ways that however the traditional Joomla URL describes nothing regarding the internet page and its contents and thus they very do dislike it in several 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 varieties of elements take the normal Joomla URL and amendment it into one thing more meaningful to each us and the search engines. e.g.: purchase-blue-widgets-here.html
From my Net Design & Development experience this can be the only most vital component installation you’ll be able to make on a Joomla Website. I wish to detail my personal best picks. There are a few on the market to us however I feel the JoomSEF part to be the simplest of the simplest when it involves Search Engine Friendly URL’s. There is solely one downside to picking this part and that’s a hidden advert within the code from the initial makers. If you search on Google for “Joomsef patch” then you must be in a position to search out a good article on how to get around this problem. Looking at the “best of the rest” of the SEF components we notice a replacement part (Could 2007) called sh404SEF which is ad free, if you search on the Joomla extensions website you may realize this one. I believe it to be strongly based on JoomSEF; in look, feel and functionality I have noticed this. Another SEF friendly component for Joomla is OpenSEF. When OpenSEF was released regarding a year ago it had been nice but since that point there was no updates and therefore the project has lagged way behind Joomla development. Having said though, it still does a cheap job of converting Joomla URL’s to look engine friendly but I found in my testing that it proved to be duplicating too many URL’s.
Which ever one you select, download the part and then using the Joomla Administration interface install the component. Then attend Web site->Global Configuration->SEO (tab) and guarantee “Search Engine Friendly URL’s” is ready to yes. Ensure your htaccess.txt file in the foundation directory of the Joomla installation is changed to .htaccess and follow the directives within the file in how to turn on “mod_rewrite” – this is often straight forward. Then just go to the JoomSEF element and configuration and turn it on. Once this is done you must be generating friendly URL’s on the front end interface so you ought to go and check. It’s as easy as that!!
Okay so lets move on to what I contemplate the subsequent most vital factor to try to to to your Joomla installation once the SEF part is put in and operating a Sitemap.
In my books there’s very only one legitimate and tight sitemap part and it’s referred to as Joomap. The standard version of this element will not output a good XML file for Google so I additionally suggest looking out on Google for “joomap patch” and you ought to be ready to find a writing to guide you through editing the Joomap element also. The installation of this element is the identical as before, we do it through the Joomla Administration interface. With no alternative configuration after installation we tend to can just go straight to the part and choose it. Currently we just select the menu’s we have a tendency to wish to include in our sitemap. Usually these are main menu and high menu. Now we tend to just produce a new menu item and select the element to link to it, being Joomap and the rest takes care of itself. Simple!!
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 have a tendency to need to try to to to generate a dynamic Google sitemap is to copy paste this URL into Google webmaster interface and currently whenever Google needs to download your whole website sitemap it gets a dynamic version – that is significantly higher than just hoping Google can realize all of your pages! With this sitemap it tells Google all your pages and where they’re so it can scan them a lot of affectively.
Okay currently I have coated off the first two steps in Search Engine Optimization for the Joomla Content Management System. These are the first two steps every Web Designer and Developer should take after they need to Search Optimize Joomla.
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