SEO In Joomla - Patrick Jackson (JoomlaDay Sydney 2009)

Joomla SEF & SEOA bunch of stuff that’s good to do!

Patrick Jackson KPSwww.kpsystems.com.au

web: sydney.joomladay.org.au | email: [email protected]

http://sydney.joomladay.org.au/

mailto:[email protected]

web: sydney.joomladay.org.au | email: [email protected] seo techniques – patrick jackson

Joomla SEO

• Are You Up To Date?• Turn On SEF URLS• Use Aliases• Enter Meta Data• 3rd Party Components• Xmap• Trickery!!!

web: sydney.joomladay.org.au | email: [email protected]


Are you up to date?

• A few assumptions I’m going to make…• Your Joomla Site is up to date

– Version 1.5.14 currently– Sam Moffat’s JUpdateMan

• You can access your files on your server– FTP, cPanel File Manager, eXtplorer, NinjaXplorer

• You’ve got sufficient access privileges on your site to access the backend and Global Configuration


SEO Techniques

SEOMoz.org – Search Ranking Factorshttp://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors


The Basics

Turning on SEF in Joomla

• Joomla! Out of the box has dynamic URLs like index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=5&id=10

• For J1.5, you can quickly make your URLS more Search Engine Friendly

• J1.5 creates a SEF URL from the alias tags• This creates a URL like 1-about-joomla.html

• You turn on Joomla SEF URLs in Global Configuration• You can improve the default further by using .htaccess


Changing the SEF URL

• So once you have your SEF URLs turned on, Joomla is generating them based on the Alias Tag

• When you create a menu item or article, if you leave the alias blank, Joomla will automatically populate it based on the Title of the item.

• For standard Joomla SEF, this all happens dynamically.


The Basics

Aliases

• The alias tags in Joomla are the key to good SEF URLS• Joomla will automatically generate them from the

article title, menu name or other component features such as Contact’s Name for com_contact

• Auto Generated ones can be lengthy if your title’s long• By customising your Alias tags, you’ll end up with

cleaner and often shorter URLS.• You can also focus keywords into URLS by customising

your alias tags – but don’t go overboard!• My strategy: make the URLs HUMAN friendly – and then

they’re also search engine friendly.


Metadata

• When Joomla is installed, your site is instantly displaying metadata

• Metadata Description– Default Joomla description

• Metadata Keywords – Default list of Joomla keywords

• Change the default global values by going to Global Configuration

• Make your metadata unique for each article

• Keep your keywords to around 10 – 15 maximum

• Make the description and keywords for an article relate and target the article’s contents


3rd Party Extensions

• Components are still handy though for a few things• sh404SEF & RSSEO let’s you improve your META tags,

tidy up the URL and have multiple alias URLS.• Xmap & RSSEO creates a dynamic Google site map• Several other extensions are available from

extensions.joomla.org• Do your homework on them before you install them!


Components

• So you’ll then find that for a simple joomla site, you’ll now have SEF URLs up and running!

• But not everything starts working straight away!

• Components will generate a SEF URL, but if the URL is not based on a component that has a SEF extension, the URL may not be as readable as it could be

• Virtuemart, Fireboard, Community Builder, SOBI, all have SEF plugins to allow their URLs to be converted, and work best with an additional 3rd Party Component

• sh404SEF Extensions on JED• sh404SEF Extensions List• Recently sh404SEF has switched to Commercial model.


XMap

• XMap lets you dynamically generate a sitemap for your site and display it, but also a Google Sitemap that you can submit using Google Webmaster Tools

• Submitting it to Google will then tell Google what to come and look at on your site, and will improve your site’s performance

• It’s pretty much install and off you go, and has a range of plugins to map component content.

• Google likes a sitemap with Priorities to have a page that it can focus it’s search on… priority = 1

• Xmap by default only applies priority to an entire menu

• So you’ll normally get an error on Google Webmaster Tools alerting you to the priority issue. Not critical, but easy to fix!


XMap Menu Trick

• The trick… create a hidden menu with just an alias to the site’s default menu item.

• Add this to Xmap configuration, and set it’s priority to 1.

• Hide it from your general site map, as it’s a duplicate link to your home page


Non-www to www

• Joomla or non-joomla site, people should be able to reach your site via either www.mysite.com or mysite.com

• Accessing both is fine, but Google used to treat them as 2 sites, so if you are interested in pagerank, it could have been effected.

• On your site, you can add a few simple lines to your .htaccess file that will intercept the non-www and send it off to the www

• RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite\.com$ [NC]RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

• Also use Google Webmaster Tools and set your preferred domain

• More info on the concept is at Compass Designs


Warning: Black Hat

• Some extensions include backlinks to other sites, or other black hat SEO techniques!

• This can infringe on Google’s policies, and may lead to your site being blocked in Google’s search results.

• The example below is how Artio JoomSEF inserts backlinks into the Joomla Generator Tag.


• Sitelinks

• Questions & Answers


Patrick Jackson

Twitter @partic

www.kpsystems.com.au

SEO In Joomla - Patrick Jackson (JoomlaDay Sydney 2009)

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