SEO Tips for Joomla

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    1. Create & Verify these important accounts: Google Webmaster Account Google Analytics Google+ Personal Account Bing Webmaster Account

    2. Rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess3. Enable SEF URLs and URL Rewriting: In your Joomla! Global Configuration, set the "Search

    Engine Friendly URLs" and "Use URL Rewriting" options to "Yes".URL Rewriting is the setting

    that removes the /index.php/ from the URL. For this to be enabled must have mod_rewrite

    enabled and must have a .htaccess file.

    4. Remove "/images/" from your Robots.txt file5. Install JCE Editor: Free and you can instruct it not to strip code that you add through the

    editor and the fact that it provides a great interface through which you can add images,coupled with Alt tags and image dimensions.

    6. Use Alt Tags and Image Dimensions: The JCE editor allows you add the Alternate Text todescribe your image as well as add the dimensions right within the image upload tool.

    Adding image dimensions to your images allows the "space" to load before the actual image

    does. This should help improve your load times a bit.

    7. Manage Your Meta Data: With SEO Boss, you'll find a single screen that lets you edit all ofyour Meta data directly from that interface. The only drawback to SEO Boss is that it may

    not gel well with all of your installed components, in which case you'll need to go and

    manually edit those through the relevant component's own interface. For everything else,however, it's great.

    8. Choose www. or non-www. and Redirect: To redirect from non-www. to www. add thefollowing code to your .htaccess file:

    RewriteEngine On

    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.

    RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

    Alternatively, you can redirect to non-www. by adding this code instead:

    RewriteEngine On

    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} www.yourwebsitehere.comRewriteRule (.*) http://yourwebsitehere.com/$1 [R=301,L]

    9. Be Consistent When Linking Internally: Only creating links to either the www. or non-www.Version that you chose above, only linking to pages using a trailing slash or no trailing slash,

    or pages with a suffix (.html) or no suffix. Only link to a single version of a page, ever.

    Remember, it's not duplicate content if nothing is linking to it for Google to find it. You can't

    really control the way others link to you, but you can set an example. If people are linking to

    you incorrectly, you can add further redirect rules to 301 and redirect to the correct links.

    10.Look for Duplicate Content: View duplicate content in Google Webmaster tools or use 3rdparty tools like SEOMoz to help audit and manage duplicate content. Much of the duplicate

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    content that occurs in Joomla (due to categories, tags, etc) can be cleaned up with SH404SEF

    and/or .htaccess rewrites.

    11.Speed up Your Website: Speed things up significantly by doing three main things: Leveraging browser caching: simply add the following code to the bottom of your

    .htaccess file:ExpiresActive On

    ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 1 seconds"

    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 years"

    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 months"

    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 months"

    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 months"

    ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 months"

    ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 months"

    ExpiresByType image/ico "access plus 1 months"

    You can, of course, tweak the code if your content needs to be held in the cache forshorter/longer periods, or if you would prefer not to cache certain types of content.

    Enabling Gzip compression: To enable Gzip via Joomla!, simply navigate to GlobalConfiguration > Server and switch the option for Gzip compression to "Yes". Note: This

    will only work if mod_gzip is installed on your server. Depending on your host, you may

    also be able to enable server size compression through your hosting control panel.

    Compressing your images: If you're not an expert when it comes to Photoshop, you candownload highly optimized versions of your images using Google's Page Speed tool.

    12.Check Website Speed: GTMetrix.com to check both on Google's PageSpeed tool and Yahoo'sYSpeed.13. Install SH404SEF14.Use XMAP & Submit: Simply navigate to Xmap and create a new sitemap. Choose the menu

    items you want to include, set their priorities, click "Save". You can then create a menu item

    for your HTML sitemap and grab the link for your XML sitemap to add to Webmaster Tools.

    15.Create a Blog & Start Blogging16.Optimize Contact Page: N.A.P is must and should be associated with G+ local business listing.

    Embedded Google map also.

    17.Optimize Your Footer: Just like contact page, NAP & G+18.Titles as H1: Make sure your page titles are all marked as H1's. The H1 tag is used by

    Google's Algorithm to easily detect the subject of the page (along with page title).

    19.RSS will enhance your SEO efforts by helping you build more backlinks. As you know, themore backlinks you have to your site, the more Google and the other search engines will

    trust it and push it up in the search ranking results. The simplest way to use RSS for SEO

    purposes is to use Joomlas syndication feeds module to set up RSS feeds for your content

    and post the feed links on your website and social media channels (LinkedIn, Facebook,etc.), as well as on some of the various content aggregator sites that exist on the web, like

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    feedage.com, etc. You can also share your RSS links with partners and other non-competing

    sitesas long as you constantly provide relevant and fresh content, many organizations

    might be willing to subscribe to and display your feed on their website, thus helping you

    build more backlinks.