My name is Chris Diprose and I am the Manager of Net Design Australia firm Kanga Internet.  I have been a lively 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 in the Net Development and Style of a good search optimized website in Joomla.  Okay let’s get into it.  Once I’ve got setup the standard Joomla installation there are some component types that are necessary to put in and I think these to be:- a sitemap part and a SEF URL changing component.  These are by far the foremost necessary parts to own on any Joomla Installation.

What is a SEF URL changing component and the way will it relate to Internet Design in Joomla?  SEF stands for Search Engine Friendly and a normal installation of Joomla features a URL like this: index.php?option=com_content&task=read&id=five&Itemid=vi

When it comes to go looking engines they’re very sensible in many ways that but the conventional Joomla URL describes nothing concerning the web page and its contents and thus they really do dislike it in several ways.  It’s what I call, Search Optimization Stunted (SOS).  I prefer this term as a result of it describes specifically what it wants; some help!  This can be where a SEF URL changing part comes into play.  These sorts of elements take the conventional Joomla URL and amendment it into one thing a lot of meaningful to both us and the search engines. e.g.: purchase-blue-widgets-here.html

From my Web Style & Development expertise this is often the single most significant part installation you’ll create on a Joomla Website.  I want to detail my personal best picks.  There are a few out there to us but I think the JoomSEF component to be the simplest of the best when it involves Search Engine Friendly URL’s.  There’s only one downside to choosing this component and that is a hidden advert in the code from the initial makers.  If you search on Google for “Joomsef patch” then you should be ready to find a good article on how to get around this problem.  Wanting at the “best of the remainder” of the SEF elements we notice a new part (Might 2007) called sh404SEF that is ad free, if you search on the Joomla extensions web site you’ll realize this one.  I feel it to be strongly based mostly on JoomSEF; in look, feel and functionality I’ve got noticed this.  Another SEF friendly element for Joomla is OpenSEF.  When OpenSEF was released concerning a year ago it had been nice but since that point there was no updates and therefore the project has lagged method behind Joomla development.  Having said though, it still does a reasonable job of converting Joomla URL’s to go looking engine friendly however I found in my testing that it proved to be duplicating too several URL’s.

Which ever one you select, download the element and then using the Joomla Administration interface install the component.  Then move to Web site->World Configuration->SEO (tab) and guarantee “Search Engine Friendly URL’s” is set to yes.  Guarantee your htaccess.txt file in the basis directory of the Joomla installation is changed to .htaccess and follow the directives in the file in how to flip on “mod_rewrite” – this can be straight forward.  Then simply visit the JoomSEF component and configuration and turn it on.  Once this is often done you ought to be generating friendly URL’s on the front finish interface therefore you must go and check.  It’s as easy as that!!

Okay so lets move on to what I take into account the next most significant thing to try and do to your Joomla installation once the SEF part is installed and operating a Sitemap.

In my books there is very solely one legitimate and tight sitemap element and it’s referred to as Joomap.  The standard version of this part does not output a good XML file for Google therefore I also counsel looking on Google for “joomap patch” and you should be able to seek out a piece of writing to steer you thru editing the Joomap part also.  The installation of this element is the same as before, we tend to do it through the Joomla Administration interface.  With no other configuration when installation we tend to can just go straight to the component and choose it.  Currently we tend to simply opt for the menu’s we have a tendency to want to incorporate in our sitemap.  Generally these are main menu and high menu.  Currently we have a tendency to just create a replacement menu item and choose the component to link to it, being Joomap and the rest takes care of itself.  Straightforward!!

One alternative advantage of Joomap is that it permits you to hook in to Google Sitemaps.  On the admin interface these may be a Google Sitemap URL given.  All we have a tendency to would like to try and do 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 web site sitemap it gets a dynamic version – that is significantly higher than just hoping Google can realize all your pages!  With this sitemap it tells Google all of your pages and where they are so it will scan them more affectively.

Okay currently I have covered off the primary 2 steps in Search Engine Optimization for the Joomla Content Management System.  These are the primary two steps every Net Designer and Developer should take when they need to Search Optimize Joomla.

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