Internet Marketing Blog » Web Development

Joomla SEO Tips

Melissa — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:51:24 +0000

Recently, Joomla has become a popular tool for those looking to develop a website or blog. Unfortunately, Joomla isn’t very search engine friendly, and users will need to optimize their sites in order to attract the attention f search engine spiders. While it is true that all websites need to put some effort into their search engine optimization, it is especially true of Joomla sites. There are five tips on using Joomla SEO that will make a big difference in your search engine rankings.

Create a URL that is search engine friendly: Joomla’s URL’s simply are not search engine friendly. You can make yours more friendly several different ways. Joomla has a plugin designed to assist you – the SEF plugin. This plugin is not active by default but can be easily activated on the global configuration page. There are several ‘paid’ functions that can be purchased to assist you with your URL. Finally, many choose to hire a consultant to ensure their URL is properly configured.
Titles and headings matter: Titles and headings do more than help create an easy to understand flow for your website. In fact, spiders often turn to them to ensure your website is actually about the keywords you are using. Use your H1 tag for your title tag.
Create unique page titles: Joomla has default titles for their pages – titles like ‘home’ are never going to attract search engine spiders. Use your menu manager to edit your page tittles. Be sure your titles include keywords but are still attractive to human readers.
Meta Data: Meta information is still valuable, especially now that Google has preformed it’s “May Day” update. Create Meta tags that are descriptive – this is the information that people will see on the search engine results page. Each page should have its own Meta data.
Link building is important: just like traditional SEO, Joomla SEO should include a link-building component. There are actually several different programs out there that can help you ensure your links are valid. A large list of valid and relevant links is a great step towards improving your visibility.

Other components that work with traditional SEO should not be ignored either. Be sure to include a site map on your website. A great one is the samSiteMap. It will help you to create the somewhat complex trees that search engines look at to understand how your website works.

Learning a few tips on using Joomla SEO can help you to create a website that is valuable to you in several ways. First, it will increase your overall visibility on the web and will result in higher search engine rankings. Second, Joomla SEO will actually make your site more attractive to human readers as well. Don’t assume that a Joomla page works like other web pages. Be sure to focus your optimization efforts on areas that are specific to Joomla SEO.

July 19, 2010

Do You Have Content Management System Baggage?

Melissa — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:45:04 +0000

Sometimes when Optimum7 takes on a new client, it could be a bittersweet experience. It’s great to have the opportunity to help a client grow, but what could stop that train dead in its tracks is when your new client has CMS baggage. I’m talking about content management baggage from prior website design.

Content Management Systems manage the web content on your site. In order for a website to be optimized, before any on site or off-site optimization can begin, picking an SEO-friendly Content Management System can make all the difference. When we have a client that is requesting a re-design and / or has an outdated CMS, we upgrade the site’s structure to a Search Engine Friendly CMS; this means that the website content throughout the site’s pages are easily understood, not only by us humans, but also by the search engines that have specific requirements of website content so that the pages are properly scanned and indexed.

An example of a great and easy to use content management system is WordPress. For lead generation and blog sites, we have been using WordPress for well over a year and have seen great results. The reason we chose WordPress was because of its “Thematic” theme basis. Google engineer, Matt Cutts has also mentioned that the new updated version for WordPress will be better equipped to fall in line with Google’s new faster indexing search engine, Google Caffeine.

Recently, the thematic theme developer, Ian Stewart was hired by Automattic, the creators of WordPress. We speculate Automattic will make a big push into theme development and that the thematic theme will be the foundation of all properly built themes in the future.

The best clients you could ask for have just enough knowledge about SEO to know when they need help; however those that are too scared to “give you the keys to drive,” can actually block the progress of SEO processes. After investing lots of money into a web developer to construct a site, it is understandable that a client is not thrilled to hear that their site is actually part of the problem. This is an, all too often example, of incorrectly thinking that website design and website promotion (SEO) are in separate worlds … the truth is quite the contrary.

SEO strategies continuously evolve because search engine ranking systems evolve mainly due to technological advances that provide added insight that improves ranking effectiveness and ultimately human satisfaction. SEO companies know what they are talking about when it comes to SEO-Friendly elements; Content Management Systems are a central consideration here. This is not to say web developers have no idea what their talking about, but if they don’t practice SEO daily and only adopt the first principals used back when people realized there was a science to the search engine algorithms, then they are no expert in SEO. Make sure the CMS system you choose will benefit your website and not just benefit the developer.

March 17, 2010

Flash vs. HTML5

Duran — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:18:46 +0000

As times change, technology changes and the world is introduced to new ideas. The World Wide Web is no better evidence that change and turn of events are constant and part of our experience every day.

Many web developers are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to bring interactivity to the web. With new methods like HTML5 and CSS3 starting to pop up, will old technology like flash disappear from the face of the internet?

Don’t get me wrong, I like Flash as much as anyone, but sooner or later something is going t to give. Now-a-days, many effects created in Flash can be replicated with JavaScript and JavaScript libraries like Ajax, J-Query, MooTools, etc.

Recently one of my colleagues, Anthony Calzadilla, created a really cool and innovative animation using nothing more than CSS3, which you can find here: AT-AT Walker from Star Wars.

He made this without the use of any animation programs; no Flash, Toon Boom or After Effects—and I’m not saying this just so everyone will start using CSS3 instead of Flash. My point: With the problems that do, in fact, come with Flash Animation, it is inevitable that web designers and developers will seek different and better solutions.

Will Flash become out-dated? To answer this question we have to look at what it is mainly used for, as well as look at what it lacks. Flash is best known for its ability to play videos on the web and for gaming, but one of the biggest internet video sites, YouTube, is slowly drifting away from Flash and working on ways to start implementing HTML5 into their website. If more sites start to follow YouTube’s path toward HTML5 where will that leave Flash?

The future is going to be pretty iffy for Flash because with HTML5 you can use a browser without Flash installed and still be able to watch videos and listen to audio. Currently the only browsers that can support this are Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Internet Explorer, but only if you have the Google Chrome Frame plug-in installed.