SEO Redux -SEO Extensions in Joomla!®

Common wisdom says Joomla!® lags behind Wordpress in out-of-the box SEO capability. However Joomla based web site SEO can be improved immensely with the installation of a few key extensions or configuration changes. With a small amount of additional work in customizing the site one can reduce the effort to create meta tags and descriptions, create inner links, improve the layout of your blog pages and increase keyword frequency. Here are my top 4 tasks for improving Joomla site rankings and readability ...

1. Keywords and Descriptions. We have covered how important keyword placement within your content is previously. I consistently use 2 or 3 auto keyword and description generation plug-ins. They choose the most relevant keywords from the content in your article as it is being saved and places them in the meta tags for the article. They will also create a meta description from the first paragraph in the article.These plugins will do a good job assuming you are diligent in using your keywords in your article. You can see that these plugins can save you a lot of time and sweat.

2. Related articles. Another set of extensions create a list of related posts placed either under the article content or in a sidebar box. I prefer to use extensions that create the list below the article content. The eye is drawn more easily to the list and doesn't occupy valuable sidebar space. The related posts extensions perform two valuable tasks.

   • They create valuable internal links.
   • And create opportunities for viewing old content and tend to keep visitors on your site, often referred to as "stickiness."

3. More tags. Joomla out of the box has the feature where you can insert a "Read More" tag in your content. So why use the Read More tag?

   • Allows you to leave the opening paragraph in the blog layout with the rest of the content on the main article page. This helps avoid duplicate content and negative page rankings.
   • The tag can be placed anywhere in an article but I recommend placing it after the opening paragraph which is the most important paragraph in your content. If the opening paragraph cannot standalone in the blog layout then rewrite it. This is good journalistic practice anywise.
   • I often install an extension that modifies the behavior of the "More" tag to include the title of the article in the "Read More" link adding to your keyword frequency count. Again be diligent in creating your article titles ensuring good keyword use.

4. Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLS. SEF URLs rewriting is a standard feature of Joomla. It merely needs to be turned on and it does a good job of making your URLs more human readable, easier for search engines to index and provides an opportunity to include your keywords in the URL. I often install an additional SEF package for sites that require more control of the SEF URL or sites that include extensions that are not handled well by Joomla's basic SEF such as e-commerce and galleries.

If you have any questions about these tips or search rankings by all means contact me.