Joomla! It is a content management system (a CMS), and it is used to create blogs if you are not actually a blog designer. Instead of having to write website code and build a website from scratch, it uses modules to create one for you. You are the one who decides how it looks, and the CMS writes the code for you. The module design works by allowing you to pick things from a menu, and place them on your page. The CMS is good for building your website but does not actually do the SEO (search engine optimization) for you. So here are some tips to help you do it for yourself.
1 – Delete the “/images/” part from the Robots.txt file
There is a file that stops search engines from reading your images. You can alter this file so that the search engines will index the information from your images too. It involves deleting the “/images/” section from your Robots.txt file. If you do this then search engines such as Google will read the text associated with your images.
2 – Use the ALT tags on your images
These are there to inform people what the image is about if it does not show up on your blog or website. You should describe what the image is about in a few words, and also try to add a keyword or two in there too.
3 – Install a website maintenance tool
This will help you to complete and maintain your website and its SEO. Try the JCE Editor, since it is free and because it has a few features that will help you to maintain your website that is easy to use. It allows you to do things such as add images and ALT text to the images.
4 – Add in your Meta tag details
There are supposed to be two for each page. There should be a Meta description and a Meta keywords tab. Many people do not fill them out anymore, but they are the foundation of your websites SEO. You should fill them out with relevant descriptions and keywords.
5 – Try to speed up your website
This can be done with “caching” which is a big topic that you can pass off to a plugin or extension (if you can find one). You should also consider creating pages that are not as heavy (are not made up of as many MB) so that your pages will load a little quicker.
6 – Choose a www. or a non-www. and a Redirect
The blog builder will not automatically redirect your blog to either a “non-www” or a “www.” So, you will need to do it yourself manually, to ensure it is redirected. It is not going to make a massive difference to your SEO but is going to help it along a little.
7 – Install Xmap onto your Joomla!
This is a sitemap component that is specifically used with Joomla! It will create XML and HTML sitemaps for your website. There are a lot of plugins that will do this sort of thing, but Xmap has all the tools you need for this simple task. However, do feel free to shop around for a more sophisticated version.
8 – Link in a consistent manner
This means that you should link with textual HTML links or JavaScript links. Do not add a mix of each. You should try not to duplicate too many of your internal links. You should also try to keep roughly the same amount of internal links per page. Your sitemap should be the only page that has a large number of internal links when compared with the other pages.
9 – Be careful when you pick your host
A good host will help your SEO instead of hinder it. A good host will maintain his or her server, will offer a reliable “Up-time” and will offer a suitable amount of bandwidth. In other words, the host will not make your website crash, will not keep taking your blog offline, and will not freeze up if you happen to have a lot of visitors to your blog. If you are looking for more advanced advice, consider setting up your site on an Apache server that has the mod_rewrite installed.
10 – Change the htaccess.txt to .htaccess
Re-writing your URLs is something you can do to make your website more SEO friendly. It is not as easy on Joomla! as it may be with another blog CMS. Find your htaccess.txt file and rename it to .htaccess.
11 – Change the URL settings in your Global configuration
When using Joomla! you should go to the Global Configuration settings and set it to “Search Engine Friendly URLs” and then go to the “URL Rewriting” option and click “Yes”. This is going to enable you to create search engine friendly URLs that have keywords in and that may be read more easily by human readers.