A default Joomla installation is not enherently optimized for search engine friendly optimization. There are very easy steps you can take to optimize your Joomla website, before and durring your creation and customization of the site.
First and foremost, your Joomla install does not create friendly URLs. Each web page within your website should have a URL that somewhat describes the information available on that page. This includes content items, contact pages,description pages, job boards, forums, etc.
To get search engine friendly URLs you can use a Joomla component that vaguely automates this process for you. It's fairly simple, and should be done BEFORE you beging adding content to your site. Once Google or another top search engine indexes your pages as the non-friendly URLs, you are in trouble because your website no longer matches the information that search engines pick up. Leading to dishearted visitors, and a messy situation.
Joomla SEF URLs Components
You can try Artio JoomSEF, read this review and guide before you begin: Artio JoomSEF Custom URLs for SEO Guide
OpenSEF is my personal favorite, and allows a lot of control over your URLs, while remaining a small and simple component. Read about and Rate this Component Here:
OpenSEF Custom URLs Review
Keywords and Meta-Data
The next step to ensure your Joomla website is properly optimized, is to add keywords and meta data to each one of your pages and articles. Whenever you write a new content item, you can edit the meta info before publishing. This is not a cute little extra for the Joomla installation, it is essential if you want a professional and successful website.
You should also add keywords and meta data to each one of your pages within your Joomla website.
What's the difference between a Joomla Page and a Content Item?
A Joomla page is any page within your Joomla site has a link associated with it. This would be your entire navigation system and all component links. For example, you may have a link on your main navigation to "Contact." This isn't a content item, but a page, and it needs keywords and meta data to be indexed properly.
Adding keywords and meta data to content items is simple, and can be done using any default Joomla installation, but adding keywords and meta data to your pages requires an SEF component talked about above...Artio JoomSEF or OpenSEF. These components allow you to change the meta data and keyword info for each one of your Joomla URLs.
General SEO Basics for All Websites
Whether you're running a Joola website or another website, there are always basic SEO factors to keep in mind. As a bonus, here is a list of the important SEO facts:
1. Each page corresponds to keywords and meta data. The more keywords within the page that are the exact same keywords in your keyword data the better.
2. Outbound URLs are great SEO tools and increase page rank and visibiltiy. The more relevant URLs to external web pages that relate to your site, the better. But, don't over do it, only add URLs that help your readers and relate directly to the content.
3. Titles and content on your Joomla website should be keyword optimized.
4. Bulking up your website with javascript and code (tons of Joomla components and mambots) will decrease your chance of properly optimized website. Search engines don't read javascript, and will give up completely if there's too much of it. The higher up on your page the relevant content the better. Test this by clicking on view>>source on your browser while looking at your website. How far down is your actual content?
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