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How To Solve the Joomla Read More Problem

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization

I was reading a post from Brain Clark on Copyblogger about the “Click Here problem” and I just had to think about Joomla.

You know the famous “Read more” line that comes up if you split your articles into an Introduction and the main part of the Article.

Reading some of the results in the post got me to change that Text on my Joomla websites..

“Here are the results:

  • Click to continue: 8.53%
  • Continue to article: 3.3%
  • Read more: (-)1.8% “

Change the “Read More..” text

To have another text on your own Joomla site is not that difficult.
First Login to your Joomla Administrator Panel and select the Joomla language manager.

Selecting the Joomla language manager

Then open the English file and use your Browser function “Edit” and “Search” function to find the “Read more…” line.

 Change the read more text in Joomla

Now change the line to the Immortal words.. Click here to continue…, save the file and wait to see if visitors will really read more pages on your website.

Since it is a small change, it could be worth your Time to try it…

Joomla Dynamic Page Title option for Improving Internal Linking

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo

So, your are working hard on your Titles and improving them with relevant keywords and making them attractive for users… but do you have the Internal linking also down? 

One of the lesser used options on the Joomla SEO Configuration is the option to use Dynamic Page Titles.
But using this option can also increase your Search Engine Positions, because of the fact that your link to your pages with a link filled with Keywords, that is your article title!

If your use the read more option and show your articles on the Frontpage, you should use this option, it is a simple option to activate.
Just got to your Global Configuration (make sure your configuration.php is writable at this time and set it to unwritable afterwords) and go to the SEO Tab, there your find the two Options.

Use the Joomla Dynamic Page Title Option

The Drawbacks of using Dynamic Page Titles

When you activate this option, you might be in for a suprise… and not always a pleasant one..
Your website, and especially the front page looks very different than before!

So how did this happen? and how can you fix it?

Well, it is a difficult one to give you a simple solution, but it is easy to explain.
If you activate the option the way the page titles are used is different because it call another class from your Template CSS file, so you have to check your Template CSS and probable find a class like a.contentpagetitle that is the one to look for if you want to change the way your Titles look of they are active.

If your don't see any change, you could have a Template that already has corrected this to match the “normal” title or your template does not use a CSS class for the Title presentation.

So for strange behavior check your template and template CSS files first!

Change the options so it matches your site, or gives you nice layout for the titles and see over a few weeks if it works out for your search engine positions, if you see no results and don't like the layout, just uncheck the option.
Although I recommend leaving them on for a longer period, since it take a while for Google and other Search Engines to reindex your site based on your alterations.

Joomla and Missing Metatags

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo, Search Engines

If you are like me, you like to have your Metatags like description and keywords filled with relevant content..

You could have Metatag generators for you website, or overviews of the content with a component like OpenSEF.
But what if you don't use OpenSEF but sh404SEF?
In that case you could register and download the Joomla Metatag component form iJoomla.

But if you just want to see what pages still are in need of content for these Metatags.
In that case there is now a very simple but effective and easy to use modules, with two versions, one for the Joomla 1.0.x versions and for Joomla 1.5…

It is written by Dan Rahmel who also wrote two Books about Joomla!
and

And it is easy to install.

The module is installed as a normal module, but it is only for the administrator.
That is why it is listed under the Administrator part of the Modules and has to be published and positioned on the cPanel, which means that it will be visible on you administrator homepage (the first one after you login)

Joomla Missing Metadata Module

After publication you find the items without the Description and Keywords listed on a separate Tab on the Administrators page.

An overview of the Joomla items missing the Description and Keywords

You can download the version you want from JoomlaJumpStart.com where you can even find more information on Joomla and the insights of Dan Rahmel.

There are people who will tell you that Metatags like the Description and Keywords are useless these days.. for Search Engine Optimization that is.

But try to work on writing good solid page descriptions and use just up to a maximum of 10 keywords in the keyword field.
Use the keywords you have used in the page, and in the Title and wait for the next index round of Google.

The Descriptions field mostly show up under you page title and should be written as a small advertisement to bring you the visitors you want.

A Joomla Frontpage changing Module

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo, Search Engines

I found a module today bij http://www.joomlaworks.gr/ called “Ultimate Content Display” which is working great.

What is does? It can display content from sections or categories in a simple to place module position.
But the best part is, it can change the articles it shows by setting some parameters!

So why is this so exciting? Because you can now have “fresh” content on for example your Frontpage simple by adding this module.
Think about it… you can show returning visitors articles they otherwise may have never seen.
But also you have fresh content on you homepage every time the Googlebot, Yahoo or Live robots visits…

You can have the content in a list form, or a slide / fader with time settings and many options more.
I will write an extended how-to use and copy the module on www.pathos-seo.com later next week.

You can see the module in action on the Frontpage (on the bottom of the page)  of www.pathos-seo.com where it says Random content.

The Module you can download from www.joomlaworks.gr

Ultimate Content Display Module for Joomla

Do you know if your site is Down?

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo

If you run a site, you will at some point in time encounter a site outage.
That is not only with a Joomla site, it can also happen with WordPress or Drupal or any other Content Management System.

I am now talking about the fact that a complete server is down or that the Internet Connection of you Hosting Provider makes it impossible to reach your website.

No, the error I am talking about is that the connection to your database is lost…

In Joomla there is a special page that is presented to you visitors telling them there is something wrong, asking them to contact the administrator.

Joomla Database Error Page

Now that is nice.. or isn't it?
…ehhh how do I contact the System Administrator?

Change the Standard

Well in a standard installation you get these lines in your Global Configuration.
And most of use leave it as it is… of you take the site offline for maintenance it works just fine, so why change anything?

The second field in you Global Configuration is where you should make a little change.
Just ad a line with your email code in it like Hummerbie ( at ) Gmail (dot) com

Joomla error page with email contact data

Its even possible to change your entire offline page if you want to, but thats an whole other issue.

For now its really important that you know of your site outage before Google takes you out of the Index… and that can happen withing 48 hours if you have a really busy website.

Besides the contact information that you can easily edit into the Global configuration there is also an external service that can monitor your website for you.

Site24x7 gives you the opportunity to check you site one per hour and in case off a failed check you can get an email,sms or RSS alert.

Its free for up to 2 domains, but the paid service comes at a small price starting from $0,50 USD per month per domain..

Here is my configuration:
Configuration of Domain check

This is a check for the keywords in the error page.

And yes, there are reports with graphics and data to see the response times of the site.
Definitely worth a try , but just one warning… you might find out your have to talk to, or even change your hosting provider if you don't like what you see… 

Using your Search Engine Results to Improve your site

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo, Search Engines

You are always looking at your statistics, to see how people are coming to your website, right? You know you should…

But here is another way of looking at your website and what people are looking for on your site.
You have of course the Global Configuration statistics for Text Search set to on.

And you sometimes look at these searches to improve you website to give your visitors the information they are looking for.

Recently there was a new Joomla module listed on the extension site, its probably one of those extensions that slips through your mind as, well.. just another SEO Plugin..
But it is not, its not even made for SEO, although there could be a slight advantage for Search Engine Optimization.
I will tell you more later on in this post.

This Module uses the Search Keywords that people have used to find your website, and places each of those search words in a special search Block.
I changed some basic parameters in the Module Configuration and see what happens if people use the string “Joomla seo” and hopefully find www.pathos-seo.com :-)

Keyword SE Parameters

The results in the Module..

Joomla SE Search StringsNow your visitor can just click on a search word they used to do a further search in your website.

These searches are then stored in your search statistics.

 The Search Engine Optimization Benefits

To be honest, I did not see any benefits at first, just an improvement to your user experience.
But that is also a great, if not even a greater asset the just SEO, for your website.

If you also run the Cache Component you have read about before, you will see that the results stay cached on the site.
Although this seemed a bit strange at first, form a cache point of view it makes sense.
I just reduced the cache time to improve on this special module.

Why is this good for SEO than.. because people are more likely to do a simpel search if tis ready for them, just one click away!
And that may result in more page views, a longer stay on your Joomla website! all good things.
A better user experience might bring them back again and again..

You are now even more able to look at what people are searching for on your site and you can provide the content they want.

The module is simply called Search Engine Keywords on you site and installation is simpel, try it on your website!

P.s. the Cache is also helping to keep your keywords on the page, which is also good for other visitors then the initial searcher that provided the keywords.

O, if you don't see any keywords, you just got into the no-keywords cached page….
Try this search “design cars” and look for www.design-cars.com ,it has the same module installed.


Optimize your Joomla website from the Back-end

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo

If you want your Joomla website to run as smooth as you can, you have to optimize your MySQL tables at some point.

If you work with your PHP Admin software, you now how time consuming this can be, although you can have some scripts made up to do this maintenance task more easily.
But it would be great if you could do this just from withing your Joomla admin panel, instead of login into you hosting admin panel and then into the PHP Admin?

Well, it's possible… with the SM2 DB Health Check Component from http://www.sm2joomla.com/.

Joomla! Database Health Check Component 

Its a simple component to install, and for most part you don't even have to set the configuration  parameters like the Name of the Database Table, User name, server of password.

Please make a back-up of your database before you run this component, although I have had no problems any time I ran the component.
It runs fast, and gives you a nice list of what tables where repaired and which ones where optimized!

Yes, it even optimizes your database tables!
A very nice component, that you should use once a month ar so.

And as a bonus they have another nice Plugin for you to keep you site optimized and running, you can read more about that on my http://seo4joomla.wordpress.com site.


How To Boost your Joomla site Loading Performance

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo, Search Engines

I recently came across a post of Alledia about this new Joomla Cache Component.

And since I want you to have a really good performing website I checked it out for you.

It blew me away…

Point is that you can speed up your website by using the cache funtion of Joomla itself and thus gaining some speed in loading you pages.

This component is going to boost your performance (page loading time that is) not simple by 0ne or two percent… no you see loading times drop by double digits percentages!

But there are some things you need to know before installation:

  • The speed gain is for not-logged-in users, that means the visitors to your site, not the members!
  • Some Core files are hacked, but the installation makes backup files and there is an uninstall option
  • You get a text “Powered By Page_Cache by Ircmaxell” under the Footer of you site, but for just $10 dollar you can buy a license file that takes that away… or hack the component code yourself, which is also okay by the developer (You got to Love this Guy..)

Installing the component 

Installation of the component is pretty easy, you just create or copy a few extra files and change permissions on them before installation.
[Read more…]

Why Every website should have a Feed

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo, Search Engines

Looking at Google and Live.com really promoting the use off their Personalized pages makes you think….
And of course the fact that IE7 also has a Feed button on board, means that there is more potential coming from RSS

If every one is creating there personalized pages with content delivered to them, the best way you can stay in touch is by giving them a Feed to put on those pages.

But there is yet another reason to work with Feeds, and that is that they might gain more importance for SEO in the future than You might think, read this post from Arron Wall about Global Links and Subscription data and you will see that it is going to be more important to get readers for your RSS Feeds.

Make sure you have your Feed run via a service like www.feedburner.com to give you visitors an easy choice on there favorite Feed Reader, or even via E-Mail.

Also make sure to have a Full Feed, just to make your visitors aka Feed-Readers happy…

For WordPress, there is a FeedBurner Plugin, for Joomla I suggest your read Overcoming-the-joomla-rss-feed-syndication-problem

So, what are you waiting for, get those Feeds Burning…

The Joomla Admin Manual from Compassdesigns.net

Filed Under: Joomla Blog, Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo

Today I received an RSS Feed from Barrie North, one of the best educators on Joomla that I know off.

He brought you earlier the Joomla Template Tutorial and he is a moderator for the Joomla SEO Forum

And now he is Selling his Joomla Admin Manual to you with a discount!
He even tells you why you should buy his book or just use the Joomla Manual for 1.0.11

But let me tell you already, this book is more then just Joomla, it gives you more information on how to work with the system, optimizing it for Search Engines and shows you how to create a better website.

I may not agree or like some off the things he writes about, but he sure knows his Joomla Stuff and how to design Great SEO Templates.
And if you are serious about Building the best website you can for yourself or your customers, then this Joomla Admin Manual is really worth the little money he is asking for it. 

Joomla! 3 Book

WP for Dummies