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Theming a Joomla site for SEO

Filed Under: Joomla Seo, Seo Basics

Theming? You mean Joomla SEO Template, right?

Wrong, I really mean Theming your Joomla site. Theming here is about the way you structure your website to show the real main topic of your website.
You do have the main topic, don't you…

Joomla SEO Theming

So let's see what you can do to improve the “Theme” of your website.

It all starts with finding the right keywords for your website, do some research on finding related topics for your main content.

Write those keywords done on a piece of paper, or in a spreadsheet.

I tend more to using a spreadsheet since I can then just copy and paste my keywords into columns an sort them very easy.

 But for other people, the choice for paper is a more valid one, since you can easily draw lines between related items.

 Theming your website is also called LSI and Joomla with it's so-called inflexible content structure is actually great for theming your site.

 Joomla SEO Structure Theming

 Theming with keywords is simple, just look at the subject of your website and think about what the main subjects of your topic are.

For example, take a look at WordPress, a free blogging platform and a simple CMS system.

For WordPress, there are three main topics, WordPress usage, WordPress Themes (templates), WordPress Plugins and WordPress widgets.

 Once you know these main subjects, you can see that a website about WordPress will need at least four menu items that will reflect the main topic.

If you go to a website about WordPress that ranks well for “WordPress” you will see the first once of course be wordpress.com and wordpress.org.

Tip: Do a search in Google for your main keyword and look at the bottom of your search results page, Google shows you “Searches related to”. Write those searches down, since those are the keywords that Google thinks are Topic related!!

 The other sites you can find on that topic do have more to do about WordPress themes since these are the most linked to site via promo-links and because most people will search that first, just like most people will search for Joomla Templates.

 Content and Menu structure

 If you have found the keywords you want to use, create a section in Joomla that will hold the categories with that topic.

For WordPress, you could create a section “WordPress” and then put categories in there like “WordPress Themes”, “WordPress Plugins”, “WordPress Widgets” and “WordPress manual”.

 You can then create a menu “WordPress” and create menu items that will show you the category content. Name those menu items just like the categories.

You are now ready to start putting content into those categories and build your website.

Search engines will recognize the structure and put you into the WordPress search results pages and other terms.

How well you will do is, of course, depending on how well you write and how competitive your market is.

But with the right Theming setup, you will notice that ranking well is much easier to do than without Joomla SEO Theming.

How To do Keyword Research to Build a Keyword List

Filed Under: Featured

Doing Keyword research and Using the right tools to get the keyword information you need is essential if you want to build a successful website.

Keyword Research

Keywords are the most essential part of website creation, especially if you want your website to out perform your competitors.
And Since you are here reading this Blog, you must be looking for a way to do that and improve your Search Engine Rankings and user experience on your website.

Improving your website to get beter performance is in the first place a matter off creating a good website structure and for that, you need to understand two things:

  • Your website topic
  • What terms are used in search engines related to your topic

For the first part, you probably already know more than you think, so first thing to do is to get a piece of paper (or open a text editor) and start writing down all terms you can think of about and related to you website topic.

Example for the Topic Games: “Online Games, Download Games, Free Games, Video games, Adventure Games, Joystick, Game Computer, WII, Nintendo DS, Games Console”
Just to get you thinking and do some brainstorming before getting to do online research for the best search terms.

pacman free online kids game

Now, before you take the next step, go to Google or Yahoo and do a search for the Keyword you are most likely to know a lot and want to focus on that term.
For “Games” you get 1,430,000,000 results on Google and 5,450,000,000 results on Yahoo.
For “Online Games” you get 111,000,000 results on Google and 2,690,000,000 results on Yahoo.
You can see that these are still very competitive keywords to target…
So lets take it one Little step further in Google and try two extra keywords “Free online kids game” and now you are down to 11,300,000 results.

So what do these numbers tell you? Well, first place, that there are a lot of Games sites :-)
But looking at it form an SEO Point of view, it will be a lot easier to rank for “Free Online kids game” than it will be for just “Games”.
It is time to Introduce the term Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) and this is a rank based on how popular the keyword is, and how much competition it has.
Now the competition factor we have seen above, the popularity factor, that you will read about later on.

Back to getting into the heavy hitters.. there is an the hidden secret in doing your keyword research and building your keyword list the right way:

[Read more…] about How To do Keyword Research to Build a Keyword List

Working the “C” in Joomla

Filed Under: Joomla Seo, Search Engines

There is no “C” in Joomla?, of course there is, You know there is a C !
Joomla is a “C”ontent Management System.
And that is where the majority of your SEO is done!

Content is what they want.

No, You should not look for what you can do to play the the Search Engines, devote your time to focus on your visitors.
Most of the mayor search engines like Google, Yahoo en Live now want you to build quality content for you visitors.

And Building a quality site is just what makes Joomla a great tool to work with.

Looking at Joomla, you have a Content Management System that lets you Build large sites, with the possibility to give you site the right structure.

A structure that you can make out of Sections, which you then divide into categories.
And in those categories you put your content, your pages.

Once you defined you structure, start building, a few pages per week, will get you a site in one year that holds more than a hundred pages!

And building a page is easy in Joomla, push “new” in you content overview and start writing…

Use all the features that you can, from Title to Metatags Information, its all there.

Writing to Boost your ranking

You saw the way you can build and structure your site.
Try and do your writing the same way:

Your Writing is Your Best SEO

Make sure you write your headlines with passion, and make your paragraphs easy to identify.

Use short sentences where possible and look at the overall page impression.
Can you “scan” the page? Can you find your keywords in the bolded paragraph headings.

Use H2 and if necessary H3 HTML headers, But use the H1 not more then One or two times on a page.

But the most important thing you can do, is to write information that your visitors are looking for.
Whether your write about product, services or Information or a special subject, always but out the best you can.

Look at yourself, what do you want to read about if you are looking on information on you sites topic.
And then write about it!!

Basic optimization

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Seo Basics

Start Optimizing your Joomla website

 

To get a better website that will suite your visitors you have to begin with your structure.

 

If you did not write down your basic site structure , now is the best time to do this.

If you already have a website, you still want to do this from time to time.

 

Its al about the visitor

Start by beginning to look at your website as a new visitor, or better yet, let some one else go to your website.
Don't tell them anything about the site….see how they navigate and learn….

 

Changes are that you find some flaws in the structure and the way you have setup your menu in ways of placement and naming.

 

You really have to bring your visitor into the site, taking him, or her, by the hand and lead them gently into your product / service / information you want them to see.

 

Joomla Sections, categories and content items

As I wrote on this in the Joomla basics i will ask you now.
Do you want to explain this to Your visitors?

 

I didn't think so, unless you have a website with information about Joomla :-)

 

make your structure and menu choices in a way that your visitors can find there way through your site with no more than Three Clicks to get to the content.

 

Write down your site structure and see if you can get to the information in those three clicks.

 

Search Engine Optimization is Simple

Filed Under: Joomla, Joomla Seo, Optimization

Search Engine Optimization

What is this SEO all about?

Well, you and some other hundreds of thousands of people are wondering about the same thing.

But actually doing search engine optimization its not that difficult, it is about getting your website into the so called “organic search” results of the Search Engines, that's it!

You can have long discussions on how to do it, but the final results will be the same, getting ranked among the Top 10 Results of the keyword search you think your public will look for and then find the information you are providing!

Ok, let's read that again….
Results? That means the Search Engine Results Page.
Top 10? Most people who use Search Engines won't go further than the first page….

Silly people…they should know that you are on page 1267 of Google, so want don't they just look there?

The Most Important Part of Search Engine Optimization

Keyword you think?
This is actually the most important and hardest part of Search Engine Optimization…
Get into the mindset of the audience you want to get to your site, think like them, dress like them, eat like them, work like them, live like them, and finally Search Like Them!

If you can only manage the last part, you are on the right track!

Find those keywords that your potential visitors are looking for via Keyword tools like Google's Keyword Planner Tool. Once you found them get started by targeting them in your search engine optimization and content plan.

And If you are wondering if a Content Management System like Joomla or WordPress can do this?
I can tell you now, right here, YES they can!

Starting a Content Plan and Site Structure

Your site structure is one of the most important assets when it comes to ranking in the search engines. You site structure should reflect the topic of your website.

For example a website with WordPress as it's main topic should have at least these site topics:

  • WordPress Themes or WordPress Templates
  • WordPress Plugins
  • WordPress Tutorials
  • WordPress Blog and/or WordPress Website

For a site about Joomla! those topics could be:

  • Joomla Templates
  • Joomla Tutorials
  • How To Install Joomla
  • Joomla Components / Extensions

WordPress Website Structure

Setting those basic content structure in WordPress is done via Post Categories.

Got to Posts -> Categories and create the categories that you would like to write about on your site.

Once you have done that create a WordPress Menu (Apprearance -> Menu -> Create New menu) give your menu a name and save it. After saving you can add categories to it in a way you like and would help your visitors.

WordPress Menus ‹ Website Beginners Guide

Once saved you can place is as one of the sites primary or secondary navigation menu or as a custom menu widget in your sidebar.

Joomla Website Structure

In Joomla you can do the same as mentioned before, create the categories structure for your website.

Because of the way Joomla is build it just takes more steps to have your topics menu.

Go to Content -> Category Manager -> Add New Category.

Joomla Categories

Once you set-up the categories you add them to a menu.

First create a New menu via the menu manager.

Joomla - Menu Manager

Add the categories in a way you want them to be shown on the site (Blog layout, List or Page with all categories of you choice listed).

Menu Manager - New Menu Item

Then publish the menu module on the location you want it to appear on the site. See blow for a finished menu example.

Joomla Menu Garden Ideas - Crazy Beez Landscape Gardening

Creating Content for SEO

Now that you have your basic structure set-up start writing your content and keep your main topics in mind.

You can now easily place your articles in their respective categories. While creating your content also think about writing compelling articles titles and meta descriptions.

Your titles are you most powerful tools for attract visitors to you site as they will be shown in the search results pages. A good title will want the searcher to click on it to read the article you created.

A good meta description might help to get theme to read more… Just make sure you deliver or over-deliver on the topic that your articles is about.

Now you are set to grow your rankings based on your site structure and you can get some ideas for your website articles based on that structure.

Do you have any ideas on your own about the above mentioned SEO set-up? Let me know in the comments section below!