Recommended Practices for Joomla! SEO

The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) process for content management systems or websites based on dynamic webpages (generated on server side) is a little bit complex, as compared to regular, static websites. The SEO for PHP / MySQL based websites must have a predefined strategy characteristic or related to certain functionalities and features of a given CMS or server side application.

In case of Joomla! content management system, the SEO strategy contains both classical directives, which are true for general SEO purposes and particular customizations of website appearance and behavior in direct relation to the content creation and presentation.

Regarding general SEO principles that can be applied in case of Joomla CMS, it is recommended to create contents rich in keywords related to user needs and your website general theme. For example, you can make use of special type of text formatting with appropriate HTML tags, like Heading1 or Bold for your targeted keywords or key phrases.

The usage of dynamic page titles will determine a better correlation with the articles' content and the rewritten URL's structure (assuming that you will enable a certain module or component appropriate to rewrite the URL's title in order to be SEO friendly). The length of articles must be compliant with the recommended accessibility rules. In the same time, the meta description must be relevant for a certain article content, title and section.

The link exchange must be realized only with websites having high search engines rankings, and the RSS feeds publishing from the same type of websites is also encouraged. These practices will improve the transparency for search engines of your Joomla! based website. Other important aspect in SEO for Joomla! websites is represented by the content of robots.txt which must contain the necessary directives to avoid the indexing of duplicate content by search engine robots.

On the other hand, the practices that are not recommended include: the usage of doorway pages, automatic submission of the website to search engines, cloaking techniques and more. But the most important aspect that every web marketer must have in mind is represented by the one way links building strategy. The direct links to your website should always come from websites with high search engine ranking points.