We are an Ethical SEO company providing Joomla web design, emarketing and training since 1999

Joomla SEO strategy

The two basic principles of any SEO strategy are very simple:

• Readable, unique content. (RUC)
• Relevant link popularity. (RLP)

With that in mind your Joomla SEO strategy is no different than any other SEO strategy.  However, since we specialize in building in Joomla based websites and have built the SerrBizSEF component to turn your Joomla website into an SEO dream machine, we recommend you use a customized Serr.biz Joomla website as part of your first step – building RUC.

When we say “readable” we do not particularly mean “human” readable.  This is, of course, important and careful attention should be given to the “human” readability of your websites unique content. Instead, we are speaking of a search engines ability to read your unique content.

This is so absolutely important, we cannot stress it enough.

Joomla, being a dynamically driven content management system has numerous problems related to RUC. 

The first problem is the dynamic urls with long variable strings.  Though Google and the rest are getting better at reading urls with variable stings, they still tend to favor urls which look like static html pages. We see this time, and time again whenever we conduct and SEO audit for new client. 95% of the time, sites using some form of static “urls” out rank sites that do not use “static” urls.

The SerrBizSEF was built with this in mind and will turn any Joomla variable string URL into a meaningful URL that mimics static html. (See Sample Here)

Another problem with Joomla, is duplicate content.  Because of the core architecture of Joomla, and 3rd party extensions, it is possible for Joomla to create anywhere from 1 – 30, or more UNIQUE urls for ONE content item. This is good, right? Wrong.  This is considered “duplicate content.” When Google, or the other search engines find a website that has different URLS for the exact same content, that website can be penalized for using a black hat SEO strategy known as duplicate content.  Even if you are not doing this intentionally, you can still be penalized.

Now, don’t panic.  Google has specifically stated that it takes content management systems into account when filtering for duplicate content spam. (Read this)

They recommend that you use Google site maps and no-index tags for the duplicate content pages that are generated by Joomla.  This is good.  But, Serr.biz finds that process laborious and not efficient for running a site with more than 50 pages of content.  Also, we like to minimize the work a search engine has to perform when indexing our client sites. We like to make the search engines job as easy as possible. So, we built into the SerrbizSEF component a nice feature those auto-maps all instances of a duplicate internal URL to one single SEF.

The second part of your Joomla SEO strategy is to build RLP (Relevant Link Popularity).  This means to get in-bound links from as many RELEVANT sites as possible. One aspect of building link popularity that you can quickly and easily control is to simply add, at least, your home page, to the many different social book mark websites available.  With  that in mind, SerrBizSEF come bundled with the SerrBiz Social Bookmark module.  This module should be activated and include on every page of your site.  This module invites all users of your site to bookmark your unique content in any of the top book marking sites available. Because the social bookmark sites are typically more popular than any individual website, you have created links on 3rd party sites pointing to you that are relevant.

Of course, each Joomla SEO strategy should be customized to your over all business goals, specific keywords, etc.  We hope this quick guide helped. If you need further assistance, please contact us for a complimentary consultation.