Search Engine Optomization

[Liams7]

Hi guys

I have a website made in joomla and it is at the bottom of any list in any serch engine. I want to get it nearer the top. Its a nice site and i want people to be able to see it.

Any quick tips to help me.

I cant get any seo software components to work either. Will this be a big problem?

Is there any way i can quickly get it to the top of the lists.

the site is http://www.clubnightsuk.co.uk. Not self promotion just there in case its easier to look at.

Any help would be fantastic

[salty]

googles webmaster tools will put you on the right path

[serrbiz]

Start by using some sort of SEO / SEF component.  We recommend ours or course. Which ever you choose, be sure to check for dplicate conent issues, which the default Joomla is horrible about.  YOU DON'T want DUPLICACE CONTENT caused by mulitple URLS for ONE contnet item.

After you implement some sort of SEO/SEF be sure to create READABLE UNIQUE CONTENT (RUC), then work on Relevant Link Popularity.

Always be building RUC and RLP.

For RLP use social media optimization and RSS feeds.

Be patient and be diligent.  Top ranking takes time. SEO should count for about 33% of your online marketing dollars.

[salty]

SEF and page ranking have very little to do with other
and joomla default urls actually don't cause that much problems, The best way to get google to notice you is to submit a sitemap and get as many back links as possible.
But sef links look nicer to page visitors.

[serrbiz]

I disagree and have written a detailed post on Serr.biz.
http://www.serr.biz/ask-a-question/joom ... ation.html

The short of it is this.
I have conducted hundreds of SEO audits over the years and constantly dynamic sites (like Joomla) with SEF out rank sites without SEF.

To that point, let’s do a search now and see.  Search "Joomla SEF" in Google.

This is what I see (I'm in the USA. Results may vary according to your location.)

--Google Results 10/02/07 --

1) extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,490/Itemid,35/ - 44k - Cached - Similar pages

2)
extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,362/Itemid,35/ - 48k - Cached - Similar pages

3)
www.joomlaseo.net/Joomla/SEO/SEF-Search-Engine-Friendly.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

4)
www.serr.biz/store/joomla/serrbizsef.html - 38k - Cached - Similar pages

5)
www.joomlatwork.com/products/free_produ ... tch_joomla.html[/b] - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

6)
www.alledia.com/blog/joomla-urls/joomla ... -sef-urls/ - 41k - Cached - Similar pages

7)
forum.joomla.org/index.php?topic=217174.msg1013462 - 63k - Cached - Similar pages


forum.joomla.org/index.php?topic=71463.0;wap2 - 4k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from forum.joomla.org ]

9)
www.joomla.org/content/view/3168/38/ - 17k - Cached - Similar pages

10)
www.artio.cz/en/joomla-extensions/artio-joomsef - 27k - Cached - Similar pages

-- End Results --

If you look at the results, you will see 8 of 10 are SEF, even the number one ranked page, Joomla extensions directory, uses SEF.

5 0f 5 have the keyword SEF in the URL.

Joomla forums is the ONLY site not using SEF.

Also, most of NON joomla pages with the full URL and .html extension or ranked better than SEFS ending in a /

--

Regarding Google Site Maps, I'm torn, personally, about their effectiveness.  I've used them in the past, and am building an addon for SerrBizSEF, but have experience a lack of "Google bot" activity because the site map is not updated enough.  My recommendation is to use Google Site Maps if you can update it regularly.  If your content is not changing that much, you might be better served just "verifying" you site with Google Webmaster Tools and letting Google find you often through RLP.

[Liams7]

Thanks guys this really has helped.

What is the best way to get links on other pages though. With out spaming that is?

[salty]

You can add your link to any site thats relevant to yours for instance portals that llow you to add links or mail web masters of relevant sites and ask them if they would consider adding your link.
Also if you want to get a good idea of how google sees your site when its indexing download lynx (a simple text browser) and look with it at your site, google will read and index the links on the front page and read and index the site according to the text that is there.
Your site causes a problem as the front page is entirely an image, you have very little decriptive text on your site which will cause a proble in google, you might want to start by rebuilding the fornt page to html text, image and links.

Good luck, its a nice site!

[serrbiz]

Hi.

We have an article on this.
http://www.serr.biz/ask-a-question/seo- ... arity.html

Important things to know are:

1) SEO your site first, so as not to have to "backtrack" to fix old in bound links.

2) Most link trading is a waste of time. Build "Link Bait", syndicate your content, add social book mark functions and submit to valid direcotories.

3) Avoid FFA and triangle links.

[alynst]

YOU DON'T want DUPLICACE CONTENT caused by mulitple URLS for ONE contnet item.

It's a good and valuable discussion here. I do have a question, can you elaborate on this quote? How does this occur? duplicate content caused by multiple urls and how can it be avoided?

thanks

[serrbiz]

Hi Liams7,

There is a discussion on duplicate conent here:
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,186030.0.html


And, I also wrote a bit on the topic on Serr.biz related to serrBizSEF here:
http://www.serr.biz/ask-a-question/serr ... -urls.html

If you intend to use SEF, I recommend serrbizSEF to avoid, reduce, duplicate content.

With, or without, SEF you can reduce duplicate content by how you create your "menu" links.  When you create new menus and links, use this process.

Create all links in ONE MASTER menu such as the default MAIN MENU.  Then, COPY, the link to the NEW MENU.  Otherwise, Joomla may create a unique ID for each NEW MENU link.

This will reduce some of the duplicate content issues.

However, modules and 3rd party components will also create duplicate content issues unless you use some advanced solution such as SerrbizSEF.

M.

[pib]

Another thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is to check with your hosting company as, reputable ones normally include a 'submit my site' package or button that does it all for you, and that eliminates the stress of having to keep ontop of it all yourself.

[serrbiz]

Such functions are usually a wate of time and may violation of the search engine TOS.

From Googles Webmaster Guidelines:

Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... swer=35769