Make site SEO after domain change Topic is solved

[SPDJoomla4]

Hi
I have a personal site which, while public, has been more a proof of concept and all visitors have come across the link via non-google means. I have not done any specific SEO except whatever happens by default in Joomla 4. Even moving forward, people are not clients, there is no monetary reason to be top of search results so I will not be spending all my time on SEO. A lot of visitors will be word-of-mouth.

I am now going to move it to a permanent domain, still a WIP, but I wanted to get it to its proper home.

My question is, should I do all the proper SEO stuff, which I currently don’t know what that is, before I move domains or is moving then updating the 150 articles over time ok? Fwiw, article content is the only real important content which should be “found”. The rest of the site is about the articles and to find stuff on them.

I hope that made sense
Cheers

[gws]

Move to permanent domain first, then do seo.

[Webdongle]

Move to a good Host and give it a domain name. Check double check your content. Keep putting good content. If it is a seeling site advertise it. Unless you are a multi million £/$ company forget about SEO snake oil

[SPDJoomla4]

Cheers for response. Its the same host as current site, had for business and have just kept, Rochen. Also have domain already just trying to work out when to make the move.

Not a selling site, its closest to a classified, accept all the 'Ads' (article) are free for 'sellers' and 'buy'. I am basically provide gamers way to find player created 'resources' for their games. So I create articles they can search, which provides a description and link to the location of the resource

So, there is no benefit to waiting to update the existing articles with for instance better names on alt text for images. I had read that is useful, where meta stuff not so much. All article title are H1, every article has relevant terms for internal searching.

As for new content, will be added every few days if not daily
Cheers for your input

[Webdongle]

Advertising the url will imho be time better spent than bothering about SEO snake oil

[SPDJoomla4]

Not sure what you mean by advertising, most of my links are to gaming discord servers, private google drives, gaming vids on [youtube] ... so there really is no central place to 'advertise'

A bit more backstory, in case anyone is interested (remember there is no money involved) I created the website to help a gaming 'community'.

Similar to the classified concept, I have 2 user basis, the people who sell and the people who buy. My site bring the two together. Without stuff to sell I have no buyers. So part of what I use to tempt sellers to list on my site is that there products would be be visible in internet search. Many of the sellers have their products where google and other search engines can't dive into... Like Discord, Github, Private Google Drive etc.... I provide a website which search engines can dive into (or whatever the term is) and the articles having the Description, author name and other key phrases and a link to there source I am assuming would help make there product show up in a search.

That is why its important for me to get some SEO. If I understand you correctly, unless I have tons of money there there is nothing I can do to make it more likely that some of my articles will show up and its pointless to even try...is that correct?

And since there is no place to 'advertise', only word of mouth and strategically placed links in posts on Discord there is not much to be done on that front either.

Just wanted to confirm what you're advising?

One thing I should add, I have no competition. My site is unique at least in my community. I also do have an advantage in that I will also be supporting another AAA game due to be released sometime later this year, which will drastically increase the user base but... I have no budget (its just me) so I sincerely do hope I can at least do something even if it only increases chance by a few percentage points.

Cheers for your time

[sozzled]

This is one of those forum discussion topics that, to follow @Webdongle's lead, will inevitably draw the crabs and invite all those snake-oil salespersons who will offer their wares. As a consequence, it will inevitably invite spam and those of us who are subscribed to these kinds of topics, will receive notifications of all the spam that these topics attract. That's one of the main reasons why I avoid discussions about "SEO".

I don't know what is the actual question being asked here; something involving "SEO" (e.g. when is a good time to start using it, I think). One may as well ask, "What's the best way to advertise a business?"

The first lesson in "advertising" has nothing to do with the product. I'm not interested in the product, or the back-story or the context; people are interested in the novelty, the branding and benefits of going with that brand, and where I will find the brand's products. That's what people are interested in. For instance, when you walk past the many stores in a shopping mall, what makes you go out of your way to visit one of them? Is it because of you have business in that store? Probably not. It's the décor; the window display; the colours; someone standing outside the store handing out brochures; it's only after you go into the store that you'll find the products you may be interested in ... and your stay in the store may be very short-lived. Everything else—like "SEO"—is just window-dressing to get feet in the door.

Every website is a business. The objective of the business is not to "drastically increase the user base": that's just a means to an end. If increasing "the user base" is all you want to do then "SEO" (whatever that is) won't achieve it, by itself. As I wrote before, I don't know what is the actual question being asked here or what advice I can offer. The discussion appears to be airy-fairy pie-in-the-sky.

Returning to Earth: @SPDJoomla4, have you purchased your domain name?

[Webdongle]

... If I understand you correctly, unless I have tons of money there there is nothing I can do to make it more likely that some of my articles will show up and its pointless to even try...is that correct?...

That is my opinion, yes. There are others with the same opinion but also other who have the opposite view.

Try for yourself, search
hand bags
leather hand bags
gaming sites

Or search almost anything and see how many non rich companies are in the top 10

[SPDJoomla4]

ok, thanks for the input and I do not doubt the validity of it for businesses of which my site isn't, at least not my definition of business, nor the Cambridge dictionary it would seem. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... h/business

Also, there are plenty of searches I do on a daily basis, maybe not common words, but looking for non common stuff and on first result page I will see plenty of mom-pop size sites or just "Bob's Stuff". Considering your responses I would hazard a guess that it has to do with competition. If you are not competing against 100s/1000s of others for 1st page space, your odds of getting there increases. My site would be one of those.

Just for completeness since asked, my question was:

should I do all the proper SEO stuff, which I currently don’t know what that is, before I move domains or is moving then updating the 150 articles over time ok? Fwiw, article content is the only real important content which should be “found”. The rest of the site is about the articles and to find stuff on them.

and I assume the response is, don't bother with SEO, which I will take under advisement and initially just leave the default SEO stuff in the Joomla core and see how things work out

Sorry for taking up everyones time
Cheers

[Webdongle]

1 What group(s) of people will you be trying to attract to your website?
2 What key words will you be expecting them to use?
3 What % of those key words do you think will be unique to your website?

[SPDJoomla4]

1. Currently it is people who play 1 specific PC Console game, but in future I will expand to multiple games. Of the people who play, there are those who also create (owners). Both groups would be looking for this to enhance there game or learn a skill for creating

2. [Game Name], Weapons, Armor, Creation Kit, xEdit, PANPC, Horizon ... as you can see probably not common search terms. Since I need people to find things on internal searches I do make sure that text related to the resource exists in the article content - Titles I have no control over, owners stuff.

3. Unique as in only mine, probably none. My site being one of 100, very high percent. Of those 100, % of site that provide the same content, 0-1%

Dunno if I am allowed to post link but I am not selling anything.
https://piningforthefjords.co.uk/
As you can tell I'm not a web dev/designer, but people can find stuff and there is new stuff I'll be adding daily once I get some stuff sorted.. having huge problem with login/registration [for another post though]
Cheers

[Webdongle]

2. [Game Name], Weapons, Armor, Creation Kit, xEdit, PANPC, Horizon ... as you can see probably not common search terms. Since I need people to find things on internal searches I do make sure that text related to the resource exists in the article content - Titles I have no control over, owners stuff.

3. Unique as in only mine, probably none. My site being one of 100, very high percent. Of those 100, % of site that provide the same content, 0-1%
...

Hmmmm your site describes itself as a "gaming database". There are many gaming database's on the internet similar to your site

gaming databases 01.JPG

And if they just search 'Weapons armor'

gaming databases 02.JPG

So not as unique as you thought. If you want unique search words try 'ddfflg631'. Or try and find a Googlewhack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack

[SPDJoomla4]

Ok, you win, I am sh*t at writing content, not unqiue and I should not waste time and effort on SEO.
Cheers

[gws]

Test your site @ https://gtmetrix.com/
This will give you a good idea what needs doing.

[SPDJoomla4]

Cheers, will look into it, hopefully will have all I need so I won't have to bother this channel with question again.

[Webdongle]

https://docs.joomla.org/Portal:Search_E ... timisation should help you with what you can use with Joomla SEO but it is more than the site that ggle looks at

[SPDJoomla4]

Cheers, I'll take a look and have a read. If whatever I do comes to nothing at least I tried and I am only wasting my own time. Since I am doing this for a community of users as opposed to money, there is nothing 'on the line' so...

[Webdongle]

According to various sources links to your site from other sites helps SEO

[SPDJoomla4]

Cheers, I do remember reading that at some pint. Unfortunately 90% of people who are/will link to my site are in Discord Servers, so as no benefit there in terms of SEO. It will mostly be word-of-mouth.
Thanks again

[changlee]

Google "hates" to add and remove URLs from sitemaps that do not work. So firstly you have to move at a strong domain, then submit a clear sitemap to webmasters and then submit clear redirects.

Each OLD URL has to redirect to NEW URL.

[braveman1122]

SEO is a long journey, I don't think you can do it instantly especially when you don't know what SEO is. So it's better to move and then keep updating articles over time.
It will take time but once you are good at it, you will get good results.

[Webdongle]

....
It will take time but once you are good at it, you will get good results.

[braveman1122]

....
It will take time but once you are good at it, you will get good results.

You can thank me any time if I made you laugh.