A basic Joomla installation is not very 'search engine friendly'. Sure, everybody knows they have to enter their own meta keywords and enable 'SEF URLs', but those things are very ineffective these days, especially with the default built-in components. So here are our 5 best tips to vastly improve the search engine friendliness of your Joomla website.

1.    Search Engine Friendly URL's

This is probably the most important of all. Joomla comes with a SEF engine by default, but it doesn't do a very good job. We recommend installing OpenSEF for Joomla.

To enable this, you can follow our guide here :

Configuring 'Search engine friendly URLs' for your Joomla site

2.    Linked titles

Enabling this built in feature will change each article subject / title into a link. And because you are using SEF URLs now, these links will contain keywords relating to the article (if you gave it a good title).

To enable this, you can follow our guide here :

Enabling 'Linked titles' in Joomla

3.    The 'Bookmarks' component 

The built in Joomla component 'Weblinks', is not able to display direct links. Instead, all the links are redirect links which do not count as actual backlinks in Google, or at least not with the desired anchor text. Replacing this component with the 'Bookmarks' component will allow you to enable direct links. You will also have a lot more options on how to organize and display the links. This step is vital if you are planning to do any link trading, because other webmaster will usually only accept direct links in return for their link.

To enable this, you can follow our guide here :

Installing and configuring the 'Bookmarks' component on your Joomla site

4.    Using 'TagClouds'

To enable more keyword rich internal links on your frontpage, I recommend using the component 'TagClouds'. It will generate a cloud of keywords on your frontpage that, when clicked, will bring up a search on your site of that keyword. Usefull to users and good for search engine optimisation.

To enable this, you can follow our guide here :

Installing and configuring the 'TagClouds' component on your Joomla site

5.    Logging and statistics with JoomlaStats 

You are going to have to know how your visitors are coming to your site and whether the amount is increasing after all your hard work. For this purpose you can use the 'JoomlaStats' component. It will provide you with information such as which site referred a user to your site, which search engine did they use and what keywords were they searching for. This is vital information for your search engine optimization campaign.

To enable this, you can follow our guide here :

Installing and configuring the 'JoomlaStats' component on your Joomla site
 

Implementing these 5 simple things on your site will increase the visitors that find your site through the search engines. By the way, these tips have all been implemented on this site, so you can see everything in action right here (except for JoomlaStats, I have only enabled this in the Joomla back-end)

Configuring 'Search engine friendly URLs' for your Joomla site

When you install a new Joomla site and put some content on there, you will notice that when you browse through the site, the URL in the top of your browser becomes a string of letters and numbers that don't mean anything to you, OR TO GOOGLE. There is a way to automatically have the URL reflect the subject of the page, this is called search engine friendly URLs.

There is a built in function for SEF URLs in Joomla, but it is extremely limited and will not do much to truly optimise your site. I recommend using Jooma OpenSEF, a free component with a ton of options for optimising your URL structure. You can download it here :

OpenSEF for Joomla

Then you can install it as any other Joomla component. You can follow our guide here 'Guide to installing new components, modules, mambots and templates in Joomla '.

After installation, it is not yet activacted. Follow these steps to activate it with the default configuration (sufficient for most sites). You must follow all these steps carefully, or you might disable functionality of your site.

1.    First download this file : htaccess.txt (right click / save as) 

3.    Now rename the file HTACCESS.TXT to .HTACCESS.TXT (note the leading dot). In some FTP clients, the file will now disappear. Do not be alarmed, you have just made the file hidden.

4.    Go to your Site / Global configuration and on the last tab called SEO, select SEF URLs.

5.    Go to components / OpenSEF / Configuration. Now you can safely activate OpenSEF by choosing yes at 'Activate OpenSEF

6.    As a final step, I recommend enabling the option 'Fetch Updates and Addons List' as well. This will enable OpenSEF to remind you of software updates. Software updates for 3rd party components like these are important for the security of your site.

Now OpenSEF should be enabled and you can test it by browsing your site. Like your pretty URLs ? So does Google.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS :

- I cannot see the HTACCESS.TXT after renaming it (making it hidden).

This procedure differs per FTP client, but in general there should be an option (under 'options ?') to show hidden files. For a guide on various FTP clients, go to this document : Guide to FTP and Joomla

- Help, my site gives a HTTP 500 / 50x / 5xx error !! What now ?

Something is wrong inside your HTACCESS.TXT. I've tried to create a general file which should work for most setups. Remove the file and in the administrator panel, under Global configuration, remember to disable it there as well. Then everything should be back to normal. I suggest you request support from your webhost in implementing the HTACCESS.TXT file.

- I get nice URLs everywhere, except in components like Remository download area, or a forum component

OpenSEF has support for many other components as well. You just need to enable support for it in the configuration. Go to Components / OpenSEF / Configuration / Components, and tick the box for 'alias' next to the component.

Any questions, leave your comments here.