Essential Tips to Optimize Your Joomla Website for Search Engines

Are you thinking of launching a CMS based website? Then you’ll be given three choices out of which you need to select one that best suits your need: Drupal, Joomla or WordPress. Out of the three Joomla is considered to be one of the preferred choices when it comes to building varied websites such as corporate sites, blogging sites, and websites – wherein secure login is mandatory.

For the past few years, we’ve been observing a shift in the way SEO is being conducted. Simply put, the best SEO practices that we followed previously might now be ineffective, since new SEO tactics has come to the fore. Before understanding the tips to optimize your Joomla website for search engines, it is recommended that you must learn about the SEO practices that have changed, so far.

If you’re an owner of Joomla website and wish to optimize your site for the search engines, below are a few essential tips that you must follow:

• Choose the Right Server

In case you’re building a website in Joomla then it is advisable that you must opt for Apache Server as opposed to IIS server. This is because Apache server is an apt choice for Linux servers and it also supports installing all types of plug-ins and components.

• Expand Your Content

Website content plays a vital role in making the site a hit among wider audience base. Instead of lumping content on a single web page, it is recommended that you must create separate web pages for the services and products your business offers. In this way search engine will be able to crawl more content pages that are specific to your business requirements.

Ascertain to write only specific, unique and engaging content for each web page.

• Eliminate Duplicate Content

“Content is king” is a common saying that we come across quite often. But be wary from using duplicate content into your website, as it can lower your site rank from the SERPs (search engine result pages). Google can’t find out whether the content used in the site is unique and fit to index by the search engine crawlers. But you mustn’t worry, as you can easily view whether there is some duplicate content in your site or not by simply using – “Google Webmaster” tools or any other third party tools to detect and administer duplicate content.

In a Joomla website the duplicate content generally comes due to tags, categories etc. But you can clean up the content with the help of SEO extension – SH404SEF or by simply using .htaccess rewrites.

• Use H1 Tag as Title

If you are using H1 tag as title in your Joomla web pages then you must use your high priority keyword in the title, as it will help save a lot of valuable time of your visitor and the search engine since they’ll understand the topic merely with the help of its name. Fortunately, a few Joomla templates by default consists of H1 tags in their web page, however, not all the templates have the H1 tags added. Thus, make sure to opt for Joomla templates website templates devoid of the H1 tag in the web page title.

• Use 404 Error Pages

There are chances that you’ll encounter a Joomla website’s default 404 error page, but it may come with little or no information about the error and/or any link that leads you to the home page. Setting up a 404 error page with sound information can prove to be a prolific choice for making your Joomla website visible in front of the search engine crawlers. You can set up a 404 page, by utilizing some type of plugin or by setting up the page manually. Once you’ve created the 404 error page, next ensure that it consists of some link for directing the visitors back to the site. You can even add a search button that will lend the visitor some help in understanding some terms or phrases present in any web page.

So, if you wish to build a highly powerful Joomla website that is SEO optimized and is bound to rank higher in the top search engines such as Google, Bing and others, then I’ll recommend you to run through the aforementioned essential tips.

Author Bio:

Edword Jones is a web developer by profession and a writer by hobby and works for Outsource Joomla Development company. He loves sharing information regarding wordpress, Magento, Drupal and Joomla development tips & tricks. If you are looking for Hire Joomla Developer then just get in touch with him.