Joomla SEO – How to get first in Google with Joomla

June 11th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Filed in Business, Internet Marketing Success, Website Search Engine Optimization

Joomla is not search engine friendly by default. You need to put some work into improving this. The main thing that you notice when you start your SEO work on Joomla website is the URL or each page. The page URLs produced by Joomla are not search engine friendly. They have always query parameters, which doesn't give much information for search engines to properly index and rank those pages. When you do on-page search engine optimization, one of things you should pay a lot more attention is the URL of the page you want to optimize. It has to be informative and meaningful, well populated with keywords and preferably with ".html" extension.

Use Search engine friendly URL

To make your Joomla website's URL search engine friendly, you have a lot of options. The first one is to use the default Joomla's SEF plugin. By default this plugin is not activated, so you have to go to your global configuration page and activate that.

You can also use third party free or paid components that do the same thing with additional features. One of my favorite is sh404SEF.

Craft catch Page titles for all pages in your website

Most of the time, I see on Joomla websites with default title that say "Home". This is the title of the home page. Mostly beginners don't see that and the way you change that title also a little bit obscure at first. As you know, page title is one of the main on-site criteria considered by search engines when ranking web pages. So you should give your pages meaningful title with your main keyword included in it. To change this title, do the following:

a. Go to Menu Manager and click your main menu.

b. From the list of menu items, open the one that says "home"

c. Now on the right hand side of the screen there are a number of parameters you can change. Open "Parameters (System)" and change the field that say Page title to your desired homepage title and save.

Setup Meta data for every page in your website

Meta data may not have as much value in the eyes of search engines as used to have few years back but still you should do proper optimization work on them. When optimizing Meta data of a webpage. You should focus more on the description rather than keywords. You write good descriptions about your page, preferably 160 characters long. This description is the one you see on search engine result page under your title. So it has a lot of value to help your link in the search engine result page stand out. Of course if search engines cannot find relevant description in your Meta tag, they will try to extract some text from your article body on the page and use that as description on the search engine result page. However, you have the chance to decide what to put instead, so use this advantage to attract more visitor from search engines.

The major problem I see on lots of Joomla powered website is that they use one set of Meta description and keyword for all pages on the website. This is wrong! You should set up individual sets of description and keywords for every page on your website. You can still use the global configuration to set Meta data for the whole website, but you should add Meta data for every article you add from you're your article manager page.

To add Meta data for an article you just wrote, look at the right section of Article [edit] page to find fields for entering Meta data.

Take advantage of 404 error page pages

Most often you see a Joomla website with the default 404 error page with small information about the error and a link to home page. You should setup a 404 page, either using some sort of plugin or setup one manually. Include valuable resource on this page to direct the user somewhere back to your website. Or include search form that can be used by the user to get back on track. Or use some of the phrases from users query on the previous page and produce a search result page yourself. The point here is to avoid users from being frustrated by the mean error page.

Insert H1 Tags In Joomla

It's a good idea to make use of H1 tag as your article title decorator. It has some significance to wards convincing search engines that the page is actually about the keyword you have been mentioning starting from the page title. I know pages that do well without H1 tag, but who cares if you can get a little help on your SEO for little or no work. Go ahead and us H1 tags for your your articles' Title.

Demissew has been working on the internet as a freelance web developer for nearly two years now. Not only has this author specialized in web development and SEO but also different technology products. You can also check out his latest website on Showerhead Filter and Anti Gravity Chair technologies.

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Online Brand Marketing – Tips for online brand building

April 27th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Filed in Branding, Business

To successfully create awareness for your brand, you need to do a lot of homework first. If you lack in your homework, the chances are that you will not get expected returns on investments (ROI). For this, you need to define the goal of your brand. There must be a "personality" associated with your brand. Think about Michael Jackson for a while and the first thing that comes to your mind is his moonwalk dance. Similarly, you need to create awareness for your brand. The moment someone clicks your site, he or she must have some healthy perception about your site.

Successful online brand building requires careful planning. To achieve this goal, you will have to ensure that:

The objective of your brand is clearly defined

Logo of your brand is visible on each webpage of your site

Your site has user friendly look and feel

Your web pages are easy to navigate

Fresh and quality content is uploaded on your site on regular basis

Online and offline branding is done simultaneously

Fan following for your site is developed on various social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, MySpace etc.

Original and informative articles, blogs, press releases etc. are submitted to appropriate forums at regular intervals.

In addition to all the above, you also need to take the services of a SEO consultancy that may optimize your site properly so that it may rank higher in internet search results. Search engine optimization services will help in increasing the visibility of your site on the internet. If you have added something new to your site, then let the whole world know it. Write a press release about that and submit that to a paid press release agency. Discuss about the same in your official blogs and provide appropriate links for the users to follow you.

You may also start a rewarding program for your top customers. If someone regularly shops through you, tell about that individual to everyone, after getting his or her approval. This gesture will encourage such a customer to spend more. You may also send him a handwritten letter thanking him for shopping through you. This gesture will help you in making him or her loyal customer.

The role of search engine optimization services cannot be ignored at all in online branding process. Your efforts on online branding will not provide you desired results if you do not optimize your site properly. For this, you may hire the services of a professional SEO consultancy. You may entrust the SEO consultancy to:

Analyze the results of analytics

Provide proper back links on your keywords Submit press releases, articles, blogs etc. on your behalf

Provide appropriate internal and external links in your site

Provide title tags, meta tags, breadcrumbs and reviews of your products

Make the navigation of your site user friendly.

With the above online brand building tips, you could be assured to get increased traffic on your sites.

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About the Author:
Anishka is a writer. She has more than 10 years of experience in Travel Industry. She is assisting iSearchsolution last 5 years.For more information about Online Brand Building please visit our website iSearchsolution.

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Google PageRank – Google search engine optimization tips

March 30th, 2010 by Guest Blogger | No Comments | Filed in Business, Internet Marketing Success

The function of the search engines, is to provide traffic to any type of web site on the internet. The search engines doesn't discriminate against a site just because someone within the search staff, doesn't like a particular subject matter. Big business, small business, adult sites, or church sites must all follow the same guidelines (better known as algorithms) to get indexed and page ranked by the search engines. If your site is not optimized properly, you lose. This said, if you can't find your site online, then your chances of online success will never happen. If the search engines has not indexed your site, there is always a specific reason your site is not being found. If you don't have visitors to your site, your chances of making money online is little to none.

There are basically two ways you can get the job done. You can learn the process of online marketing, or you can hire a marketing specialist that will do the job for you. After your site is up and running, with visitors frequenting your site, and a steady stream of income, then most people will accept some responsibility in the marketing process, and start taking a more active role in their marketing process, using what they've learned from the professional to promote their own business opportunity. This is an excellent way to get your opportunity up and running effectively, plus, this gives the web site owner the choice to save some money regarding the ongoing expenses of marketing.

The duties, of search engine optimization (better know as SEO) is an ongoing process in any online promotion. This is a process which is designed to improve the search engine rankings of your web site. There are two way to get your message to the masses. One is by advertising with paid ads. Some of these ads are strictly paid advertisement, while others are on a bid basis. The other way to get recognized (which is the most solid way to build your business), is to follow the algorithms of the search engines and optimize your site to earn organic search engine page rankings. This type of strategy is what a Search Engine Optimization Specialist will follow to get your site to Top Positions on Google, and other fine search engines.

SEO companies and specialist will begin your campaign by, analyzing your web site, and reviewing the source codes of your site, making sure that there are no red flags to the search engines. Incomplete or questionable aspects of your site will create negative points against your web site in the eyes of the search engines, and your page rankings will drop. The goal of the specialist is to find these problem areas, and correct these problems, so you will be compliant with the algorithms of the various search engines. The balance here is critical, because, what may be the Google balance of optimization, is different than the balance of Yahoo or Bing. So optimizing, and meeting the criteria of one search engines doesn't necessarily mean you will have a better chance on one search engine compared to another search engines. The secret here, is to construct a well balanced web site, which meets the guidelines of the big three search engines. This is a delicate balance here, so seek the advise of your SEO marketing specialist if you need to.

A well planned SEO Campaign will include three major issues. Keyword Analysis, On Site Optimization and Off Site Optimization.

Keyword analysis should be conducted first. You or your specialist must select the relevant keywords for your particular web site. Each web site, marketing campaign or article is different, and the keywords for each type of marketing must be relative to your presentation.

When addressing your site optimization, your SEO professional will analyze your Title, Keywords, Meta Description and Content, to make sure your site is a well balanced presentation in the eyes of the search engines, as well as eye appealing, to the users who visit your site. If there are changes needed, that will enhance your possibility for a successful campaign, then your professional, should have your pre-authorization to make those online changes quickly. According to some experts, this phase of optimization accounts for about 40% of what search engine look for when ranking your site.

The development of inbound links, outbound links, reciprocal links, cross links etc., are considered offsite optimization. This accounts for about 60% of the importance of the algorithms the search engines are currently using. Increasing the quality of your links is far more important than the quantity to your web site. One relevant, quality link carries more weight with the search engines, than a hundred questionable links. To maximize your site exposure online, you must concentrate on getting as many relevant sites as possible to link back to your site.

Be cautious of accepting just any reciprocal link….choose your reciprocal links wisely and have a verification system that will track those reciprocal links, making sure they're active at all times. If those links become inactive, immediately delete the link. One common trick is, for a company to reciprocal link to you, and within a short time, they will drop your link. Then you would be linking to them, however, they would not be linking to you. That's not the way this process was designed and is totally unfair. Having a tracking system of some kind will help you keep a handle on this type of unethical practice.

In Summary: Choose your target market wisely, and make your campaign evolve around your target market. Spend as much time as needed, choosing the right keywords for your web site. Optimize your site, but don't over optimize your opportunity, for the search engines or the users. Last but not least, work on your linking, with precision, choosing who you link with, where you link to, and be extremely conservative with any reciprocal link you may accept. Watch out for the questionable reciprocal link scammer. Good luck in your marketing efforts.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

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About the Author:
Larry L Miller – SEM/SEO Consultant who specializes in promoting clients to "Top Positions on Google" and other leading search engines. Mr. Miller is the promotions director for BLM Traders the leader in Automated Marketing Systems. Private Line: 321-594-4405, Skype: larrylmiller121
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Wordpress Plugins – My top 9 plugins revealed

February 8th, 2010 by markus | No Comments | Filed in Business, Corporate Blogging, Weblogs

One of the advantages of blogging with WordPress blogging software is the option of using WordPress plugins.

These plugins give us additional functionality within the Wordpress software – giving us the ability to put our blogging on autopilot.

Here's my recommended… must-have list of nine WordPress plugins I use myself to enhance my WordPress blog (listed in order of importance):

All in One SEO Pack – This is my all-time favorite WordPress plugin.

It adds automatic search engine optimization options into each WordPress post… ultimately attracting visitors to your blog almost automatically.

I say almost automatically because there are three empty fields to fill out for each post you make:

- Webpage title

- Meta description

- Meta keywords

When you fill out these the right way, you're going to get a lot more clicks from search engine results to your blog post.

WP Auto Tagger – -This plugin automatically scans your blog post and looks for popular keyword phrases. It takes these phrases and creates a backup search engine friendly duplicate page.

Don't fret about the technical details of this plugin. All I can say is that after checking my blog stats, a large majority of my search engine referrals come as a result of WP Auto Tagger creating these tags.

Google XML Sitemaps – This amazing WordPress plugin generates a special Google-friendly sitemap every night helping you get your blog post noticed by search engine spiders and bots.

Google XML Sitemaps creates a file called "sitemap.xml" — an A to Z index listing the details of each blog post. For example, mine is found at:

http://www.marketing-ideas.org/sitemap.xml

Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo! and Bing and watch your blog content show up faster in these popular search engines.

AdSense Now! – If you're not making money with your blog, you should.

And Google AdSense is the fastest and easiest way to make money I've ever tested (when you put my AdSense secrets into action, that is).

The AdSense Now! plugin makes it a breeze to add Google AdSense revenue sharing into your blog… just install the plugin, copy and paste your AdSense code and configure the positioning settings to display your ads between your blog post's headline and content:

Top: Center

Middle: Suppress

Bottom: Suppress

WordPress Mobile Pack – Let's face it, you're missing out on a HUGE audience if you don't tweak your WordPress blog to fit on a mobile device.

It's estimated that 34 million people can't read your blog — and that's just the number of iPhones sold in the fourth quarter of 2009.

It's nearly impossible to see your blog on any mobile phone… forcing your mobile visitors to scroll left to right… squinting to read your super-small fonts. Most mobile users are going to flee your blog if it's hard to see.

It doesn't have to be this way…

… The WordPress Mobile Pack plugin "mobilizes" your WordPress blog… automatically. The plugin senses a mobile device and automatically switches to a leaner mobile display.

Even better, there's a free option to have your blog listed on mpexo, a directory of mobile-friendly blogs — opening up a new audience to view your new easy-on-the-eyes site.

W3 Total Cache – WordPress is great, but it's notoriously slow loading. It takes many many seconds just to start to see your blog content display.

In today's world, speed is everything. If your site doesn't display in a second or so, your visitor clicks to your competitor.

The good news is this WordPress plugin DRAMATICALLY improves the speed of your blog by adding page and database caching which displays your blog faster.

wpuntexturize – By default, most WordPress themes add "graphic embellishments" to your blog posts… that includes those sometimes fancy curly quotes.

You've probably seen the problem frequently… you go to read a blog post and it's riddled with question marks and other weird characters. This happens when a blogger copies and pastes content from another blogger with curly quotes.

This simple plugin prevents WordPress from making HTML entity code substitutions of single and double quotation marks with their curly alternatives.

TweetMeme Retweet Button – This WordPress plugin displays the popular TweetMeme badge next to each blog post you submit… making it easy for your visitors to post your content to their Twitter account.

But the best part is a snippet of your blog posts gets automatically submitted to TweetMeme's followers — giving you an instant and automatic SEO benefit at the same time.

Broken Link Checker – Search engine robots and spiders don't like it when your hyperlinks to recommended sources are outdated and don't work.

This WordPress plugin checks your posts (while you're sleeping) for broken links and missing images. If there's an issue, you're notified in your WordPress dashboard just after logging in.

Final tip - There's no reason to struggle on your own and figure out the best WordPress plugins to use. If you're ready to put the power of blogging into action, you might want to grab these additional corporate blogging tips, techniques and methods.

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Google Search Engine Optimization – Tips to get ranked tops on Google

January 20th, 2010 by markus | No Comments | Filed in Internet Marketing Success, Web Design

Have you ever wondered how to get ranked as number one on google? I have too. In my attempts to optimize my articles and websites I found out that manual effort will never beat a good search engine ranking tool. Once I realized that with the right website optimization software I could finally dominate google, I set out to find the best one. As many know, SEO is a tough game and one little mistake in optimization will diminish your efforts at once, thus only the best search engine ranking tool will do. In this article I will describe what makes good website optimization software as well as talk about the process of optimization. If you are not interested in hearing about the process behind SEO just skip to the end of this article where I'll recommend some tools to you.

The best search engine ranking tool [part I]

A quick look at SEO

I am by no means a "guru", neither by the way do I believe that the "guru" title gives you any authority or a deeper understanding. I believe that with the right website optimization software and with a sound understanding of the SEO process anybody can be a so called "guru".

Anyhow, what exactly constitutes a good google ranking? There are several components to google domination (and a good search engine ranking tool must take advantage of all at the same time. But more on that later). First of all we must establish a differentiation between internal and external SEO. Internal SEO is the process of optimizing your website content and external SEO is the process of gaining relevant backlinks to your site.

You optimize your website internally by finding relevant keywords with low competition, writing your articles in a specific, optimized way and building relevant internal links. You optimize you website externally, by finding relevant, high ranking websites on your niche and gaining backinks from them.

A word on internal or on-page optimization. Is it still important? Do you have to be a guru to excel at it? It is still important yeah, but if you have a wordpress site you don't have to worry about it at all. Just keep writing relevant material, with a keyword density of about 2% and you will be in the clear in terms of internal SEO.
Now, external optimization is the big one!

The best search engine ranking tool [part II]

The components of good website optimization software

So what exactly defines a good search engine ranking tool? Here are some points to help you identify the best website optimization software:

Good website optimization software is fully automated.
This is actually an overlooked aspect. You don't want to spend countless hours looking up your competition, search for relevant sites in your niche, etc… A good search engine ranking tool must be capable of a completely automated process. In other words, you enter your definitions and the website optimization software starts working, later delivering relevant results.

Finding relevant sites with a good PR (page rank).
This is of course the main purpose behind any search engine ranking tool. It must be capable of finding relevant, high ranking websites by crawling the internet. Since google will evaluate your site (internal SEO apart) based on how many relevant, high ranking pages link back to it, a good search engine ranking tool will be able to find these pages.

Good website optimization software is able to analyze my competitors.
This is also very important as it will help you find your main competitors as well as find out what they are doing. A great search engine ranking tool will be able to tell you the number of backlinks of your competition as well as where those backlinks are coming from.

Capable of detailed analysis.
This is quite overlooked too. Your website optimization software must be capable of performing specific search requests. Such as searching by domain name ending (e.g. only .com sites), or searching google locally (e.g. you are living in Italy and want to limit your search to google Italy)

The best search engine ranking tool [part III]

My recommendation

I can honestly recommend Page Prowler over here. I believe it performs really well and can help you achieve a #1 position on google in a matter of days. It is completely automated and very well documented. The author provides comprehensive videos to help you learn how to operate this search engine ranking tool in a matter of hours. You will be able to spy on your competition, find relevant backlinks, estimate the worth of existing backlinks (thus determining the ones that actually hurt you), is able to gather all kinds of information (from email addresses to "whois records") and much, much more with this website optimization software.

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Blog Comments – Does it really pay to turn on blog commenting

January 8th, 2010 by markus | No Comments | Filed in Business, Uncategorized, Weblogs

Most blog comment software allows you to turn on or off blog comments.

And if you're blogging to grow your business, you might be asking yourself this… does allowing blog comments on your blog add more zeros to your bank account?

I don't think it does and I outline my reasons why below.

As a thinking-out-of-the-box internet marketer and host of a weekly business building talkcast, I THRIVE on getting feedback about what I say or write. My inbox gets a steady parade of new marketing ideas, critiques and suggestions on how to help with my broadcast. And I love it. Life without feedback would be a very lonely life.

But after analyzing the pros and cons of blog commenting, I've decided to block comments on my blog… here's why:

Spam

Most comments come from spammers… either flat out spam, or spam thinly disguised as a legitimate comment. Either way, the vast majority of blog comments are worthless to my visitor.

With the prevelance of blog comment spam, you're going to need to install spam prevention software. And that's great. Programs like Aksimet are great at stopping blog comment spam. But some spam falls through the cracks and you're going to invest time determining if the comment is legit or not.

Time

Keep in mind that every 10 minutes you spend playing cop with your blog comments is 10 precious minutes you lose writing for your blog. And writing content for your blog is going to attract a heck of a lot more visitors to your website than moderating your blog comments.

Dilution of SEO

While it's true that blog comments give your post an added chance of getting featured in the search engines, I find most people who comment instead dilute the search engine optimization of my blog posts.

False Accusation

This is a tough one for me. Because I HATE censorship and love to comment on other blogs to warn others of a scam. However, competitors have been known to make up falsehoods out of thin air. And the last thing I need is a jealous competitor posting false accusations on my blog (and dealing with replying to it).

Legal Issues

Yes, there are laws to protect website owners of malicious and slanderous comments on a blog, but who wants to be hassled with a lawsuit? I don't. That's another HUGE and massive waste of precious time… time I'd rather use to grow my business.

Setup to Fail

Now I love to help people. It's my achilles heel at times.  And when someone asks me a question, I'm thrilled to reply with an answer. I've never once backed down from the toughest questions.

With that said, allowing blog comments is a surefire way to suck a ton of time away from you — giving you less time to work on your marketing.

In most cases, answers to questions require large blocks of time (no matter how hard you try to keep it brief).

But here's the biggest issue for me… the followup comment. More often than not, answering one question opens the floodgates to multiple followup questions. On one hand, you don't want to be perceived as a jerk and ignore the followup question, but it's unfair to your business to reply over and over again.

It's for these reasons I'm confident that I'm making the right choice in closing blog commenting. I'd ask you to weigh in and give me your thoughts on the pros and cons of blog comments, but obviously my comments are closed. How ironic is that?

With that said, I do offer a direct way for people to contact me (via email and support ticket). I find this significantly slashes the time I choose to invest helping readers of my blog.

There's no reason for you to struggle with whether or not to have blog comments. If you're ready to get serious about using your blog to make more money, you might want to grab these internet marketing secrets, tips, techniques and methods.

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