Joomla SEO Checklist

The recorded webinar below runs through the 10 step Joomla SEO Checklist that follows. Watch the webinar and follow the steps to organically improve your Joomla Instance's visibility and ranking on search results.

1. Determine Target Market

One of the first steps in an SEO campaign is to determine who you are trying to reach. Web traffic can be divided into many groups, and your business may benefit from having more visitors from a certain group. You will want to consider these points:

Where is my target audience located? If you are a local pizza place, then you want to reach out to everyone within your delivery zone (talk about local listings). However if your business sells products that you deliver through the mail, then you will most likely want to focus on nationwide SEO.

What is my target visitor age? If you are selling a hip and trendy new product, then reaching out to 65+ age group may not be the most effective use of your SEO effort.

What devices are my target visitors using? Your target audience may be predominantly using one type of device or browser, so it is important that you cater to these people. Aside from doing general browser testing, you may consider using a responsive template that will display your content in a more friendly way on mobile devices.

2. Keyword Research

After determining your target market, you need to determine what people are searching to find your industry/services. A common tool used for determining popular keywords in particular niche markets is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool 

Using keyword tools can be extremely helpful. You will typically want to start by asking yourself; what would the average web surfer type in to find my business. Enter those keywords and you will be presented with a list of other associated keywords along with some other great information like keyword competition and monthly search volume. Once you have a list of 10 or so keyword phrases to build from, it's time to construct your content. 

3. Writing Content

Writing content for your Joomla Instance should be done naturally. Keep your content informative and use your chosen keywords naturally. Take a look at our Joomla Content Writing document for more tips. 

4. On Page Optimization

Formatting your content to be search engine friendly is one of the more complex aspects of SEO. You will need to concern yourself with the html that drives your page. Title tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3> should be used for main points, which should contain your target keywords. Anchor text 

• Browser Page Title
• Viewing Page Source
• Meta Descriptions
• Global Metadata Options
• Global SEO Settings
• Other Metadata Options

5. Link Structure

The links within your site are largely determined by your menu structure. An example of a Joomla link would be as follows: http://www.domain.com/main-menu-alias/sub-menu-alias/article-alias.html

6. SiteMap

Sitemaps help search engines know about the different pages that you have on your site. You can use tools that will do a one time scan of your sitemap and produce an XML file. A popular route to take is would be to load an extension that constantly keeps your sitemap up-to-date. One common extension is XMAP that does this for you. 

7. Webmaster Tools 

We recommend signing up for webmaster tools accounts. This will allow you to administrate your Joomla Instance's search engine listings. 

Google Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools

8. Image Optimization

There are a few things to concern yourself when working on reducing your page load time, which is a factor when major search engines determine your ranking. Check out our Joomla Image Optimization article for more information. 

9. Inbound Links

If you are looking to increase the amount of links to your site, you may consider making it easier for someone to get the link on their site. For instance, if you have a particularly informative page on your site. You may want to have a spot on the side that says “Find this useful? Link to this page:<a href=”fullpageurl.com/path.html”>Link Text</a>”

10. Local Business Listings

If you are marketing locally, we recommend adding lesser known local business listings to boost your main local listing. Check out our Local Business Listing tutorial for more information.