How to SEO for Joomla! 3 step by step

This tutorial provide the latest SEO techiques and methodologies for Joomla! 3 website How to SEO for Joomla! 3.x step by step

1. Enable Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs

Look in system -> Global Configuration -> SEO Settings and do as the following

- Search Engine Friendly URLs -> YES

- Use URL Rewriting -> YES (You need to rename the htaccess.txt to .htaccess before activating)

Before URL

After URL

2. Using Joomla! 3 SEO Components

JoomSEF: SEO component to make your Joomla! URLs SEF (search engine friendly) and easily human understandable with metadata generation capabilities. Supports URL translations at multilingual sites using JoomFish/Falang. Online upgrades and extension instalation. Custom 404 Page Not Found, duplicate URLs management.

sh404SEF: sh404sef helps you improve your search engine rankings and get more traffic to your website. Satisfy many of the Google recommendations for search engine optimization with just a few clicks. sh404sef also includes many security features.

ACESEF - JOOMLA SEO & SEF URLS: AceSEF is a flexible and powerful Joomla SEF URLs, Metadata, Sitemap and Tags generator with an easy-to-use graphical user interface that simplifies the management of your site's SEO rank.

3. Use XMAP & Submit

Xmap is an awesome, free Joomla extension that you can install in order to easily create website site maps. Once created, you can log into Google webmaster tools and submit the website sitemap to be indexed by Google.

4. Check Website Speed

I recommend this toool: GTMetrix to check both on Google's PageSpeed tool and Yahoo's YSpeed.

5. Look for Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can be a huge optimization killer. The problem is Google can't easily determine which piece of content is the correct one to index and associate with the link credit. This causes your overall page's rank to decrease.

6. Titles as H1

Make sure your page titles are all marked as H1's. This is done with most WarpTheme Joomla! templates and wordpress themes 🙂