Ultimate Guide to Joomla SEO

Who says Joomla is not SE Friendly?

Joomla SEO - The truth about Joomla being SEO FriendlyIf you are seeking out of the box SE compatible solution, than Joomla will disappoint you.

Joomla is an excellent CMS, but when it comes to search engine optimization, you need some time to tweak it the way it needs to be. I have spent looots of time doing it and would like to save your time.

So i compiled a little tutorial for Joomla SEOHow to make Joomla truly SE friendly?This is not an exact tutorial, so you are doing it at your own risk.

I am just posting what has worked for me, and what not.

1. Think about SEO from install onFirstly you will need to install some extensions, to prepare Joomla to be serving URLs the right way. We will use SEF patch, openSEF and Joomap.Important: Do it immediately after installing a fresh copy of Joomla.

2. Install Joomla SEF patchThis will patch Joomla core and enable you to add keywords and description in every menu and content item of your site. It will also make titles show the correct way. Thats what Google and other SE want! File is located in our Webmaster Center. Instructions and Homepage. (Takes you to Joomla At Work)

3. Install openSEF component and make it work

1. Enable it. Site > Configuration

Go to SEO and Click Yes for Search Friendly URL

2. Change .htaccess from integrated SEO to 3rd party SEO
3. Install openSEF. Go to Installers > Component

Select your file from hard disk, Upload and Install.

4. Configure OpenSEF with these instructions.

OpenSEF will basically rewrite your internal Joomla like urls to external that are SE and User Friendly.

IMPORTANT: Once you launch your site, DO NOT CHANGE your content item names and category names, because your URLs will also change. And this breaches Googles guidelines and WILL, i repeat WILL hurt your rankings.

So make sure once you set your urls and content to leave it that way for good

ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING: If you will be using components, check if there are OpenSEF extensions for these components. This will make these components SE friendly too. Check this great forum about this matter. I use Docman and it has been producing me lots of junk urls. Installed extension and now works GREAT!

5. Install Joomap

Joomap is a next step to Joomla SEO. It will create a sitemap for your site and a XML sitemap that will feed Google spider. It automatically creates XML file every time a new item is added.


1. Download it from our Webmaster Center .
2. Enable it by creating a menu item which points to this component. Configure it by going to
3. Components> Joomap

Configure which menus you want to include in the sitemap.

4. Configure the way it will display information; you can even exclude items or categories.

And the important thing: Submit your XML sitemap to Google Sitemaps. You will find your sitemap address in Back-end Administrator in Joomap settings. Once you enter it into Google, it will automatically pick up changes.Be careful: set your live path in configuration.php in joomla with www before your domain. Also make it the same for Google Sitemaps. They have to be the same or Google will show errors in your sitemap.

6. Joomla Seo and Content:

Make sure to delete all unused content items and menu items by default Joomla installation. Clean it so you wont have problems later. Each URL needs to have proper meta tags for Joomla seo (keywords, description), title and consistent use of H1 and keywords in text. Thanks to SEF patch, you can now manually configure each pages meta tags.

7. OpenSEF Friendly URL tweaking:

Once you click on all your links sitewide, OpenSef will compile a list of Search Friendly URLs. Because of Joomla Nature - it produces several duplicate ids and id items, you will have to manually set only one URL to be used, and set others off. Don`t delete them, just turn all cases with the same external URLS off, just leave one to be used. I don`t know why, but sometimes it worked only if i selected case with id and itemid in the name of internal url, insted of those having only id in the name of internal URL.

ConclusionJoomla CAN be SEO friendly. That is what worked for me. If you have any suggestions or comments let me know.

How to insert Adsense in Joomla the Easy Way?

Huh! Joomla is not an Adsense friendly environment. Try it yourself! After many attempts to insert Adsense into Joomla i finally found a solution that works. That`s what you will learn in this article.

Adsense + Joomla!

Joomla and Adsense: What doesn`t work?Ok. I had a fresh copy of Joomla. And I had Adsense page open, and ready to paste the code. Pasted it into my JCE Editor through HTML. No go. Pasted it into custom made module. No go. Reading the manual, reading Adsense Guidelines. Maybe there is something wrong with my Joomla? Maybe it is Joomla Hosting that is causing problems. Is it OpenSEF? Actually none of them.

It is just the fact, that Joomla doesn`t work well when you want to paste a script into it. And Adsense is a script in case you didn`t know. It calls Google Server and then serves appropriate ads. And Joomla just can`t handle it. Phew!

Ok. I want to Joomla Extensions page and I checked some of the free adsense extensions. Quite a few of them. But do I need them? Do I have the nerves to install them, try them, test them on a working site? I did. But you don`t have to!Joomla and Adsense: The SolutionInstall just one.

The one that works. And it is actually not made exactly for adsense - but it works! It does what it needs to do.It is called MOD HTML. Here is what it does: Joomla can not handle scripts out of the box, but this little MOD (yes, you guessed it - it`s a module) can. And it can be installed in a second, because it is so small!How to install this little thing that made my day (MOD HTML)

First - Download it.Next - Install it - here is how to do it:

1. It`s easy: Go to Install new Modules

2. Browse for the mod_html you just downloaded. Click on Upload and Install. 3. It will show a message that everything is ok. :) 4. Now go to Modules> Site Modules

5. This little extension created a module called "Html Module"
6. First thing to do - copy it and rename it to whatever you need. I named it Adsense channel 1.
7. Now click on this module you just renamed (mine is Adsense channel 1).
8. Now you can set location, set on which pages you want to show Ads and what is most important you can paste your code in a box called HTML.
9. The beauty is that code stays untouched. Joomla doesn`t create a mess with it. Yippy!
10. Ok. Now create as many duplicates as you want to suit your Adsense needs.
Resurces:

Mod HTML Homepage - thanks for creating this great module!
Adsense Basics - make sure you read the guidelines twice!

Welcome to Freelance Joomla

Hello, and welcome to the new freelance joomla, the site for joomla freelancers who are looking to get a head start on the business competition within the web design market.

We are here to provide a wealth of information to the CMS community, on many topics including.

• Tweaking RSS Feeds, to increase traffic and sales
• Blog techniques and how to use blogs to promote your business and google ranking
• Site design tips
• Site development tips
• SEO
• Goal Setting
• EmailMarketing
• Branding
• Business for Sale
• Businesses for Sale

Plus much more make money with joomla information!

We are here to see you guys succeed in all of your endevours, and we will provide the articles needed, to see you grow. The inertnet world is a large place, and with the right information, you will be able to see growth, 10x faster then normal with our free joomla articles for joomla freelancers.




I hope you guys enjoy reading through the indepth articles we provide, and we would love to hear any success stories. We will publish these on our news front page.

We are also looking to publish joomla and web design business news on our site so login and submit some news now.

If you runa joomla busines or site and would like extra exposure, contact us and we can exchange some links to increase your google page ranks for joomla.

succes for you !

How to Add PayPal as a Payment Option

To be competitive, your company must be able to offer an easy and convenient payment system to your customers. PayPal is one the easiest payment services that businesses can utilize on the web. When you add PayPal as a payment option to your website, you will make it much easier to receive payment from your customers.

Instructions

Step1

Familiarize yourself with the HTML skills you’ll need to install the PayPal system. Websites like PageResource.com offer html tutorials to help you learn the basics.

Step2

Download the PayPal solutions and features to your company's website. Open your PayPal account and go to developer services to install PayPal on your site.

Step3

Enter the strings of API code or HTML code that define what PayPal will do on your website. Make sure you enter the codes correctly; slight errors can cause big problems with your commercial site

Step4

Choose the checkout option that will work the best for your business. PayPal offers two options; Express Checkout and Standard Checkout. Express Checkout is recommended for those who are familiar with API programming, while Standard Checkout is for those with basic HTML knowledge.

Step5

Use the additional features that are offered by PayPal to maximize the value to your business. Custom Payment Pages, Virtual Terminal and Reporting may be exactly what you need to make shopping on your site more attractive.

Step6

Test the installed PayPal payment solution. PayPal offers a testing environment, where you can test the system to check for glitches. PayPal customer service representatives can make the necessary adjustments to make the system better.

How to Accept Credit Cards From a Website

Accepting credit cards significantly enhances a website's ability to generate sales. Credit cards make purchases easier for website visitors, enhance a website's professionalism, and reduces the time and labor involved with managing accounts receivables. Although accepting credit cards has a cost, in particular the fee paid to credit card companies, those costs can be minimized through careful planning and implementation.

Instructions

Step1

Decide which credit cards you will accept. Some credit card companies charge more than others, some have more customers, and some provide additional benefits to credit card holders. Research each to determine whether it attracts your kind of customer, and if you can afford to accept its card.

Step2

Gain access to a merchant account. In order to accept credit card purchases, you must have access to a merchant account for deposits. You can either establish your own merchant account at a bank, or contract with a third-party merchant who will handle credit card purchases for a fee. Your up-front costs will be lower through a third-party merchant, but your on-going fees will be higher.

Step3

Select a shopping cart system. The electronic shopping cart is the software that manages your product and service catalog, allows customers to select items for purchase, and processes transactions. You can either purchase shopping cart software (or locate an open source alternative) and install it yourself, or your website host might provide an integrated shopping cart option.

Step4

Decide on a payment gateway service. Credit card transactions are processed through gateways between the shopping cart software and credit card processors.

Step5

Choose a credit card processor. The processor is a company that handles information from the gateway service, validating credit card transactions and depositing funds in merchant accounts.

Step6

Test the solution. Now that you have selected the required components, and installed them as necessary, make sure that they are all working correctly and that transactions flow smoothly through the system.

Step7

Go live. Once your system has been thoroughly tested and any issues resolved, you can start accepting credit cards for purchases. Often, this is simply a matter of adding the pages generated by your shopping cart software to your live website, thus making them available to website visitors.

How to make money on GPT sites

A GPT site means: Get Paid To site. They are sites that pay you to do simple thing like take surveys, read email, or do trial offers.

Instructions

Step1

Go to the GPT web site that you choose to join.

Step2

Register with the site.
You will usually need to give them an email address, and you will need to make up a password that you will remember.

Step3

Submit your Address correctly, with your legal name.
This information is used when they send you your check.
*Some sites pay you by paypal, some by check, some do both.

Step4

Check your email.
Most sites will send you a confirmation email. All you need to do is click the link in the email.

Step5

Start making money.
This part is different for different sites. But all of them have something in common: It's not difficult!

Step6

I will now walk you through signing up for my favorite site. I think this site is the best. I made an easy $200+ in my first month. Here is the website: money.startandearn.com (Copy and Paste into your Address Bar)

Step7

You only need to be 13 years old to join this site. On the right side of the screen click on Register.

Step8

Now follow step #2 and #3. Make sure you give true information so you will be able to get paid. After you fill out your information, click Sign Up.

Step9

Check your email for a confirmation. You can now log in by going to your previous page, or by going back to money.startandearn.com.
You will log in on the right side of the screen where it says account.

Step10

When your logged in it should say on the top right: Welcome Back, your name. On the right side of your screen are all of the places to go for members.

Step11

On the left column click on My Account. On this page you can see all of your information, like your address and email. You can go here to change your password, or to change your minimum payout also.

Step12

Now click on My Treasure. This will soon be your favorite page because it will show you how much money you have made. It also shows what "treasures" you have like Gold coins, platinum coins, pearls, and gems. I will explain these "treasures" later.

Step13

Ok, enough talk, Lets make some money!!! Click on Cash Offers. This is were you will make 90% of your money. There will be a list of 300+ offers for you to do. You may choose to sort the offers by different standards if you would like. You get paid cash for almost all offers, some offers give you Platinum coins. You will also receive gold coins (along with money) for all of your cash offers. Now select an offer that you would like to complete, you can start with a simple survey if you would like.

Step14

You do not always need to complete the survey all the way to receive credit. You can stop when it says thank you, if it ask you to complete "2 offers" you can stop. After you complete an offer go back to the Cash Offers page and click the done bottom to the right of the offer description. You can choose to play the pearl game when you finish an offer, you will have a 3 in one chance of getting a pearl.

Step15

This offer will now go to pending, and it will usually approve the same day. After the offer gets approved you can go to My Treasure and it will show how much you have earned.

Step16

The next section is called Cash Shopping. Here you have the option of earning a percent back of whatever you spend online. There are over 250 web sites that you can earn cash back from. Some sites that you earn cash shopping from are: Best Buy, Circuit City, 1-800-Flowers, 1-800-Petmeds, KB Toys, CCS, Magazines.com, iTunes, Radio Shack, ect.

Step17

The next section is Cash Surveys. You can go here, and take a Daily Survey. You will get paid 75 cents for taking the survey. The Daily Survey can be completed once every 24 hours. If you just did the Daily Survey everyday, you would make over $20 in a month. Do some Cash Offer, and you will easily pass the $100 mark.

Step18

The next section is the Trading Hunt. The Trading Hut has all kinds of extra stuff that you can get. You exchange your gold coins, pearls, and platinum coins for Trading Hut objects. Some things that you can get in the Trading Hut are: a mouse pad, $20 amazon.com Gift Certificate, a $50 Visa Gift Card, an iPod, Xbox 360, ect.

Step19

When you sign up, I will send you a message asking if you would like to let me have your email address so that I can contact you, and help you with any questions that you have. I will send you an email with a guide I made with simple steps to earn a lot of money. You may choose to give me your email address, or to not give me your email adress. Its your choice, I will send you my guide if you give me your email. I will not send you more than one email a month, unless you need help with something. If you let me have your email, then decide that you don't want my help, then just tell me, and I won't send you an more emails.

Step20

This site is great, I really enjoy it, and I am sure that you will too. Go to: money.startandearn.com to get started.

Step21

If you have any questions please ask me, you can comment me, and I will get back to you.

How to make Incorporate Google Adsense into a Joomla Website

The Joomla Adsense module offers an extra opportunity to earn revenue from your Joomla website. Google's adsense program is a far more convenient revenue earner than banner ads, because you do not have to solicit advertisers - Google simply posts relevant ads to your site based in your content. Your revenue is determined by the number of times a Google ad gets clicked, and for every one thousand views of the web page bearing the adsense ad.

Instructions

Step1

Download the Google AdSense module for Joomla (see Resources below). Save the downloaded module to your hard drive.

Step2

Log into your Joomla administrator page, and then click on the Installer link in the main menu to upload the module.

Step3

Click on "Modules" in the drop-down menu. This takes you to the modules page. Click on "Browse" and then scroll through the listed files to locate the the downloaded Adsense module. Select the file and then click "Upload File and Install."

Step4

Access the module after it's installed by clicking on the "Modules" link and then the "Site Modules." Locate the Google AdSense icon and click it. (You may have to scroll down or go to the next page.)

Step5

Enter your personal Google AdSense information. With the data input, you will receive an HTML code. Copy and paste the HTML code into your Joomla site. This will display your new Google AdSense ads and start making you some money.

Tips & Warnings

• You can customize the layout and color of Google's ads by changing their color, borders and the like to better match your website's look and feel.
• You have the option of displaying text-based ads, image ads or even video ads if you like.
• One downside to the Adsense program is the fact that the pay per click can be as low as $0.1. If you have massive traffic to your website, you will do well; if you don't, it may be a long while before you accumulate substantial Adsense earnings from your website. Payment is via Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT), directly into your bank account.
• Google only pays out when you reach $100 in Adsense earnings.

About Joomla!

I was asked by a friend of mine a couple of days ago about the reason I was so excited about Joomla. That made me look with an objective eye at this CMS and gave me the idea about writing this editorial presenting the best parts and some minuses that Joomla has.

For starters, Joomla is good for any type of site, from the little leaflet type to great corporate sites that contain great amounts of data. It is very easy to install, populate it with content and maintain. You don't have to be a doctor in physics to use it. You don't need to know HTML, PHP, MySQL or how to programme stuff in order to use Joomla.

Joomla has a backend administration section. From here you can do anything: publish, edit, add images, organise your content in sections and categories (see our tutorials about that).

It is all very logic, clear and simple.

For the front end, you can apply a template available on the internet (or made by yourself) and make your site look the way you want it to look. The templates allow you to fully customise the way your site looks. Are you tired of the old design? Change the template! It takes a few seconds to do it. You don't need to hire a web design company to redesign your site.

So, for the best parts of Joomla I would count the following:

• easy to install and use
• the possibility of search engine friendly URL's
• multiple language support
• WYSIWYG editor for your text
• statistics
• component, module and template installer
• lots of add-on's available
• speed up your Joomla by using the browser's cache
• integrated Help
• meta tags and key words support
• the greatest community ever

The minuses that I see are not really strong minuses but mild ones (if I can say so...and I can):

• not standard compliant
• the impossibility for the visitors of your site of commenting on your articles (unless you install a third party add-on)
• the impossibility to associate an article to multiple categories or sections
• some security bugs (that the dev team is working hard to fix - and Joomla becomes more and more secure with every new version)

So, this is my view of Joomla in short. Go ahead, use it and share your experience!

Joomla based websites

News & Media took the cherry off the cake’s top on our poll last week. For about a week our visitors had the chance to vote the domain their Joomla website was. News & Media took the majority of the votes, 18% of our voters having their website based on that domain. We have expected that given the fact that Joomla is offering a very good way of managing the content, simplicity and an easy utilization.

Entertaiment and Recreation & Sports categories shared the second place, receiving 15% of the votes. This makes us think that many of these websites are about communities or fan clubs. The possibility of adding forums or communities’ 3rd party add-ons on the basic version of Joomla make this CMS the prefered choice of the commuinties’ creating webmasters. It would be interesting to see how powerfull these communities are and how many users can Joomla handle.

With 11% of the votes, Business& Economy based sites come in third. Why do webmasters choose Joomla for the commercial and bussiness sites? It is possible that part of these business sites to be just informational sites, but we already know companies’ or e-stores based on Joomla. Components like Virtuemart, the capability to assign users on different acces levels and the variety of available templates are aces upon the webmasters’ sleeves when creating a site with Joomla.

The 7% that the Regional & Tourism category received are not surprising at all. Lots of tourism companies and hotels prefer Joomla. A great deal of them are commercial sites and together with the Business & Economy section they would succesfully compete for the first place on our poll and that means that Joomla is ideal for commercial sites.

Blog & Homepages. Hard to understand why so few bloggers prefer Joomla. An explanation would be that Joomla is offering way too many facilities that are really needed for a blogg or a personal page. Another explanation would be that a lot of them gives up on using Joomla because Joomla lacks two extremly necessary options for bloggers: the possibility to assign an article to more than one category or section and the integrated comments system.

Government, Science. These categories are yet another deception for us. Although Joomla offers numerous facilities for an information based website, the two categories hardly took one vote each. Maybe the small number of dedicated websites for these domains made it for these categories to come in last.

how to Making Money with your Joomla website

You can make money with Joomla Affiliate Programs. Many Joomla developers offers Joomla Affiliates Programs for thei services and give you commisions to promote their services. Here is a Joomla Affiliate Programs list.

RocketTheme - You will make 20% of every membership that is generated.

iJoomla - 20% of all sales you deliver. $9.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.

Alledia - $10.00 USD for all sales you deliver. $5.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.

JoomlArt - 20% of all sales you deliver. $100.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.

Phil Taylor - 20% of each sale delivered. £35.00 GBP - Minimum balance required for payout.

Shape 5 - 20% of each sale delivered. $100.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.

Joomlashack - 10% of all sales you deliver. $50.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.

BuyHttp - $25.00 USD for all sales you deliver. $100.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.

now, u can action !