Joomla SEO Checklist

If you want to rank high in Google with your Joomla website, simply read the different articles in this checklist. It describes all phases in the SEO process, from keyword research to SEO audits and everything in between.

You can read the tutorials in sequence, or simply skip to the lesson that interests you most. Whether you are a beginner in Joomla or an experienced administrator, these tips should help you bigtime.

Keyword research & SEO copywriting

Keyword research is very important in SEO. Knowing your audience and which words they search for is key.

H1 - H6 headings

Make sure your content is structured with paragraphs. Split them in readable chunks using headings

URL structure

Priority one before you start filling your site: decide upon a proper URL structure for your site!

Internal link structure

Linking internally is the practice of creating links within the same website, building a hierarchy between the pages

URL configuration in Joomla

Creating easily understandable URL's for both humans and Google is very important: SEF URL's

Metadata: Page Title

The page title defines how your page looks in the Google SERP, making this an extremely important SEO parameter

Metadata: Meta description

The meta description, if set up correctly, is used by search engines as the snippet found in the SERP pages to describe a search result

Optimize anchor text

Optimizing you anchor text is important, especially for your own internal URL's

Optimize images for SEO

Google can not 'see' images, but it can read all it's properties and can use them to establish rankings for pages with images

www / non-www URL's

If your Joomla site is accessible both with and without a www-prefix you may suffer from duplicate content

Duplicate content issues

Like, the www or non-www issue, any kind of duplicate content in your site could be a hazard for your search engine rankings

301-redirects (Joomla core vs .htaccess)

Make sure you create redirects for Google when individual URL's change, or even your entire site

Avoid 404-errors

Make sure that people never end up with a meaningless 404 - Page not found error message. Especially the default Joomla page for this is very ugly

Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)

Once a site is published, you should always register your site with Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)

Joomla sitemap setup

Once your site is populated with data and pages you should create a sitemap AND submit it to Google / Bing, etc

Robots.txt + meta tag

The robots meta tag and the robots.txt file are 2 different mechanisms to pass information to search engines

Microdata & Structured data

The subject of Microdata is an advanced topic. Microdata are also called Rich Snippets or Structured Data

Local SEO / Google Mybusiness

Local SEO is a way of optimizing your own niche. Using Google My Business is an important part of this process

Linkbuilding & social media

Links are still a great way of earning SEO value, but things are not as easy as they used to be

SEO audit

After all your work, it is a good thing to verify that you did a good job by SEO auditing your site

Joomlaseo.com is fully built and written by Simon Kloostra, Joomla SEO Specialist and Webdesigner from the Netherlands. I have also published the Joomla 3 SEO & Performance SEO book. Next to that I also sometimes blog for companies like OStraining, TemplateMonster, SEMrush and others. On the monthly Joomla Community Magazine I have also published a few articles.

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