Joomla Versus Wordpress for SEO.

I get asked all the time which CMS platform is better for SEO, Joomla or Wordpress?

There's so much horseshit flying around on the web and it all basically boils down to - whatever Clown A is using is the best, without the need for justification.

So let's try and add a little bit of science to all this "mine is bigger than yours" nonsense.

Looking at the actual SEO parameters from the perspective of a relative newbie, and giving marks out of 5 -

URL/ File name formatting -
Both can be setup for optimized URL's without plugins. Joomla uses 'sections' and 'categories' to organize content and the section name and category name are used in the URL. Wordpress uses Permalinks. With Joomla, it's actually quite difficult to create a full file path without the page appearing to be in a subdirectory. Google gives more prominence to pages in the root directory and less as pages are one or two steps down.
Out of the box, without using plugins,
Wordpress 4
Joomla 3

Ease of setting up out-of-the-box SEO components -
Joomla - On some apache installations when you select the the 3 SEO parameters to 'yes' in global config, you'll need to manually login to your Cpanel or FTP and change htaccess.txt to .htaccess. This is made clear in the config but newbies may have trouble working with the htaccess files particularly as some programs class them as system files and you  may need to change your file permissions to see the file.

Wordpress - setting the Permalinks is easy enough but there's a LOT of conflicting information over which settings are best for SEO. WP doesn't make a recommendation inside the Admin, so you'll need to either just use one of the default options (not recommended) or go off and research the best settings, which could get you into even deeper trouble.
Wordpress 2
Joomla 4

Meta Tags (Title)
Joomla - Fairly intuitive in that the page title will appear as the Meta title on all pages with the exception of the Home page. Then it becomes a newbie nightmare trying to find out how to set the home page Title tag. You'll need to research it the first time, the key is within the menu default landing page setting, which is not at all intuitive.
Wordpress - pretty straightforward to set the page title tag, which is the actual title you've created for the page. But what if you want to use all 70 characters in the Meta Title tag? - it means you're going to have a long and ugly page file name. Also, the Title will appear at the top of every page above the content block, so unless you manually remove it from the theme page.php you're stuck with it.
Joomla 4
Wordpress 1

Meta Tags (description)
Joomla - simple to set the description tag on any page from with the page/content edit screen.
Wordpress - You can't set the Meta description Tag without a plugin. You can handball code into the header.php but it will be static from page to page. Not good.

Joomla 5
Wordpress 0

Meta Tags (Keywords)
Joomla - Easy to set on a page per page basis
Wordpress - You can't set the Meta keywords Tag without a plugin. You can handball code into the header.php but it will be static from page to page. Not good. Some say you don't even need a keywords tag, but some SE's still seem to use it.

Joomla 5
Wordpress 0

Heading Tags (H1, H2 etc)
(These are important for on-page SEO)
Easy enough in both. For Joomla I'd recommend you go to 'plugins' - 'TinyMCE' and click 'Extended'. This isn't installing a new plugin it's merely adding more features to the existing plugin and it will give you more page formatting options.

Alt Tags
Easy enough for both.

So with an out-of-the-box approach my vote goes to Joomla for SEO. (you can add up the scores if you want).

IMHO Joomla can get by without an SEO plugin, in fact I rarely use one unless I'm converting an old HTML site to Joomla and need to match the file structure.

Wordpress absolutely needs a Plugin, at which point the playing field is leveled.

I find myself doing more code-hacks when I'm working with WP than with Joomla. Getting that Title tage out of the page.php is standard when I'm doing a WP install.


There are other more in-depth areas of CMS SEO that I won't cover in detail. One is the order in which the page is read by the SE. You ideally want your 'content' area to be read first, followed by column/sidebar 1, then 2. I've had more success finding Joomla templates with an optimized layout than WP. But YMMV.

Disclaimer - more experienced users will find a way to work around the limitations of each, and will build up an arsenal of tips, tweaks, cheats - I've offered the above more aimed at newbies than experienced users.

And don't forget to consider having a great looking theme or template for your website. Artisteer offers quick and easy template / theme creation for both Joomla and Wordpress (along with others) so checkout an Artisteer review here

Generate Visitors from Web Content - The Effective Solution To Direct Traffic and Improved SEO / SERP's

We're tired of reading all the erroneous information circulating the web about link building and how throwing 30,000 spam links at your website is going to gain you favor with Google. We're also tired of reading all the misinformation about article marketing, article directory marketing, article syndication, article spinning etc etc etc.

We've road-tested various software products designed to supposedly ease the process of link building. These products are invariably designed to generate 'massive traffic' to your website via backlinks, yet they all fail in multiple different ways. But the type of failure they all share is the concept, the premise that throwing junk back links at a website is going to earn your site good SERP's.

We're also tired of all the 'junk', erroneous and downright misleading information which is circulating the various webmaster forums on article marketing. Most people do not really understand what article marketing is. They don't appreciate the difference between article syndication and article directory marketing. Many still believe that there's value from the back-links generated from having an article published in an article directory and that the directory will be a huge source of direct traffic. Some even 'spin' their articles and submit multiple spun versions of the same content to multiple Article Directories.

if some of the above describes you, don't worry, you're not alone. But clearly you need some help. We can do this in one of a number of different ways.

1 - We can provide you with the facts behind the above marketing strategies and show you how to do things the right way, or

2 - We can do it for you.

If you believe you have the in-house capability to implement an article marketing strategy which involves writing the content, formatting it for syndication, attracting syndicators, submitting direct to article directories, eZines and blog websites, generating backlinks to your own content to solidify it's status as 'original' content, then simply purchase our complete reference to article marketing and back-link building here.

If you prefer the hands-off approach, we can do all of the work for you with our service below.

The key points to our promotion service are -

A - we'll be building quality content on your website which is the one consistently required parameter throughout the history of SEO.

B - you'll receive quality votes from quality websites in the form of links back to your content pages

C - you'll receive syndication of your content - it will be placed on real niche websites who's visitors share a common interest, so you'll receive visits from real people who are interested in your products or services. This will increase your backlinks coming from themed sites and at the same time increase your base of non-search engine traffic thus helping to break your dependency on Google.

D - you'll receive ethical and white-hat back links from sites in your niche as well as the bigger high PR article directories and Web2.0 sites.

Reporting

- Submit detailed monthly report showing article websites submitted to.
- Submit 10 individual reports showing Web2.0 properties and backlinks. Each property will have login/password so you can visit and see the links.
- Submit screenshots for articles submitted for syndication and associated click traffic at the end of the month.
- Submit a ranking report showing target search terms. First initial report submitted after keyword list is agreed, with - subsequent reports at 7-10 day report intervals or as things change significantly.

Package Cost

$80 per article campaign.
Minimum 4 article campaigns per month

Terms

One month commitment required, then renewable at the same price. No contract, can be canceled any time.

Guarantee / Refund Policy

This is a labor intensive service and there are many factors affecting the outcome over which we have little or no control. We do not offer any placement guarantees and we do not offer full refunds on this service.

We use PayPal for fast and secure checkout. Use the 'Subscribe' button below. The service subscription price is $320 / mth

How to Get More Web Traffic

Your strategy for getting more web traffic will depend largely on -

A - Your Budget

B - Your skill level

C - Your industry (type of website)

D - Your time frame

Obviously a company with a large multi-thousand dollar marketing budget is going to approach traffic building strategies differently than a small company with more modest resources. This article is really geared towards smaller companies trying to develop web traffic on a shoestring budget.

Let's assume that for arguments sake you have fully built your website, have it hosted on a reliable host platform with a unique IP address, have covered basic on-page optimization steps, and you're ready to start marketing your 'finished' website. Let's also assume that you have a $500 initial budget and a $100 month ongoing budget and you do not have a particularly aggressive time frame for getting sales. In fact, lets state that with a budget in this region your traffic growth will more than likely be quite slow.

This will vary for everyone, but a possible approach to getting more web traffic on a modest budget could be as follows -

1. Create an Adwords account with Google and deposit $35.00 into your account. Using Google keywords tool, create a list of 25 of your search terms and setup bids avoiding the more generic and high cost search terms. Set a $35.00 monthly cap on your account so your spending is controlled and predictable. Install ad tracking so you can see how your investment with Google converts into sales or leads. Each month you'll need to sit down and asses your return on investment and decide if it's positive or not. You can switch off your spending after a couple months if you decide it isn't cost effective.
2. Do exactly the same thing at Yahoo Search Marketing. Create your account and use the same keyword phrases that you've setup with Google, and install Yahoo tracking to see how your clicks convert. After 2 months look at your Google and Yahoo results side by side and see what your true cost per click is on each, and what your real ROI is. You can then decide whether to keep both accounts active, close one, or close both. You may also decide to close one and transfer the budget from the closed account to the other open account. For example, you where spending $35 each month on each account ($70 total) and you found that Yahoo has a better conversion rate so you closed Google and increased your spend with Yahoo to $70/mth
3. Take $200.00 from your budget and use it to pay for an incoming link building service. Research the subject and look for those companies with real testimonials and who offer full reporting on where your links will be placed. Ensure that they place links only on sites from compatible industries and target at least a few high PR websites. Try to speak with a person before paying anything and be sure that they never post links on gaming/gambling sites etc.
4. Take $75 from your budget and find several industry website directories and pay to add your link into their database. Make sure that they use real links and not javascript links that won't create any link juice for you. Write different descriptions based around your primary keywords for each directory, so they don't look too canned.
5. If your website is regional, or if you think you can benefit from local traffic, join your local area Chamber of Commerce and pay for a website listing. These sites often command higher PR's and do well on local searches. You should expect to pay around $125 for a local directory listing, and will need to renew it each year. You could divide this by 12 in some instances and pay monthly or quarterly if you prefer.

At this point your $500 budget looks like so

$35 Google + $35 Yahoo + $200 link building + $75 directories + $125 Chamber = $470

So you're pretty much at your limit for the first round of investment but you can start to think about your next month strategy which should be split between some PPC ads on Google Yahoo and continued link building.

If you've found, as many people do, that the ROI from PPC is negative and you prefer to drop that expenditure entirely, then use some of the money to have articles written for your website. You should obviously be the primary source for written content, since you know your industry best, but sometimes the writing just dries up and it's OK to pay a company $25 or so to create a press release or article for your business. Make sure that any new content of this nature appears on your website first, then once you see it indexed by Google, you can add links into the article and submit it elsewhere. If you become more proficient at article writing and can turn them out at a good rate, you can reserve some unique first-time content for the better rated directory/article websites.

You can also spend some of your monthly budget on Press release distribution, as a means to building more web traffic. You won't gain a lot from this but it will help directly and indirectly.

After 3 months or so you should hopefully be able to increase your marketing budget and start to develop into other area's of marketing, perhaps some higher-level SEO or intensified link building campaigns.

If you haven't already, you might think about adding a blog or forum to your website, but think carefully about the format before you make the commitment. If your website gets very little traffic then a forum might create the wrong impression since there will be too few members and too few posts, and you'll look like one of the many abandoned websites out there. If your site has low traffic stats you can still create a blog and write more announcements about your trade/businesses which do not read as though they're trying to solicit a response from people. As your traffic builds you can change your writing style to encourage more visitor interaction. Bottom line is that a blog or a forum is a great way to build content and traffic, as are articles and reviews.

Here's a link to a website which receives around 800 visitors per day and has never spent a penny on marketing www.newaudiosociety.com They get all their traffic via an article/review database and an extensive forum. The forum alone raises the indexed page count from less than 100 to almost 2000 pages on the sitemap. There's a 'who's online' box on the homepage that shows typically from 15 - 75 visitors online at any one part of the day, and that number excludes traffic into the forum!

Continued from this page

Marketing a new website - considerations and advice pt II

So we were talking about DIY SEO versus DIFM SEO and covered the basic tools and skills needed to perform your own SEO at a rudimentary level.

Given that the theme of this article is really understanding what work is involved and how to prioritize it, we should talk about the basics of on-page SEO versus off-site SEO.

Let's be clear on this. On page SEO is performing optimization tasks on your actual web pages. Things like adding Meta tags, Heading tags etc, are all on-page optimization tasks.

Off-site SEO is basically the task of developing incoming links to your website. Which is most important? - That's fairly easy, off-site SEO will have a bigger impact on your rankings than anything you can do on your actual website. Of course this assumes that you have the basics in place on your website, like sufficient textual content, basic optimization techniques in place etc. Off-site SEO has an effectiveness rating of around 70%. That means that 70% of the influence on your rankings/positions in search engines like Google will come from what you do away from your website, and only 30% by the actual website itself.

Looking at off-site elements and primarily link-building, it basically comes under the following hierarchy, (all important but least important first) -

1. Any incoming link to your website from another website
2. An incoming link to your website with relevant link anchor text.
3. Any incoming link to your website from a higher PR rated website
4. An incoming link to your website from a higher PR rated website with relevant anchor text.

If the website pointing to you is also of a similar theme to yours then that will help too.

So as soon as you get your website live, and have taken the basic on-page steps for SE optimization, you need to start developing incoming links.

There are a few do's and don'ts to consider -

Avoid spammy sites that are completely off-topic. Casino websites, via**a sites and the usual junk.

Start out with directories, it's OK to occasionally pay for links but don't overdo it.

Mix up the link texts so they don't all look the same*

Reciprocal links are OK when it's requested, but one-way links have more value

Look for higher profile websites with good traffic and a good Google Page Rank

Keep working at it. Set a routine so you add a new link or two daily, and keep at it even when you feel that you're running out of places to go!

*Just a quick explanation on different link types -

This website is related primarily to Joomla Web Design Services. That search term is one of our most relevant. Having a link coming into us, as in #1 above might be like this -

Visit www.webdesigndoorcounty.com for Joomla web design services.

But having the keywords in the anchor link text would look like this -

Joomla Web Design Services

The latter would carry more juice, but remember to mix it up a little so it doesn't always read the same way. Remember that you can also link into a specific page with link anchor text relevant to the content of the page.

More on link building

Most people are confused at the importance of off-site SEO. How can what I do away from my website have more influence than what I do on my website? In basic terms, Google struggled in the early years trying to combat website owners who adopted all manner of techniques on their websites to try and improve page rankings. Then the brains at Google caught onto the simple idea that when people link to you, they are essentially casting a vote for you, pretty much like a recommendation. So they use this system heavily to rank websites, the more links, the more votes and the higher ranking. Of course as these things evolve, people find ways to manipulate the system, such as buying links in large volume. This is why we suggest that you do not focus your link building campaign on purchased links, Google is wise to this strategy and will penalize your efforts.