Too much meta info

Open up your website, right click, and view your source code. Look for the “meta name” lines.


meta name="keywords" content="keyword, another keyword, more keywords"


meta name="description" content="This is your meta description field. It will be made up of 156 or less characters and will be what you see in Google search results so make it perfect."


These are the most important meta tags you can have on your site. They must be different for every page on your site, they must not include your site name, and they need to be skillfully written to include keywords representing what your single webpage is about. If you use the same meta description for every single page, Google might not rank you properly or can potentially penalize you. Proper SEO is a whole other topic we will talk about in the future. If you want some quick tips and solutions for SEO in your Joomla site, try out our SEO extension. Now, let’s get back to meta tags.
Joomla loves adding additional meta information. Every single Joomla install you do will have this tag automatically added to your site.


meta name="generator" content="Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management"


This is a largely useless tag, used mostly to advertise Joomla. You can remove it by using a plugin or by adding a small bit of code to your site. You can read about how do do that in this blog post.
There are about a million different meta tags you can use in a website. Make sure to use only the ones you absolutely need, and if you aren’t using one, take it out. Do you want an easy way to edit all your Joomla meta tags at once? Try our extension.

Keeping your < head > clear

The < head > element of your source code is the place where a lot of stuff is going on. You will see meta information, references to css, stylesheets, javascript files, Google tracking code and a variety of other things beyond the scope of this article. This area can quickly get bloated and out of control. If your < head > area has 500 lines of code inside of it, you are doing something wrong. Webpages will load slower, Google will have more troubles scanning and indexing your site, and compliance will most likely be shot as well. Try to keep things tidy, and having a solid understanding of what is in the < head > area of your website is infinitely valuable.

Too much bling

When building a website it is easy to get caught up in fancy sliders and widgets and tabs and lightboxes and flippy things. They look pretty, and in many cases help display content on your site. The down side is code bloat. Look at this example:

What is wrong here?

Lines 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 are all calling some sort of javascript. The problem is 1,2,& 3 are calling the same code but in different locations. This means every single time you load your website, you are executing 3 identical chunks of code. This will make a massive impact on your page load speed, as well as potentially conflict with your website, preventing your fancy effects from even working.

What else is wrong?

You can also see in this example that jquery is being loaded two times at once. Frequently jQuery and MooTools will conflict with each other causing all sorts of headaches. When possible, try to stick with one form of javascript or the other. Running both on your site is code bloat. When looking for extensions, try to make sure you always use the same library. It will be better for you in the long run.

Do you have any tips or pet peeves?

These are some of my pet peeves for a clean Joomla site. What do you do to keep your site clean, fast and efficient?

iJoomla News Portal

1. Control the number of characters shown, regardless of the “read more” tag;
2. Choose the alignment of the image, regardless of the alignment of the image in the article;
3. Choose the padding of the image and the size displayed;
4. Place a light border around each feature;
5. Align the features on both columns.

With iJoomla News Portal it was easy!

A clean features page

We removed all the zone tags from category layout. We played with the top zone until it was just right. We replaced the words “top zone” with “features” in the language area on the backend. And we copied the feature category menu item to the main menu.

That’s it!

Here’s a video that explains how we did it:

[vimeo width=”550″ height=”309″]http://vimeo.com/16740619[/vimeo]

If you don’t have iJoomla News Portal yet, you can find out more about it here.

We added this feature after we had a specific need for our new websites. We wanted to have a “related articles” module at the end of all the articles in our “features,” “FAQ” and “videos” categories. We didn’t want to use a module because we would have had to assign it based on menu items and not based on the categories. We also wanted to make sure that the related articles shown were really related, so we used iJoomla SEO to enter the keyword metatags for each.

Now you can add sidebars to the end of articles automatically

The video below explains how we did it. We’re happy with the result.

[vimeo width=”600″ height=”400″]http://vimeo.com/16740568[/vimeo]

Now you can upgrade iJoomla SideBars and enjoy this feature as well. If you don’t have iJoomla SideBars yet, you can learn more about it here.

iJoomla News Portal creates 3 menu in your Joomla! site: News Portal Content, News Portal Categories and News Portal Sections.

In order to rebuild the menu items included in these menus, follow these steps:

1. Delete all the menu items included in News Portal Content menu
   1. Menus->News Portal Content
   2. Check all menu items
   3. Delete
2. Delete all the menu items included in News Portal Categorie menu
   1. Menus->News Portal Content
   2. Check all menu items
   3. Delete
3. Delete all the menu items included in News Portal Sections menu
   1. Menus->News Portal Content
   2. Check all menu items
   3. Delete
4. Delete the items from the menu trash too ( important).
   1. Menu-> Menu trash
   2. Check all menu items
   3. Delete
5. Now you need to save each of the content managers on news portal to rebuild the menu items
   1. Go to iJoomla News Portal -> Managers Content.
   2. Click on Sections to access the sections manager, click SAVE
   3. Click on Categories to access the sections manager, click SAVE
   4. Click on Content Items to access the sections manager, click SAVE

   Easy eh?

That’s really bad news. For developers like me, the toolbar has been a huge timesaver. This is what it does:

• Reveals the CSS of any web page. Click anything on the page and you can see the CSS behind it. That’s extremely useful if you need to make changes to the CSS and don’t want to waste time plowing through the code. The toolbar shows you the CSS file name, the row and the code itself.
• Displays your form password. I do recommend you use Splash ID to store your password information but the toolbar has been great for those of us with memories like sieves.
• Shows locations of any images on the page. So no searching if you need to replace an image or modify it – like your Joomla template’s logo, for example.
• Displays the source code of a specific element on the page.
• Shows the cookies so that you can edit them.
• Lets you disable different elements on the page including CSS, JavaScript and many others.
• And a whole lot more!

So when I saw that my Web Developer toolbar was missing, I was less than happy!

The weird thing was that I could see it on my list of add-ons. When I went to Tools-> Add-Ons in the top menu, there it was. I uninstalled and reinstalled but nothing helped.

So I searched on Google… and found that I could access the toolbar by going to Tools->Web Developer. But now instead of having to click twice, I have to click four times! That’s not very user-friendly. The good news is that this issue can easily be fixed.

Here’s how you fix it:

1. Right-click anywhere Firefox top area.
2. Choose “customize.”
3. Click “Restore Default Set.”
4. Choose “Show Icons & Text”  (That’s the settings I use because it’s easier to both read and see the icon; you might prefer just icons).

Or

1. Right-click anywhere Firefox top area.
2. Select Web Developer from the drop down menu to check it

And that’s it! Your Web Developer Toolbar will be back where it belongs. Well…at least until the next Firefox upgrade.

• Who’s friends with whom
• Who joined which group
• Who commented on what
• Etc.

It’s been very distracting to see all this instead of what I was really interested in:  my friends “status updates”. If this has been bugging you as well, here is how fix this issue:

1. Go to facebook home (click the home tab on top).
2. Under the logo, on the left you will see a list of things you see on the home page
3. Under it you will see “more” link, click on that
4. Find the “Status Updates” button and drag it all the way up so that it’s the first
5. Click on it, make sure it’s highlighted ( it should be dark blue instead of light gray)
6. Done. Now you will only see status updates of your friends

It puzzles me why facebook doesn’t make it easier for us to get our home page just the way we want it. They should have a way for us to check/uncheck all the features we want to see on the home page. The more we use an application, the more control we want over what we see/don’t see. Since Facebook Now Consumes 5 Percent of Our Collective Internet Time, such control, that’s also easy to understand, is very important.

For entrepreneurs, business owners and managers who use Elance.com, those days are over. I’ve been using Elance for almost eight years, and it’s changed my life.

Outsourcing through Elance has allowed me to start my own businesses online and with a very small budget, and expand at a rate that I could afford. I’ve created three companies with the help of the talent I found on Elance and I consider it an essential tool for success.

These are the benefits that I’m getting out of using Elance:

1. No office politics and no drama.
   When you work by yourself, you can focus on managing work instead of massaging egos.
2. Short meetings.
   I spend maybe 5-10 minutes a day on Skype meetings with my developers. Shorter meetings means more time getting things done.
3. Easy firings.
   If someone doesn’t do a good job, I simply don’t hire them again. That’s much easier than handing out a P45 to someone who works with you at the same office.
4. I get to be picky.
   When I post a project and get dozens of bids, I can be as choosy as I want to be and hire only the best talent.
5. I get a lot more done.
   I hire people to help me with the dull, time-consuming stuff, so that I can focus on my highest income producing activities. For me, that’s product development and marketing.
6. Working with talent around the world is fun!
   I’ve had the opportunity to virtually meet and work with a number of great, talented people from across the globe.
7. I’m free to make my own schedule.
   I can punch 16 hours on one day, and then put in just one or two hours on another day. And if I don’t feel like working, I don’t need to call in sick. I get to choose my time off.

There is an art to outsourcing though. I’ve learned to identify which types of work fit suppliers from which countries best. And, in time,  I got better at hiring the right people.

When there is so much talent available at my fingertips, I can achieve more and save more, giving me more time and money to invest back in my companies. To me, Elance has meant a much better lifestyle,  an upgrade to first class. If you’re looking to start working at home either as “talent for hire” or a “buyer”, Elance is your new best friend.

Special thanks to Tina and Giles for helping me create this video, we all had a great time!

Merav Knafo
Founder
iJoomla.com

meravkn @ elance.com

Contact me at merav @ ijoomla.com

And that’s why as our products evolve, I’m constantly looking for ways to integrate them. Two obvious combinations are the iJoomla News Portal and iJoomla Ad Agency, and iJoomla Ad Agency and iJoomla SideBars.

News portals, which can earn you income by selling advertising next to the content rather than by pushing products, really should be using iJoomla Ad Agency. It makes earning money from advertising very simple and it’s extremely powerful. You can place those ads in any module position and, for a more complete integration, you can put them right in your news portal layout.

Combine the Ad Agency with SideBars, and you can even put those ads right inside your articles!

Recently, we made the Ad Agency even better by allowing publishers to add an image to a text ad. We call it “Facebook-style” because the ads are similar to Facebook’s neatly optimized units. Because they look like a part of your site and not like ads, they get more clicks. Now you can earn even more cash by adding these Facebook-style ads to your news portal too.

Here’s a video that explains how to place an Ad Agency zone containing our Facebook-style ads right inside your News Portal layout:

And here’s a video that explains how to create an Ad Agency sidebar:

If you don’t have these combo extensions, then check out our packages. You’ll be able to pick up a $10 discount for each product.

Do you have any creative ideas to make our extensions work together — or even with third party extensions? Post them here.

How to replace your favicon video Video summery:

1. Create an image for the favicon, the width and height should be the same
2. Go to http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ and upload your icon
3. Download the favicon and save it on your computer
4. Find out where the image is located on your server
5. If you don’t already have it, download and install Firefox and the “Web Developer Tool Bar“
6. Find the location of the image
7. If you don’t already have it, download and install extplorer extension on your Joomla admin
8. Find and replace the icon
9. Go to front end and refresh the page(CTRL + F5) to clear cache

Alledia.com really are experts at SEO for Joomla, so when they talk search engines, we listen. 

1) Don’t install any sample data when you set up a Joomla! site.

When you launch your Joomla! Site, it’s very easy to forget to delete all the demo articles that come with it. That will give you pages, links and newsfeeds that are irrelevant to your topic. Delete your sample data and don’t forget to empty your trash as well!

2) Your Site Name should be your site’s name.

There can be a temptation to cram as many keywords as possible into the “Site Name” field. It doesn’t help and when users register at your site, they get an email saying “Welcome to Widgets, Buy Widgets, Cheap Widgets, Bargain Widgets!” You don’t want that.

3) Turn off your PDF links.

When we analyze Joomla! Sites, we often find PDFs ranking higher than the original pages. Because PDF pages have no menu links, they’re a dead-end. Users can’t move from the PDF to the rest of your site. So turn off those links.

4) Don’t waste your site’s link juice with lots of social bookmarking links.

Lets face it, very few pages have a chance to hit the Digg home page or do well on Reddit, so only place those buttons on your best articles. Your visitors appreciate clean, uncluttered pages — and so do search engines.

5) Redirect the www and non-www versions of your site to the same place.

All you need to do is add this little piece of code to your .htaccess file. Note: Replace MyDomain with your domain name and .com with your domain extension.

6) Turn on your cache.

Search in Google and you’ll see a size for each site. Smaller, faster sites are more popular with visitors and with Google. One easy way to make your site act small and load faster is to turn on your cache in Global Configuration.

7) Enter a full description for all your sections and categories.

These pages are great for organizing your site… and for improving Page Rank. If you organize your sections and categories carefully, your site becomes very easy for both people and search-engine spiders to navigate.

8) Less is often more

Having thousands of Joomla! pages indexed in Google isn’t always a good thing, especially if those pages don’t bring value. Some components, for example, can produce lots of extra pages that are completely worthless. One easy way to check if your site is putting garbage on Google is to search for site:mydomain.com. If you find pages that don’t have good content, you might want to remove them.

9) Empty your global configuration metadata.

I’m sure you’re all big fans of Joomla!, but I’m equally sure that “Joomla! – the dynamic portal engine and content management system” doesn’t describe your site. Take it out.

10) Be confident.

Joomla! is fantastic software that allows you to easily create lots of high quality pages that are great for your SEO. If you keep a close eye on your site and take the time to learn how Joomla! works, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have top-flight search engine rankings!

Need more SEO advice?