In todays SEO market if you mention the words “Joomla”, you will normally hear a groan from all the SEO’s standing within 20 metres. Well after a number of large Joomla projects I am beginning to see the light.

Joomla for those who don’t know is an out of the box open source content management system, and is arguably one of the best in the current market next to X-cart and OS commerce. So I thought I would pass on some SEO tips that I learnt over the course of a number of projects.

First of, Search engine friend URLs. By default Joomla has those nasty URLs which look something like this www.example.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=39 this is about as unfriendly to the search engines as it gets, but have no fear you can turn on “SEF support” and change the URL to something more friendly. This takes a bit of knowledge but the Joomla homepage has a massive support forum, and it easier than it first appears.

Next download sh404SEF Component. This allows you to rewrite tailor made URL strings, it also allows you to overwrite Joomla’s default meta, title, and keyword tags and tailor it to your SEO.

These are two of the biggest tips you will ever get when doing SEO on a Joomla site, but there are plenty more to learn, so if you need an expert look no further than SEO consult.