Chapter 12 [ 337 ] 5. Click on Save and click on Preview. On the frontend of the website you'll see an RSS icon next to the text Feed Entries: Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Aracng Search Engine Trac: Tips and Techniques [ 338 ] Clicking on this link will take the visitor to a special page in their browser. Here's an example of how Firefox will display RSS feeds: What just happened? In Joomla!, you can add a Syndicaon link to any page (any menu item, really) that contains arcles intros (such as the home page or category overview pages). Joomla! will create a news feed for the page on which the module is displayed. The page will contain a feed link; through this, the visitor can subscribe to this news feed to keep up to date on any changes to your home page. Have a go hero – provide a newsletter service Do you want to explore other ways to present new content to your site visitors? You might want to consider introducing a newsleer service. You can have visitors subscribe to the newsleer to keep up to date with anything you're publishing about on your site. It's a great way to keep visitors interested and to increase site trac. In the Joomla! Extensions Directory, there are a great number of newsleer components. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 12 [ 339 ] Getting to know more about your site trafc In this chapter, you've focused on opmizing your site to get search engines to noce its contents and to ence people to read what you have to oer and to visit your site regularly. However, the best way to improve your sites visibility is to get to know your visitors really well. Where do they come from? What search words do they use to end up on your site? What are the arcles they favor, what me do they spend on your site, what are the links they follow, and where do they leave your site again? A really great (free) tool to help you discover all there is to know on your site trac is Google Analycs. Using Google Analycs will help you understand what makes your visitors ck, and can help you to beer adapt your content, the language, keywords you use, and even your choice of subjects to what your visitors care for. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Aracng Search Engine Trac: Tips and Techniques [ 340 ] It's easy to use Analycs to analyze Joomla! sites. It's free. These are the steps involved: make sure to get an account at www.googlemail.com, go to www.google.com/ analytics and sign up for this specic service. Add the domain you want to keep track of. Google will verify you're the domain owner (you'll have to upload a specic le to your site). In Joomla!, add a special code provided by Google to your template's HTML le enabling Google to start analyzing and keeping track of your site trac. To get a quick overview of the possibilies of Google Analycs, visit http://www.google.com/analytics/tour.html. Apart from this, there are very many helpful Analycs resources and tutorials—provided both by Google and others. More SEO resources Using your favorite search engine to do a Web search for "Joomla! SEO" will help you on your way when you want to know more about opmizaon techniques. You might also want to have a look at these sites: A tutorial on Joomla! SEO: www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-blog/top-10- joomla-seo-tips-for-google. Joomla! SEO blogs: http://seo4joomla.wordpress.com, www.alledia.com. Browse the SEO and Metadata and SEF categories of the Joomla extensions directory (http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions) to get an idea of the many extensions available to assist you on opmizing your sites search engine visibility. There's an exhausve book on Joomla! 1.5 SEO by Herbert Jan van Dinther available: see http://www.packtpub.com/joomla-1-5-search-engine-optimization-seo/book. Pop quiz – test your knowledge of Joomla! search engine optimization 1. What's the use of adding metadata descripons to the arcles of your website? a) Site visitors can quickly nd out what your site is all about. b) Search engines can display the descripons in their search output. c) They're not really useful, because search engines tend to ignore descripons. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 12 [ 341 ] 2. To be able to use Search Engine Friendly URLs: a) You have to rename Joomla! les on the web server. b) Check the appropriate SEO Sengs in the Global Conguraon (and maybe rename a le on the web server). c) You have to install a SEF Component. 3. What kind of links are important for SEO? a) Links from other sites to your site, and links from your site to other sites. b) Links within your site. c) Links to, from, and within your site. 4. The funcon of RSS feeds is: a) To increase trac by p roviding your visitors with an over view of the site's contents. b) To increase trac by allowing your visitors to subscribe to a newsleer. c) To increase trac by a llowing your visitors to su bscribe to recently added arcles. 5. What's the use of the Google Analycs tool? a) It allows you to analyze. b) You can't use Google Analycs with Joomla!. c) Using Google Analycs can increase trac to your site through Google Web searches. Summary In this chapter, we've covered some common sense Search Engine Opmizaon techniques that will help geng your site's contents picked up by search engines. The purpose of search engines is to give quick access to the most valuable, up- to-date, and relevant web content—so making sure your site contains that good content is really the best way to opmize your site's search engine visibility. In Joomla!, you can use several techniques to increase the visibility of your site's content for search engines. You can add global metadata to the site and arcle metadata keywords giving search engines specic informaon on the contents of individual pages. By enabling Search Engine Friendly URLs in Joomla!, the browser address bar will display readable URLs that match the content of the page instead of long and hard to decipher URLs. Using SEF URLs will make it easier for visitors and search engines to understand the contents of the page. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Aracng Search Engine Trac: Tips and Techniques [ 342 ] Linking is very important; it's good to link to other sites, and it's great if other sites link to your site. It's also essenal to add relevant internal links to your site. They make it easier for both visitors and search engines to nd your content. Joomla! allows you to automacally create internal hyperlinks; you can set all arcle tles to be hyperlinks to the main arcle text. You can also create lists of links to popular or recently updated arcles. You can use RSS Feeds to allow visitors to subscribe to your site news; feeds are also great to help search engines to discover any new content you add very quickly. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM . www.compassdesigns.net /joomla- blog/top-10- joomla- seo-tips-for-google. Joomla! SEO blogs: http://seo 4joomla. wordpress.com, www.alledia.com. Browse the SEO and Metadata and SEF categories of the Joomla extensions. you use, and even your choice of subjects to what your visitors care for. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Aracng Search Engine Trac: Tips and Techniques [ 340 ] It's easy to. search for " ;Joomla! SEO" will help you on your way when you want to know more about opmizaon techniques. You might also want to have a look at these sites: A tutorial on Joomla! SEO: