The Search Engines

For the 4 weeks ending October 3rd, 2009 Google owned 71.08% of US searches. Yahoo was 16.38%, Bing 8.96% and Ask was 2.56% according to Experian Hitwise. So it is quite clear where you put most of your focus and energy in terms of search engine optimization. Not that you should totally ignore Yahoo or Bing, but start with Google

What are your choices when looking for a Joomla Template Maker? Are you a subscriber to Joomla template clubs, but are looking for a way to produce Joomla templates yourself? Are you getting requests to build templates from a designer's Photoshop file? Well there is good news. You have options.

Point & Click Templates with Artisteer 2

Artisteer has created very cool tool to build Joomla templates. (as well as Wordpress, Drupal, DotNetNuke, and Blogger). Plus you do not need to use Photoshop or Dreamweaver (but it helps). This tool can be used by anyone. You don't need a lick of programming or template development knowledge. The templates are yours, you own the design. The only caveat is that you can not sell the templates if you include Artisteer photo objects within your header (Header -> Foreground Photo), as those photos are licensed from a third party for your own use or in your consulting work. You must use your own images if you decide to sell templates produced with Artisteer.

Artisteer offers "suggested" designs so you can easily just slide through different layouts, backgrounds, headers, color schemes, widths, fonts, etc. Any novice could easily produce a template using the built in design assets (images, layouts, etc) and export it as a Joomla 1.5 template zip file. It installs exactly like a commercial template with the Joomla installer.

Joomla Community on Twitter

The hot trend that we see right now is Website SEO Analysis. Look at this Google Insight graph since 2004. It is not good enough for most businesses to have a nice website as a brochure, as a online store or blog. Businesses want more targeted traffic and to improve their search engine results page (SERPs) position. Most experts agree that it is important to show up on page one of Google or other search engine pages for given search terms.

But many businesses struggle and are not satisfied with their search engine optimization or their SERPs. They may have even hired "SEO Experts" to help tweak their site to improve search results. But they are still not getting the results they desire. Why is this? There are a number of potential reasons. The only way to get to the bottom of this is with good website SEO analysis. A great deal of research and review must be performed before "action".

Many companies decide to use Joomla as a website platform (after market research) and then start the process of looking for a Joomla Development Services provider. They discover that Joomla is a leading content management system that delivers dynamic content, database functionality, multiple levels of user content access and control and WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) content creation and editing. But this is just the beginning, here are our top 10 reasons to use Joomla as a platform for your business website.

1. FREE Open Source Core Code
   A zero cost basis for amazing site code and functionality. It is open source, so it is open to modify and add features to the core code. It is developed by an excellent group of worldwide core programmers
   
   
2. Hundreds of Developers
   Many times a month, we talk with potential clients who have websites that are built on a proprietory code base. If the original website developer goes out of business or has a strained relationship with the client, then getting changes/upgrades or anything done is nearly impossible. Joomla is free open source and there are hundreds of developers who can pick up a project and assist the client. Nothing proprietary.
   

How To Choose a Joomla Developer

Many web design people claim to specialize in Joomla Development Services. Just do a Google search for Joomla Development Services. You will see a wide array of results with many companies/people positioning themselves as Joomla professionals and promise great results. But what should you look for? What should you be cautious of?

Joomla is a Great Choice
First, if you are considering an open source content management system like Joomla to use for a website development project, congratulations. You have chosen an excellent platform to build a dynamic, extensible, powerful, fast and easy to manage website. There are many reasons to choose Joomla:

• FREE & Open Source
• Easy to Modify the Code Base
• Thousands of Joomla Addons, Plugins and Templates
• Large Network of Developers
• Works for Corporate, Blogs, E-commerce
• Easy for Website Owner to Update Content

But this is not a "Why Joomla" article. This is all about Joomla Development Services.

What can Woopra Real Time Analytics do for me, you might ask? If you are a blogger or major content provider, or even tracking a promotion on an ecommerce website, it can help you make real time adjustments or help build an ongoing strategy. I say this because there are plenty of good analytics solutions available.  We utilize Google Analytics on every website and blog that we build for our clients. But Woopra is REAL TIME and can assist you in understanding traffic metrics for blog posts, content or promotions the same day that the content goes up! It also allows you produce custom reports and take a deep look at analytics as well. And Woopra, which is in beta, is free!

Wordpress is a amazing application for building blog websites, but what about a Joomla Blog? Is Joomla 1.5 a good system for building a blogging website? There are many debates rolling around the Internet about Wordpress vs. Joomla for blogging and Joomla vs. Wordpress for content management system websites (CMS). One great blog post is to read is 5 Reasons You Should Use Joomla Instead if Wordpress. While the article is not aimed at blogging per se, it does raise some good points about expansion, customization and extensibility.

We build both Wordpress & Joomla blog websites. We use the correct tool for the job. If a client wants a straight blog without many future enhancements or is interested in a Third Party Blog, we will always choose Wordpress. If the client needs a corporate or marketing website with functionality (like ecommerce, multiple templates, social networking, forms, forums etc) AND a blog, we will always choose Joomla. This very blog post you are reading is just that, a blog on a Joomla business website for our company, s-go Consulting.

When s-go Consulting we builds any Joomla website for a client, we use a standard set of Joomla plug-ins and add-ons. Most have been used on 150+ client websites (including our own) and are tied and true. Whether we are building a standard business content management website, e-commerce website using a Joomla component like Virtuemart or a Joomla based blog, we install our favorites.

JCE Editor Component
This Joomla editor just keeps getting better and better.  It is especially handy for our clients who do some of their own content management. It is a huge improvement in terms of features and functions over the core TinyMCE editor built into Joomla. While the editor is free, everyone should subscribe for $30 ($20 for renewals) and get access to additional powerful plug-ins. Subscription plug-ins include Image Manager Extended, File Manager and Media Manager. We use this on every site.

Xmap
An absolute 100% install on every site.  This component provides on an on-page site map as well as sitemap XML for submission to Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Vesion 1.2.2 now comes with 21 pre-installed extensions to help map other components.

Youth sports play a big role in the community where I live as well as when I was growing up. Things are different now though. The private youth association, staffed by volunteers, funds, promotes, coaches and manages youth sports up to high school. The school no longer funds or manages these sports.  These youth associations work hard to sponsor safe, healthy sports activities for the youth. They strive to promote physical, emotional, and social development in the youth of their communities.

The Spencer – Van Etten Youth Association (SVEYA) approached s-go Consulting about building a new website to better support local families and the youth who participate. The website that they had been managing was straight HTML and becoming hard for them to manage and update. It was old school. We proposed a new Joomla website with fast loading pages, a simple clean interface and easy navigation.  SVEYA manages baseball, basketball, cheerleading, football, soccer, softball and wrestling. We also looked at youth association websites from other communities for ideas.

Joomla Template
We decided to design our own clean template using Artisteer. We have developed a very Web 2.0, simple base template and we make modifications in Artisteer specific to the client, before we install the template. We then did further modification of the template in CSS once content was created and all functional components was configured.

There are many automated tools on the web today that will give you website statistics, rankings, analytics and other feedback. Most website owners want better SEO-search engine optimisation, but they don't know how to interpret raw analytical data or statistics and all they want is to take action to improve their search engine ranking and website traffic.

s-go Consulting now offers Free SEO Analysis for your website or blog, with a report generated by a human SEO expert using terms that you will understand.

We stole a line from software developers, "software is never done". We use the same phrase for SEO, "SEO is never done". One of the most difficult aspects of proposing a website statement of work is the "bolt on" cost of high quality, professional SEO implentation and the on-going expense. For many clients, they simply can't justify the cost in financial terms, although in reality, this is backwards. Our proposals should pitch the cost of good SEO implemenation first, and then if you can afford it we will build out some content. Because the fact is, you can have the most gorgeous, hip, trendy, award winning site design and content but if no one visits it, who cares?

We always include a baseline of SEO implementation in every site proposal. It is included in our cost structure. But this is just the foundation for a great SEO strategy. The actual hard work is an ongoing plan of core SEO disciplines around keyword research, quality linking execution, social media network building and ongoing site optimization. (and much more) There is simply no quick and dirty way to do it right. And this takes time which = $cost.

One of our services, Third Party Blogs, is all about this. By their very nature, Third Party Blogs are not corporate sites or ecommerce stores, but blog sites that are designed to do SEO properly around a particular marketplace. They are intended to build indexing and traffic quickly, thus providing options for linking to other sites such as a corporate site or store. Every bit of energy in building the blog goes into SEO success.

The majority of our projects are open source CMS sites using Joomla or other apps. Functional corporate and ecommerce sites are still our bread winners. And we are very keen on optimizing those for great SEO. But I put this challenge out to anyone who is looking to build a new business/corporate website and is speaking with developers or building an RFQ. Establish your SEO goals and expectations. Then put that first on your list or in your RFQ. Think about the actual site content second. It will pay off in the long run.

As a very busy web developer and marketing guy, I rarely have time to do anything extra, like call my Mom, spend time with my children or play golf. There does not seem to be enough time in the day to develop, support clients, run my business, collect money etc. Then along came social media networking. Like I have time to "tweet" about my weekend or some trending topic. Like I have time to build a Facebook page and associate with people coming out of the woodwork from my past. Like I have time to write a blog about relevant industry topics or supporting new services we offer.

But then a funny thing happened. I reluctantly "tried" the Facebook thing. And I liked it. It was, well addicting. But I did not yet "get" Twitter. Then I tried Twitter. Then I started learning from insightful tweets.  I bookmarked blog after blog. I watched podcasts. I started commenting on blogs!

s-go Consulting now offering Third Party Blogs! We blog for you!

This Wordpress blog offers insight on a cool, low stress way for you to own a blog and reap the benefits without doing the work. WE WRITE THE BLOG POSTS FOR YOU! The concept is to create a highly indexed blog with chosen keywords to drive traffic to your blog and other websites!

This service can be part of an overall SEO strategy.

s-go Consulting has finished the new Tioga County, NY Tourism site and it is now live! The site is built using Joomla and is the second rebuild by s-go Consulting. The first Joomla site was developed by s-go in February 2006. The new site includes an online store for purchasing local items!