15 Tips To Use Joomla
As the second most popular content management system in the world, Joomla has proven itself to be a trusted and powerful resource for anyone looking to publish content online. While Joomla already comes equipped with a number of amazing features, why not get the most out of this free and open-source CMS? Why not switch to Joomla?
While that may sound easier said than done, it’s not as hard as it seems if you use the following 15 tips for your Joomla website.
1. Enable Joomla Cache
If you want to improve the experience of your visitors – and help conversion rates and increase search rankings – then one of the best places to start is by boosting the speed of your website. One of the easiest ways to do this is by enabling cache. This stores the data for your site in user’s browser – which means all of the modules, extensions, and components on your site won’t have to load every time your visitors land on your site.
To enable cache, you can either change the setting to either Conservative or Progressive in your Global Configuration section or install an extension like CacheControl, JotCache or Cache Cleaner.
2. Enable Search Friendly URLs
If you want to improve your search rankings, then you want to make sure your site contains a search-friendly URL. Usually this is done by renaming the htacces.txt file. Because this may require a little bit of technical skill, you should review the following Joomla document to do this effectively.
3. Gzip Compression
Another way to improve the speed of your site is by compressing it. When you enable Gzip, the files on your site are compressed into a zip file, which will reduce the page file size and make it load faster. You can enable Gzip by simply going into Global Configuration and turning on Gzip Page Compression in the Server Settings.
4. Add Article Title to Read More Link
If your want to be more descriptive on your site, then consider adding article titles instead of just the generic “read more” text. This can be easily accomplished in the Article Management area:
Set it on your menu item:
Go to Menu management
Edit the menu item
Go to tab Advanced Options
Set “Show readmore” to Show
Set “Show title with readmore” to Show
Set it on Article management Options:
Go to Article management Options
Go to tab Articles
Set “Show readmore” to Show
Set “Show title with readmore” to Show
5. Keep Your Site Clean
While extensions can come in handy, you want to make sure you don’t get carried away. Having too many extensions on your site can slow it down – which will not make your visitors happy. Besides selecting only essential extensions for your site, you also may want to remove the extensions that are no longer needed.
You can painlessly remove extensions by following these steps:
Select “Extensions” and then “Extension Manager” from the dropdown menu
Select “Manage” on the left menu (3.0) or on the menu below the title “Extension Manager: Manage” (2.5)
Select the type of extension you wish to uninstall. You will have the choice between Components, Files, Modules, Plugins, Languages, and Templates.
Find the extension you wish to uninstall and check the checkbox to the left of the extension title.
Press “Uninstall” In the upper-right corner of the screen (2.5) or on below the title “Extension Manager: Manage” (3.0)
6. Install JCE Editor
If you’re looking to create and edit your content without having to worry about having the technical skills, you can utilize the JCE Editor. With this component you can do tasks like formatting; upload, rename, delete, cut/copy/paste images; create links in your site to Sections, Categories, Articles, Weblinks and Contacts; and an integrated spell checker.
7. Optimize Images
While images can add a little jazz to your content, they can also slow down your site. To prevent this from happening, make sure you use images only as needed and keep them at an appropriate size. You can change the size of your images by using tools like Smush.it or TinyPNG.
8. Use Alt Tags
Speaking of keeping your images optimized, you’ll want to include descriptive text in your images – usually 4-8 words and at least one keyword. Not only will these Alt tags be seen by your visitors, they’ll also improve your search rankings since it will make crawling your site easier.
Since you’ve already downloaded the JCE editor, you can use that to add Alt tags and scale the dimensions of your images.
9. Optimize CSS Javascript
Since your site is bound to contain a fair amount of CSS and Javascript files, you’ll want to compress these files so your site will load quickly. You can remove these excess codes by using an Extension like JCH Optimize or a template like T3 Framework.
10. Use a CDN
A CDN (content delivery network), as defined by The Joomla! Community Magazine, “is a system of servers located around the world that serves images, CSS, Javascript and other file types to the site visitor.” This will help keep your site’s loading time at a favorable level, which will increase the experience of your users.
Some of the more popular CDNs for Joomla include CDN for Joomla by No Number, jomCDN by Core PHP and JA Amazon S3 by Joomlart.
11. Manage Meta Data
As you’re probably aware, meta keywords tags are still a big deal. To make your life easier, you can use a tool like SEO Boss to manage and monitor all of your meta data from one convenient interface.
12. Be Optimized For Mobile
While Joomla is already optimized for mobile devices, you still want to make sure that it’s at the appropriate speed. You can use PageSpeed Insights to check the speed of your site and utilize tools like NoNumber Adv anced Module Manager to make any needed changes for mobile users.
13. Install Xmap
Xmap is a powerful Extension that allows you to create XML and HTML sitemaps for your Joomla site. Not only does this component give you the ability to generate XML sitemaps that are compatible with Google and Bing, it also give you statistical information regarding your site.
14. Choose www. or non-www. and Redirect
Unlike WordPress, Joomla will not redirect your site to either the www. or non-www. version. To correct this problem, just simply add the following code into your .htaccess file:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
15. How to View Module Positions
As described by Brad Markle on InMotion Hosting, “The location a module shows up on a page is determined by the position the module is set to. For example, if you have a module position within your template named footer-1, to place a module there you will have to set the module’s position to footer-1. Likewise, setting a module’s position to position-7 will most likely place the module in your template’s sidebar.”
To view the module positions of any page, you’ll want to do the following:
In the administrative backend go to Extensions->Template Manager. Click on Options and set Preview Module Positions to Enabled.
Navigate to the website page you wish to see the module positions for in your web browser.
Click into the URL field in your browser.
Look for any “parameters” at the end of the URL. These are separated from the main part of the URL by a question mark. For example, in the URL http://mydomain.com/index.php?id=17, the “id=17″ is a parameter.
If there are no parameters, append “?tp=1″ to the URL and press RETURN. For example, http://mydomain.com/index.php?tp=1.
If there are already parameters in the URL, append “&tp=1″ to the URL and press RETURN. For example, http://mydomain.com/index.php?id=17&a....
The module positions will be outlined in red
Joomla is one of the most popular CMS available today, and with good reason! These tips will help make sure you get the most out of their platform.
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