George Susini Joomla Tips 3 Must have plugins for your Joomla Site

Google Verify

Small Plugin to make Google Webmaster Tools site verification a bit easier. Works with the Meta Tag method and no template adjustements are needed. Download from the Joomla Site

Load the plugin click on the plugin in the plugin manager

1. On Google Webmaster Tools page, choose Meta Tag for verification type.
2. ONLY enter the numbers and letters between the “” (including = sign)into the plug-in.
3. Enable Plug-in. Save.
4. Click Verify on Google Webmaster tools. Verified and done!

Xmap

Xmap is a Site map generator component for Joomla, it’s based on the popular Joomap component. Xmap allows you to create a map of your site using the structure of your menus. Download from the Joomla Site

The key to xmap is you must create a menu item that points to xmap which will show up under internal links when you create a menu item. I always create the link in a menu I am not showing on my site

Once you create the menu link , choose xmap from the components menu, then choose options >> preferences this will show you the xml and html sitemap links.

Example: map: http://www.georgesusini.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml&no_html=1

To submit to google just enter the last part in webmaster tools

index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml&no_html=1

The last Module is Bigshot Google Analytics

This Plugin will add the Google Analytics Tracker Code to your site automagically. Download from the Joomla Site

Load the Plugin and enable it, under plugin manger choose the plugin and enter the UA- code from your Google Analytics  account. As an alternative, you can add the Google code to the index.php file in you template directory. Not the one in the root.

George Susini – Small Business Web Design, eCommerce, SEO and Social Networking

George Susini- Zen Cart SEO Tips

Many Small Business online store owners forget to use the feature in Zen Cart for Meta Tags. Zen Cart does a great job of SEO, but you can use “long tail keywords”  and more effective descriptions to obtain higher ranking in the search engines for your products.

1. In the admin go to Catalog >Categories / Products
2. Select your Category
3. In the list of products the icon on the left is for meta tags select that icon
4. Here you will be able to modify the title, description and keyword meta data

Here is the link to the tutorial from Zen Cart Site