I write summary posts very rarely, but in the last few weeks I’ve read several great Joomla-related articles.
Its time to point you towards five really useful Joomla blog posts, one each on the topics of usability, performance, analytics, e-commerce and MySQL.
Continue reading “Five Really Useful Joomla Blog Posts”
Wow – its been six months since we launched our Joomla SEO Club. Back then I promised that one day, when enough time had passed to provide reliable data, we would post a detailed overview of our experience. Today, is that day.
Continue reading “Facts and Figures on the SEO Clubs First 6 Months”
For years, there has only been one option if you wanted to build a multilingual Joomla site.
Joom!fish is one of the most popular and widely-used extensions in the Joomlasphere and has a great team behind it, including Joomla core team members Alex Kempkens and Robin Muilwijk. Its recently been updated to work on Joomla 1.5.
Continue reading “A New Alternative to Joomfish on Joomla 1.5”
“Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can turn off all your income just by saying two words (?You?re fired?) sound like a safe and secure situation to you? Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having 10?” Steve Pavlina.
Not long ago a developer was told me that his wife wanted him to diversify away from Joomla. Not leave Joomla, just diversify. I’ve since talked with a lot of people who don’t seem to think its worth the effort.
She was right. Too many people who assume the Joomla gravy train will never end. It will. It might be next week or it might not be for many more years, but it will. You and I both need an exit plan. Relying on one income stream is dangerous, whether its a job or a website business.
Continue reading “What Joomla People Can Learn from Bear Sterns”
This is the answer to a question we’ve been asked repeatedly:
“I’m looking for a Joomla component that will allow me to change outbound links from direct urls into internal urls.“
Essentially they’re looking to change a link from http://www.bbc.co.uk to http://www.alledia.com/link/bbc/. The link still goes to the BBC, but it first goes to a url on the webmaster’s own site.
Continue reading “A Simple Way to Use Internal URLs for External Links”
Almost a year ago now (April 27th 2007) we covered the new color-switcher in Drupal’s Garland template.
It allowed you to either choose from one of sixteen default color sets, or to select your own colors for the site’s base, links, header and text. You can also upload and install a new logo and favicon directly from the same interface. My view was that:
"I doubt it will be long before we see a similar tool for Joomla. Making it easy for people to design and customize their own templates is a big step towards making software more attractive for non-techies.
Continue reading “Drupals Garland Theme Inspires JoomlaShack and Rockettheme”
Last month we mentioned that Joomla was asking for whitepapers suggesting improvements for Joomla 1.6. So we got together some smart folk and came up with some SEO proposals.
Thanks to everyone involved, and please head over to the Joomla forums to post your opinions about these various ideas.
As a Brit living in the U.S. I really know what George Bernard Shaw was talking about when he said we are “two countries divided by a common language”. Some of the things Americans say really don’t make much sense and I’m sure lots of Yanks think the same about us.
Thankfully our Extension of the Month for April is here to solve all those problems.
This blog has been live for about 18 months now and one of our users just hit a milestone … David from GoodWebPractices.com has 100 comments to articles here. He’s been a source of wonderful advice both on the blog and in the forums and its great to have him around.
David is also a blogger. There aren’t many people in the Joomla world who provide regular, high-quality posts. I can think of Barrie, Amy, Anthony and now its possible to include David as well. Make you subscribe to his RSS feed – its full of worthwhile Joomla tips and tricks.
Continue reading “First Member with 100 Comments Plus Free Membership and Tuition”
During conversations with clients over the last few months, one key question keeps coming up: "should I use Joomla 1.0 or Joomla 1.5?" In fact, I can trace the first time I was asked that question back to October 2006.
Now that 1.5 has officially launched, I tend to point the non-technically minded to 1.0 and those who don’t mind dealing with a few bugs to 1.5.
However, until this week I don’t think I’ve found a compelling reason for anyone to use 1.5 rather than 1.0. That may have changed:
Continue reading “phpBB3 Integration Can Be The Joomla 1.5 Killer App”
I recently came across a cool SEO tool:
SEO-Browser.com displays a website the way search engines view your site. The site is displayed with all images and formatting removed, leaving just the links, headings, and text.
Viewing a website the way the search engines do reminds us of and enforces the key elements of SEO.
I have used this tool to show clients how their web site looks to the search engines. Seeing your site as simply text demonstrates how important relevant text is.
Update: We now have classes all across North America. Click here for full details on our new Joomla Training site.Its been a long time coming, but I am very excited to be able to announce our first Joomla training event in the US. Its going to be the day after the Joomla EXPO 2008 in Chicago.
The EXPO is on Friday 16th of May, and the training is on Saturday the 17th. The classrooms are right next to the hotel where the EXPO is being held.
I’ll be there in person to give the training session and you’ll be able to follow up with me in the weeks after the event … all SEO training attendees get a free Site Review membership. We also have some great trainers for the other sessions, recognized leaders in education as well as Joomla. Book your spot soon as the places are very limited.