5 secrets for optimizing your Joomla website for greater speed and more views

Joomla provides a dynamic platform for the creation and management of a plethora of website types. It is a bit more intricate as compared to WordPress and offers code-based customizations. As a result, the Joomla customization options are more in-depth and varied. It also makes optimization of a website for search engines a lot easier. Unlike many website builders and CMS platforms, Joomla offers multiple ways to optimize websites for the same result.

Research shows that leads that come from organic traffic have higher chances of conversion. Sadly, only about 29% of the visits of an average e-commerce site come from organic traffic flow. Organic traffic flow is when the users come directly from search engines instead of sponsored ads. This brings us to the next phase – optimizing a running Joomla website for the leading search engines.

Use Joomla extensions to speed things up

Google does not like to take things slow. Whether it is the new Fred updates or the sudden prioritization of page load speed among ranking factors, Google needs you to shake things up to stay trendy. Your website is probably loading in 6-7 seconds, and it is probably a treasure trove of information, but when was the last time you took a website speed test? Ideally, your visitors will wait for 3 seconds for your webpage to load or they will choose a competitor website over your website.

Speeding up any other website would have been a hassle, but with Joomla websites, boosting speed will take less than a second. You need to enable the Joomla Cache feature to relieve the database of unwanted data-load and old data. The lack of proper database management during and after ecommerce web development is one of the leading causes of increasing loading time.

Monitor your SEO progress

Larger company websites and seller sites employ expert SEO teams to optimize their websites for leading search engines including Google, Bing, and Yahoo. However, many of them do not follow up on their optimization efforts during the process. This can prove to be deleterious for your website.

Joomla websites eliminate the periods of uncertainty. Several SEO plugins can help the website owners monitor the progress. Search engine optimization efforts take time. Between the deployment of your new SEO strategy and increase in organic website traffic, you can check the effects of your new SEO strategies with the help of these plug-ins. They can show you the changes in traffic trends, improvement of CTR and conversion rates, the increase in dwell time and a decrease in bounce rate.

Getting rid of broken links and missing links

Links are among the top 3 factors that contribute to Google Page Rank. Inbound links and outbound links are equally crucial for SEO. You need to find the right balance of the different link types to optimize your site. Now, unlike UI, you cannot run A/B tests on your link building strategy. It is far too important to build domain authority by borrowing authority from other high-ranking sites via links.

Due to the changing landscape of Google Algorithms, many old and authoritative websites are going kaput. As a result, a large number of websites that bore outbound/inbound links to those websites is bearing the brunt. When websites go “missing” without a hint, the existing links to and from these websites become corrupt. Broken links can generate 404 errors, and these are red flags as far as search engine bots/crawlers are concerned.

You need a link monitoring system or auditing system that can keep track of your link profile. Tools like ScreamingFrog and Ahrefs Backlink Checker work fine for moderately sized websites. You can even check for broken links and 301 redirects using the same tools on your site. The secret to a healthy website is dedicated link analysis at least once a month. It is, of course, a lot easier for Joomla users since the builder comes with Link Checker and Joomla Backlink Checker extensions for every link monitoring need.

Optimize your CSS and JavaScript files

Multiple Joomla templates now come with a generous dose of CSS and JavaScript files. These make the templates fancier and highly functional, but how much of the codes are necessary? As the size of the files increases, the frequency of HTTP requests also increases. They take quite a bit of time to execute. Apart from slowing the site down, they can interrupt the smooth user experience (UX) that Joomla promises.

The first task in hand to improve your UX is to compress these files. You can run a detailed analysis with the help of your website management consultant or website development team to find out exactly how much of the code you need. In several cases, the free Joomla themes have code repetitions and fluff that do not contribute to the functioning of the site. Once you find out what is necessary, you can combine several sections of the code, combine several files into one or simply use the async attribute in the CSS/JS script for execution.

Check out the default Joomla Framework

The default Joomla framework provides filtering action to the user input. It is a highly flexible system that comes in an optimized format. It is in a constant state of evolution that keeps it suitable for the latest algorithm updates for Google. You can explore a wide range design features, built-in SEO features, content editing functions, easy CMS management and robust scale-up options. We know how tempting it can be to create your framework while assessing your website development needs, but the extensive built-in features assure every developer to stick to the core Framework.

Using Joomla gives you an edge in the race for organic traffic and visibility. This open source website builder has made sure that no website developer or digital entrepreneur has the option to ignore search engine optimization. Even the most basic templates from Joomla have features that command the attention of the leading search engines and their bots. Google loves websites that are light, simple, fast loading, intuitive and responsive. Joomla templates have all these qualities and more for any website developer. These websites are ready for the next generation mobile users who like to gather new information as well as order food from their mobile devices.