5 best practices we use in our Joomla builds.
We have started to standardise certain practices on all our Joomla builds. These are aimed to increase security, usability and seo of the site.
1. Enable SEF. This is to provide search engine friendly URLS that is human readable and also better for Search engine optimisation rather than Joomla’s default cryptic URLs. Joomla 1.5 provides powerful seo features out of the box. They can easily enabled via the admin panel and making some simple changes to the .htaccess file.
2. Install Xmap sitemap generator: It is important to publish a sitemap file that lists all pages on the joomla site for SEO. Sitemaps can be of two types. One is a sitemap for visitors to easily find relevant content on the site. The other is a XML sitemap that is provided to google and other search engines. Think of this as a machine readable list of pages on your site. Google and other search engines will poll this sitemap page to look for changes on your site. When you add content to your site, this sitemap is automatically updated. Xmap site generator provides both human readable and XML sitemaps.
3. Install jSecure Authentication: Anyone can know you are using joomla by trying to access your administration page login which is by defacut www.yoursite.com/administrator/ . You can prevent potential hack attempts by changing the default administrator page URL by adding a secure keyword to it. By using jSecure Authentication you are able to change the default admin URL to something like www.yoursite.com/administrator/?secure-key-word .
4. Install JoomlaPack Backup Component: This joomla component allows to take a full backup of you joomla site that includes all joomla files and databases. It would be good practice to take frequent backups and keep copies on your local computer. As well, take backups before making any update to the site including installing a new component.
5. Custom corporate branded admin login page: It is would be nice touch for your admin page to have a custom branded administration template which has your custom color theme and logos.
