No mystery to SEO - Just Hard Work!

Search engine optimisation, although an apparent mystery to many - is in fact purely about following set rules and backing them up with hard work.
The only mystery shrouding the world of SEO is that the rules have been hung, drawn and quartered and seemingly every SEO has their own version of rules that often contradict those of their peers.

SEO is evolving at a breathtaking rate and consequently the rules of engagement are constantly being revised. To perform well as a professional SEO you need to keep up with those changes. To perform well as an occasional SEO on your own website… the following information will be of great help to you.

So for this article I will stick to just one of the fundamentals of SEO and explain what you should know about one of the most important elements in building a successful website.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is led by Google. Not only is Google the leading search engine that has set the standards for search engine algorithm technology, the Google ranking system is also by far the paramount method of evaluating the quality of a web site.

Google’s dedication to perfecting their site valuation system means it is today very difficult to cheat the system and get sites to perform well with ‘SEO manipulation’ rather than providing qualitative content. So I advise you concentrate on SEO’ing your site for Google and you can fine tune for other important engines later.

Good Backlinking Works!
Getting other sites to link back to yours is still a very important method of getting your site to rank high in the search engines.
However, there are obstacles and the wrong kind of backlinks can lead to your site being penalized. In the past too many ‘cheats’ were developed to try and fool Google into thinking a site was highly popular. And so Google has also with time refined and improved its algorithm and can quickly root out link farms or irrelevant backlinks.

Probably the best value backlinks are those that come from sites with similar content. Backlinking within your field of productivity will give you a lot of extra exposure. If your site deals with office stationary - then find other sites with similar content and exchange links with them. They don’t have to be your direct competitors - backlink with other regions or countries.

Do choose carefully! Google will give you a lot of exposure if you backlink to good quality sites with relevant content. If you link to bad quality sites you may be penalized.

The best performing backlinks are those that are linking through anchor text. In other words, a site linking back to you that has text on its page (relevant text) and that text is the link to your site. Remember though, what counts more than anything is relevancy. If you deal in widgets - get backlinks from other widget sites.

In the past, webmasters would often accumulate multiple sites and domain names with the intention of having them all point to one specific site. All those other sites would be used to create links back to the main site. Well, that worked wonders for a while. But that ‘while’ is over. Now Google actively looks for sites that are created within the same IP adress and considers a group of sites with links pointing to a principle site to be ‘link bombing’. You may do this with moderation - but overdo it and you’ll pay the price.

In what appears to be an amazing turn of events in the software industry it has been announced that the award winning Open Source Content Management System called Joomla! has an unexpected end.

It is still unclear where the announcement came from but we are able to show you images that clearly demonstrate the unusual but certainly absolute end of Joomla!

Actually it’s the bit right on the end that we refer to as an ‘exclamation mark’.

According to Wikipedia; An exclamation mark or exclamation point is a punctuation mark: ! It is usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume, and often marks the end.

The exclamation mark is known informally as a bang or a screamer.

Very few people actually know whether or not to use the ‘bang’ at the end of Joomla! when writing sentences that don’t actually end with Joomla! Confused? I am. Anyway, I digress.

Let’s take an even closer look at the exclamation mark at the end of Joomla! I don’t mean the long stand-up thingy but the actual round blob at the bottom that looks like a Danish cheese.

If we look very closely (to this end we have magnified the cheese several thousand times) we can quite clearly see that the end of Joomla! is actually the beginning of something new and exciting. Wow!

To summarize let me reiterate what we have all witnessed in this article:

• Don’t use an exclamation mark unless it’s absolutely necessary.

• Use an exclamation mark after an exclamation, especially after one beginning with what or how or ending in Joomla!

• The end of Joomla! is actually the beginning of Open Source CMS.

To find out more about the award winning Joomla! Open Source solution that is freely available to everyone, visit www.joomla.org

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Article by Navega Bem - Web Design. The Joomla! Professionals

Proprietors of the Madeira Property Specialists website were happy to be chosen as the ‘Site of the Day’ by the renowned ‘Best of Joomla‘ team.

The-Property-Agency.com is a combination of three companies each licensed in their field of work to provide the best possible service to both local and overseas clients. This collaboration is a trouble free way in finding your new home here on the Idyllic Islands of Madeira & Porto Santo whether you are looking for a new build or an old property.

David Albon, MD of the Clearview-homes Group said “The Clearview-Homes group is your number one company to see you through every aspect of buying and personalizing your new dream home, we have many house developments along the south west coast of Madeira to suit every body’s requirements and budgets”.

The site has been developed by Joomla specialists Navega Bem - Web Design.

‘Best of Joomla‘ award sites are chosen on the following criteria:
1. Design 40%
2. Navigation 20%
3. Content 20%
4. Graphics 15%
5. Personality 5%

In the last 6 weeks this is the 5th site developed by Navega Bem - Web Design to be chosen for the ‘Site of the Day‘ award.

Madeira Story Centre

If you are visiting the island of Madeira, don’t miss the opportunity to visit a fascinating museum that is like no other.

The Madeira Story Centre is a spectacular modern museum about Madeira’s History and culture.

It is like a story teller, designed to make your visit a unique experience, the exhibition draws on interactive displays that will allow you to learn about the History of the Island while feeling the environment of the different periods through smells, sounds, interactive games and challenges which will capture your attention and trigger all your senses.

It is the perfect place to start your visit to Madeira Island. It will give you a panoramic view over the archipelago History.

The Madeira Story Centre also offers a shop, with the best souvenirs and art & crafts in town, and a themed café explored by Penha D’Águia, a centenary pastry shop in Funchal.

The site was chosen by the Joomla resource and extension web site ‘Best of Joomla‘ as site of the day. For the Madeira Story Centre this a welcome award as the site has been chosen on an international level and can obviously compete with the best sites on the world wide web.

Any programmer who develops sites with CMS’s has to admit how facilitated his task is thanks to the emergence and popularization of Content Management Systems.

Even though the evolution of the CMS’s is completely transparent to you, the visitor, the same can not be said for your business. After years of “struggle” and evolution… the visual presentation of your website is finally separated from it’s content.

Some companies that already have websites tend avoid changing the contents in their websites because they fear having to pay an extra amount of money for it. Due to that, most company websites end up having outdated information and thus they start losing, little by little, their importance in the most important search engines.

Google, Yahoo and Live.com always give more importance to the websites that keep their content updated, and those that don’t update become harder to find in the search results.

If your customers can’t find you in the search engines what’s the point of having a website?

Thankfully, with Joomla it’s possible to change, and control, the content of your website without any extra costs. Any content can be added or edited in a matter of minutes, in a very easy way.

If you site was developed with a modern and evolved CMS, like Joomla or Wordpress (as examples), it’s also possible to give it a visual uplift, and completely change the way it looks, without having to sacrifice all the content that is already in it.

So… not only can you change the content without additional costs, but you can also change the entire look of your company without having to invest several thousand euros into it.

Many companies take the first step and purchase a CMS-developed website, but very rarely do they ever take advantage of all that it can offer.

If your website doesn’t use a CMS, it’s never too late to start! Think of the first step as an investment, and all the consequential ones as an evolution, that won’t cost as much as the starting point.

In the last 4 weeks the Joomla resources and extensions website ‘Best of Joomla‘ have chosen 4 websites for their prestigious ‘site of the day‘ award. The quite amazing thing is that all of those sites chosen have two things in common; they all belong to the Blandy Group ‘Palheiro Estate’ family of websites and they were all developed by Navega Bem - Web Design. Suspicious?

Chris Szabo, MD of Navega Bem was not available to comment on the awards. However, we do know that sites are chosen on the following criteria:
1. Design 40%
2. Navigation 20%
3. Content 20%
4. Graphics 15%
5. Personality 5%

The sites chosen over the last 4 week period are:
Palheiro Golf - Madeira island’s stunning golf course
Palheiro Estate - The experts for your permanent home or a holiday hideaway
Casa Velha - The luxury country house hotel
Madeira Marlin - M.Y. Balancal - Big Game Fishing

So what is going on here? Have these sites been chosen unfairly… or are they just amazingly good websites.

Navega Bem - Joomla sites awarded ‘Site of the day’  three times.

Within the space of 4 weeks (Aug 11 to Sept 5) The #1 Joomla templates, resources and extensions website “Best of Joomla” has presented 4 web sites with their prestigious ‘Site of the Day‘ award.

One of those sites was the Joomla site proper: www.joomla.org

The other three were all web sites developed by Navega Bem - Web Design, a thriving business located on the idyllic sub-tropical Portuguese island of Madeira.

Sites are chosen by ‘Best of Joomla‘ on the following criteria:

1. Design 40%
2. Navigation 20%
3. Content 20%
4. Graphics 15%
5. Personality 5%

The sites awarded ‘Site of the Day’ are:

Palheiro Golf

Palheiro Estate

Casa Velha do Palheiro

Coincidentally, all three sites were developed for the Blandy Group and their Palheiro Estate family of sites. The sites are chosen on an international level and demonstrate the quality and professionalism of web projects developed by ‘Navega Bem’. We want to thank everyone both in our team and those at Palheiro Estate for helping to develop these professional sites.

Navega Bem - Web Design… the Joomla Professionals!

Just as Navega Bem - Web Design celebrates 2 successful years - Joomla turns 3. Wow!

What an amazing and energetic ride this has been for Joomla as today it stands as ‘the’ most powerful open source Content Management System on the planet.

For such a young open source framework and content publishing system - Joomla has some incredible facts backing it up:

• Joomla currently features more than 3700 Extensions
• Joomla! has an active community of more than 200,000 (validated) friendly users and developers.
• Google search results on Joomla yield over 100 million results.
• The Joomla group of Web sites serves 1 million visitors per week.
• Since March 2007, there have been over 6 million downloads of Joomla.

Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just some of the ways this award winning CMS solution is used:

Corporate websites or portals
Online commerce
Hotel and Tourism websites
Small business websites
Non-profit and organizational websites
Government applications
Corporate intranets and extranets
School and church websites
Personal or family homepages
Community-based portals
Magazines and newspapers
the possibilities are seemingly endless…

The team behind ‘Navega Bem‘ have been developing successful websites since the early 90’s - however when we began working with Joomla it literally transformed our complete approach to web design and has helped make us one of the most recognized Joomla CMS web site developers in our field.

Our congratulations go out to everyone involved in parenting this phenomenal CMS solution that with the release of Joomla 1.5 has certainly come of age. Happy Birthday Joomla!