VM/SEO Expert Needed For Coaching On SE Strategy

ronsweet2 · September 09, 2011, 02:16:05 AM

Hello:

We have a Joomla (v. 1.5.22) web site located at www.mjjcollectors.com using VM v. 1.1.5. We have built a content-rich web site that consists of several THOUSANDS of custom listings within VirtueMart. Now we are very interested in developing a strategy to benefit from the content within VM, by improving our SE rankings, especially for Google.

I have studied this forum at length, especially any thread that involves SEO, SEFs, etc. I'm not a programmer, but I did contract with a VM expert last year who helped us set up our site's database. When we set up the site, we discussed at length the pluses and minuses of using SEFs, and based on his suggestion it was decided that we turn Joomla's SEFs "off". Based on my understanding, the URLs generated from the SEFs were not permanent (meaning that they could change), and that really wasn't an option for us. Also, he suggested to us that search engines read the longer, non-SEF's just as well (therefore, would not help us in SE rankings), so there really wasn't a compelling motivation to re-enable them.

However, reading through this forum, I see that the Joomla and VM SEFs are discussed at length, so I would be interested to hearing from some of you if such a method would work for us. The same programmer recently told me that keywords are not even visible to the SEs, therefore are also not a necessary factor in improving SE rankings.

I recently did a "view source" on one of our VM listings, and this is what I copied from the top:

<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow, archive" />
<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="Large 46"x36" official 1982 Epic promo poster with MJ and the baby tiger." />
<meta name="generator" content="ABC Web Services" />
<title>Thriller Oversized 46"x36" Promo Poster *With Tiger* ( :: MJJCollectors</title>

I see that the Title, and Description (specifically, the "Title" and "Short Description" fields from VM) are already being pulled from the VM listing, however, the keywords are blank. Also, I did a couple of searches for this specific item in Google, and the listing does in fact come up, BUT only if you put in a phrase that nearly identically matches the Title.

We have a Site Map (here: http://mjjcollectors.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&Itemid=98) but I don't do anything with it (nor do I know how to), and I notice that it does not include the VM listings, so I'm not sure we are getting the full value from it. Also, we have extensively tried using paid services such as Google Ad Words, but with very little results.

We are by and large non-profit "hobbyists", but I would be willing to pay someone to "coach" us with some specific advice on how we can improve our SE performance and overall strategy using our VM content to its fullest. Ideally, this would include a recommendation and brief tutorial on an automated tool that would automatically generate tags and keywords for each of our VM listings. I have gathered the names of certain tools mentioned in this forum (ie: TagMeta, AceSEF, sh404sef, joomla's native sef, virtuemart sef, htaccess, etc.). However, what we need is a specific suggestion on which one is best suited for our needs and existing platform, and then a bit of advice on how to set it up and implement it.

Because of the size of our site, it's important that the tool automate the process (ie: adding meta tags and keywords and making sure the search engines find them), so that all we need to do is add new content to our database as we have been doing, and the tool does the rest. If someone would like to discuss this further, I can be reached via email at rons@attorneymarketing.net

Thanks,

Ron

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VM/SEO Expert Needed For Coaching On SE Strategy

ronsweet2