Even though Joomla is a CMS written in PHP language the techniques are the same. You are still working with the basic structure of a web page. All the basic principals are the same. As a Joomla Web Design specialist, I personally find that Joomla is a powerful website design platform to work in.

• Page Titles – Your page titles are one of the first things that the search engines view when crawling a web page. Name you page titles relevant to the contents and targeted keywords and long tail keyword phrases. All your pages must have different titles.
• Meta Description – As in all websites Joomla or otherwise the meta description is very important. Take the time to develop good meta descriptions. Joomla meta descriptions as in all web design platforms should be them related. This means the meta descriptions should reflect the content and page titles. Hopefully you have developed a theme for the individual page you are writing. As in the page titles meta descriptions should all be different, even if the content is similar to other pages in your Joomla website.
• Content – I will coin a phrase here that is more relevant now than ever with the new Google algorithm. Content is King! When writing a page for your Joomla website take the time to write relevant content that follows the theme of the page. Keep on subject. Each page should be written to target one keyword or keyword phrase that you are marketing.
• Optimize your H-tags - Do not use the h-tags to style content. H-tags are like red flags to the search engines. They say hey there look at me! I am important. Use the H-tags to define content. I personally use the H-tags as headers to break up content so it is not so blocky. I use the keywords and long tail keyword phrases that the page is about.

Joomla SEO is relatively easy to master if you do your home work. Joomla is also very powerful platform to design websites in. There are some who say that CMS websites are hard to SEO. I only have one thing to say to them. If you understand SEO and what the search engines are looking for Joomla SEO is no harder than a static website. In fact I truly believe if Google had emotions it would be in love with Joomla. Google likes content management systems in general.

Jim Hay is a Joomla Web Design specialist. His company, Jim Hay SEO, specializes in developing business websites that need to rank extremely well in the organic search engines.

1. Communication – One thing a lot of Web Designers never seem to understand is there is a time to be quiet and let the Website Design customer talk. One important fact that sometimes is hard to remember is that the site you are developing is theirs! You can learn a great deal more from listening to your customers than from asking questions. Trying to impose your ideas or sounding like your ideas and vision are more important than your customers is a quick way to alienate them. Your customers want and need to feel as if they are part of the team that is developing their website. Always take time to listen to your customers ideas. With this skill mastered you will not only have happy customers but the end result will be more to the liking of your Web Design Customers.
2. Accessible – Web Designers have a bad reputation for being flaky. What I mean by this is that Website Developers are known for not answering the phone, or returning phone calls. Always try to keep in constant contact with customers both active and ones that are in management. Nothing aggravates your customers more than to be hard to contact. Most all customers naturally feel they are your only customers. Nothing you can say short of being rash is going to change that attitude. Since the day of the first service related business being born, this has been the attitude of customers.
3. Do what you say you are going to do – Whatever it takes to follow through with commitments and promises is a must in any business. Even if you have to delegate tasks or outsource projects be aware of the commitments and follow through with then at all cost. Making this a practice is one of the secret attributes most successful business have done.
4. Always look at things from a customer’s point of view. Always try to think like a consumer. If this practice is adhered to most arguments and disagreements in business will never occur. Not thinking like this is a bad habit a lot of business owners not only Web Designers become guilty of.

By not allowing yourself to fall into the traps outlined above greatly enhances your skills as a business owner and Web Designer. You will be miles ahead of your competition in the Web Design industry and will shine in the eyes of your customers.

I have been a Portland OR Web Designer for over 10 years and I know because of practicing these good business skills; it has been very instrumental in creating my business into what it is today.

Back to checking out the prospective website designers ranking in Google, if their own Website does not rank well, why would you think he or she has the skills to bring value to the table when it comes to designing your website? How much will it cost you additionally to market your website if your website is not Search Engine Optimized?

For example do a Google search, let’s say “Portland OR Website Designer” If I were looking for a business website designer in Portland Oregon I would consider the top 8 designers in this search.

The next way I would suggest as a way to find a good Business Website Designer for business application would be to do a SEO search. Let’s say “Portland OR SEO” and see what is rendered. Are any of the top results for Portland OR SEO not only a SEO expert but also a Web Designer? Perhaps as a cross reference are any of the results for Portland Oregon SEO the same as Portland OR Website Designer? Now we are getting somewhere if there are!
As a Business Website Designer and SEO expert I am constantly amazed at the number of Website Designers that in addition call themselves SEO experts! Reading a few books or forums does not by any stretch of the imagination make you a SEO Professional.

Many a business owner has been led down the wrong road and wasted a great deal of money not only in hiring a website designer that knows nothing of Internet Marketing, but possibly hiring a SEO expert that does not have the experience to properly manage the SEO of a website.

In closing I just want to recount that properly investigating thoroughly prior to hiring a Website Designer will save you tons of money and time as far as marketing your Business Website on the Internet.

Here were the parameters:

1. The new locally marketed website was going to be developed on the Joomla CMS.
2. The new Joomla website was to be developed with good SEO built into the site from the beginning.
3. Once the new website was completed and indexed by the search engines, a reasonable off page SEO campaign would be implemented for developing inbound links.

I was excited about the prospect of pitting my new website up against the best SEO’s and website designers in the Portland Oregon area. What better way was there to gauge my skills as a Search Engine Optimization professional and Website Designer!

I had one thing pitting against me from the beginning; my domain would be a new one. Domain age has a little to do with how your website ranks in the organic search engines, this is common knowledge. This was a factor that lies in the search engine algorithm.

I designed the new website in the Joomla CMS with a moderate amount of original content. I implemented and used good page titles, meta descriptions and utilized the H-tags well. All the images were optimized. The content was well written and was designed for not only the visitors but the search engines were not forgotten about either!

Within one month Google gave this website a PR of 4! For some of the less competitive keyword phrases the site immediately started to rank well. As was expected the more competitive keyword phrases were not ranking well. But that is to be expected with a site only 30 days old. After all this site was competing directly against the other Portland Or Website designer and SEO professionals for those competitive keyword phrases. But I was happy to be awarded a PR of 4 from Google in 30 days. I personally have not ever heard of a website being given a PR of 4 in that short of time.

After 30 days and the new website was well indexed it was time to wind up the off page SEO. A moderate budget of $400.00 was given t the project. The campaign would consist of quality directory listings, blog commenting on blogs that allow a follow. But the most powerful inbound links to have are in content textural links form blog posts pointing to relevant content. These efforts were all implemented.

How this website ranks after 6 months

After 6 months of fine tuning the website and aggressive off page SEO this website now dominates all the keyword phrases that are marketed with this website. Currently it is on the first page of Google for the following keyword phrases, and numerous others as it totally going viral.

1. Portland Oregon SEO
2. Portland Oregon Website Design
3. Portland Oregon Website Designer
4. Portland Oregon Joomla
5. Portland Oregon SEO Training
6. Portland Oregon E-commerce
7. Portland Oregon Internet Marketing
8. Portland Oregon SEO Consulting

This experiment was well worth the effort as it gives me some real-time results for my professional efforts. Off page SEO really is like the icing on the cake when it comes to designing a Business Website that needs to rank well in the organic search engines.

Business website owners are becoming increasingly more aware of internet marketing and how it can influence their bottom line. In years past a business website was used mainly as an online business card. Today a business owner’s company website is a viable marketing tool.

Furthermore business owners are searching out designers with search engine optimization skills and background. A design firm without a SEO expert is playing second fiddle to design firms with an internet marketing team working in unison with the designers and business owner.

Business websites need to be engineered from square one with SEO in mind. Content organizing and navigation needs to be SEO friendly. The content needs to be written with keyword and keyword phrases targeting the search engines for the market that the website is targeting.

The day of using H-tags for styling are over! Effective business websites need to be designed by a developer that is well l versed in correctly semantically coding in content. Designers need to take advantage of the tags and other elements of webpage code.

Effective page titles need to be written. Using the company name is no longer accepted! Engaging titles that utilize keywords and phrases are paramount.

Meta descriptions need to well written as well utilizing keywords and phrases. Meta tags are very important as it describes the web page to the organic search engines.

Being a competent Website Designer today is a great deal more than displaying pop and fizz. A website designer that engages SEO and Internet Marketing will not only make them a more viable designer but will be doing their clients justice. It costs a great deal more to design a website and then hire a SEO professional to redesign the business website to be a effective marketing tool and rank well in the organic search engines.

Guest post by James john an experience Joomla website designer in Portland Oregon having vast experience in designing website. Being a Portland Oregon SEO expert, author has also published numbers of articles on designing SEO friendly websites.