Ruth Cheesley

Joomla! SEO Specialist | Open Source Evangelist
Buddhist Geek

Did your Ecademy profile suddenly vanish from your prominent page 1 position in search listings a few months ago?  Mine too!  The bad news is that SunZu still haven't fixed the problem despite having been advised what caused it - but the good news is I can help you to get back to that prominent position pretty quickly!

Keeping up with changes from Google can be rather challenging at the best of times, and some of the more recent changes and advanced features added to their popular analytics platform have gone largely unnoticed by many people. This series of articles will take you through some of the more recent additions, and also highlight some useful features that you may not have previously explored.  

This article will cover custom dashboards and advanced segments.

Joomla! is fast becoming one of the most popular content management systems in the world, powering almost 3% of the web and exceeding 30 million downloads - the chances are during your day you probably browse at least one website using Joomla!.

Many businesses rely on Joomla! for their web presence, but often business owners are not empowered to ensure that their website is being managed properly, or is up to date with the latest security patches. This article gives Joomla! website owners some simple tips to ensure that your website is up to date, and some tools to make that process easier!

I am fortunate to have recently returned from a couple of weeks out in America, where I was invited to speak at the first Joomla! World Conference in San Jose, California.

I submitted a few proposals, but the one which was selected was on the topic of Microdata, Authorship and Google+ - something I'm developing a real interest in.

Google has been tweaking its algorithms (the systems it uses to identify how relevant it's links are to the search terms entered) over the years, with a view to improving the user experience, and promoting results which are more relevant and abide by their recommended guidelines relating to search engine optimisation.

Recently there have been two major updates which have hit some sites particularly hard causing them to drop significantly in major search engines. This article will cover the Google update first seen in February 2011 and later rolled out internationally in August 2011 known as 'Panda' or 'Farmer', and the more recent Penguin update.

You may have noticed recently that extra bits of information have started appearing in search results, perhaps photos of the author, reviews of a product, maps showing the location of a store or links which allow you to jump to a certain location within a page.

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Ruth Cheesley - Joomla SEO SpecialistHello!  My name is Ruth Cheesley, and I am a specialist in the Joomla! Content Management System.  I run a business called Virya Technologies, but this site is mostly about my interests rather than what the company is up to, so make sure you check out the Virya Technologies website too!

 

My main area of interest within Open Source technologies is the Joomla! Content Management System, although I am also a Linux convert (we use Kubuntu throughout the office) and I dabble in other CMS' such as Wordpress to help people with Search Engine Optimisation.

 

That's my main area of interest actually, which has developed over time - I think it plays into my naturally inquisitive 'but why?!' mindset, trying to find the answers and work things out.  

 

My main work in this area is to help people who have been penalised for one reason or another to identify the reason behind the penalties, and develop a positive marketing strategy using Search Engine Optimisation, Marketing, Social Media Management and more to assit them in recovering their lost traffic.

 

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Ruth just understands how some of us are not technically minded - she has endless patience!  She sat with us, talked us through it, and now I've been able to pass that knowledge onto trustees and members of the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust, so that they can manage their own website.

Rachel Sloane, Honorary Press Officer, Suffolk Historic Churches Trust