In this post I’m going to show you some basics of SEO in TYPO3, I will explain how you can easily handle SEO stuff within TYPO3. This is not a “best practise” nor is it a tutorial on how SEO works. But if you’re new to TYPO3, or SEO in TYPO3 you’ll find some useful things here.

Basic no. 1: A clean source code.

A clean source code makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. For that, you need to clean up the default HTML output done by TYPO3. Use this line of TypoScript a put it in your template Setup section:

# Clean up prefixes in source code
config.disablePrefixComment = 1

This will clean up the prefixes made with every content-element. This should be a relief! For a more complete cleanup please go to this post.

Basic no. 2: Make you headers better.

By default, every content-element header is a <h1> header in TYPO3. For your SEO it’s better to just have one <h1> tag per page. To convert all these <h1> tags into <h2> tags you need to put the following line in your template Constants section:

# Convert default H1 tags into H2 tags
content.defaultHeaderType = 2

You can now add a <h1> tag manually to the page, or generate one dynamically using TypoScript.

Basic no. 3: Images.

By default, images which are scaled, croped or in any other way modified by TYPO3 are given a random name. For example:

/typo3temp/pics/b3e43c4bb3.jpg.

By installing the extension: fl_realurl_image, your images will get a nicer name. Install the extension and you’re done. Images will now be named like:

/typo3temp/fl_realurl_image/your_image.jpg

Basic no. 4: Page title.

The pagetitle is important for your SEO ranking. This title needs to summerize the pagecontent as close as posible. I suggest you manually edit these to your needs. Someone (can’t rememer the name, sorry) once told me: Use an inverted breadcrumb path as a pagetitle. The theory behind this: People think about their page names, the lower in the pagetree the more specific. If you invert this you have a pretty close to content path and also the main keywords which people interested in this subject will search for.

Basic no. 5: URL’s.

The default URL’s of TYPO3 are not readable, the solution to this problem is RealURL. Since this extension is really popular I’m not going to explain it, this has been done more than enough times. Just search the web for a good tutorial. I can recommend the extension “danp_realurlconfigurator” though, which gives you a nice configurator.

Basic no. 6: Description and meta tags.

A really important SEO rule is to have unique page descriptions and meta tags. Since these fields have to match the page content as close as posible it’s only logical to have them in your page configuration. If you edit your page you’ll find the second tab is all about meta data. Here you can fill in the description and meta tags for your page. To actually use these field in the frontend source code you’ll need to following lines in your template Setup section:

# This will activate the page meta data
page.meta.keywords.field = keywords
page.meta.description.field = description

Basic no. 7: An XML sitemap for Google Webmaster Center.

If you want Google to track your page changes and crawl them accordingly you can submit a XML sitemap. If you do not know what a XML sitemap is please read this first. There are a couple of extensions to generate such a sitemap dynamically in TYPO3.

Basic no. 8: JavaScript at the bottom of your source.

Deprecated since version 4.3! Use page.includeJSFooter instead.

This might be more of a speed thing rather than SEO, but still… By default TYPO3 will put javascript includes in your header.

-- SNIP: Deprecated snippet --

TYPO3 also generates a default JavaScript which can be removed by putting this line in your template Setup section:

# Remove the default JS file in the header
config.removeDefaultJS = 1

Make sure you copy the content of this file to your custom one before removing it.

Tip: Extension seo_basics

Benjamin Mack has developed an extension (seo_basics) which is really useful. It not only generates the XML sitemap by default, but it also helps you to update the page descriptions and meta tags. Download and install the extension through the extension manager. Once installed, go to http://www.your-website.com/sitemap.xml, you’ll notice it works right out of the box. (If it doesn’t, please check you RealURL configuration). But this is just the beginning. Go to the “info” module and select your root website page. Now, in the drop-down box choose “SEO Management”.

(Update: 17-01-2010: Breaking change in extension update, include static template first!)

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Here you’ll see all pages with there url-path, title, description and metatags. Click on the “Edit SEO fields”. Now you’ll notice you can edit all fields of all pages within one screen! Once you start filling in the details you’ll notice the color changes while typing:

Yellow: To little text
Green: Just good!
Red: To much text

If you would like to add META Abstract & Author to seo_basics please look at this post of Michael Cannon: http://www.acqal.com/blog/a/article/add-meta-abstract-author-to-seo-basics/

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Hope you liked this post:)

These basics are far from a complete reference but I hope they will be of use. If you’ve got suggestions, please don’t hesitate to comment…