I have previously written several blog posts about Joomla and SEO.

The first one was Six steps to get your Joomla site indexed in Google. In the post, I talk about things you can do to make your Joomla site attractive in the most important search engine of them all.

A later post was the fourth in my series on Joomla meta tags which discussed how to check your Joomla meta tags in Google Webmaster Tools.

Both of the posts mention Google Webmaster Tools and how to use various functions of these useful tools.

By verifying your site with Google. you tell them that you are the owner of the website and that they may show details about the site to you. Without verifying your site you won't get access to a lot of the more advanced functions of Google Webmaster Tools.

Read on to get the full instructions on how to verify your Joomla site in Google Webmaster Tools.

If you're using sh404SEF, you have probably seen the alert which says:

WARNING: $live_site missing from Joomla configuration.php file!

It stands out in bold, red letters - but what does it really mean? And how do you fix it? Read on for enlightenment.

I got this question the other day:

I have a question that is quite important for me and for all that would want to use Joomla as a blogging CMS. Is there any plugin or something to schedule articles in a similar way as Wordpress?

What I mean is: Sometimes I schedule an article to be published for example 2 hours later. For some reason, I need to write and publish a fast article before the scheduled article goes live. The problem is that when the scheduled one is published, it will appear just below the recently published article. I would like it to be published over the article, appearing as the newest one.

Actually, this is easily done with Joomla itself.

Sometimes, we all need to get a reminder on what to do to improve our Joomla sites. I know I do. The site has been sitting there for a long time and you know it needs to be updated and improved. You just don't know where to start. Maybe what you need is a kick you know where to get started.

In this post I've listed 10 things you could do to improve your own or a client's Joomla site.

Joomla 1.5 installs with three pre-installed templates. These templates are good as a starting point when learning Joomla. Still, if you want to create a Joomla website, you will want to look at other templates as well.

There are a lot of templates out there. Both free and commercial. I usually recommend spending a few dollars on a template from a professional provider if you're creating a business website. You will get those dollars back in less frustrations, better search engine rankings and easier customization. The support is also better (not always, though).

This tutorial will show you how to install a Joomla template and how to get started customizing it.

Many people ask how to upgrade their JoomlaPack installation.

It's quite simple, really:

if you have JoomlaPack version 1.x:

1. Uninstall
2. Install the new version

if you have JoomlaPack version 2.x:

• Just install the new version without uninstalling.

Recommended related reading

• How to set up a reliable Joomla backup solution
• Think you have backup? Think again!

I see that many people look for information on how to upgrade sh404SEF. This Joomla extension is a component, which means it's like an application inside your Joomla site.

Most Joomla components have their own tables in the Joomla site database. This is where the settings and data that the component uses are stored. These tables are (normally) not deleted when you uninstall the component. In the case of sh404SEF they are not deleted when you uninstall. At least that is how the component is set up by default.

Last week, I published a post about my hard disk crash and backup problems. This is definitely not something I would wish on others.

Even though the hard disk was not recoverable (without a spending a LOT of cash), I was rather lucky. With emphazis on lucky! There was not too much information lost and I've been able to recover from the crash with minor real damage. It could have been a lot worse!

This week, I would like to focus on backup - what you can do to secure yourself from losing your Joomla web site.

I regularly scan the unaswered questions in the Joomla forums. Many times, the questions posted have to do with how the output of Joomla is presented. This may have to do with the template, but oftentimes it has to do with the CSS (stylesheet) of the Joomla template.

New users are often unaware of how CSS and Joomla works. There is confusion regarding if the problem relates to the Joomla core, or the template installed. In this post I will try and give you an overview on how to use CSS in Joomla.

Before Christmas, I experienced the nightmare of all webmasters. A hard disk on one of my servers went bad and I was unable to mount it.

- Oh well, I thought, that's not a big problem. I have a nightly backup.

When I called the hosting company - I was confident I had a couple of hours worth of work ahead of me. Boy, was I in for a shock...