This happens all the time.  We designers create a masterpiece for you.  We hand it off in pristine condition.  After a few months, it doesn’t quite look the same as when we gave it to you.  Why?  Because you’ve made some classic newbie mistakes.

More often than not, you don’t realize you’ve made these mistakes.  Nor are you aware of the implications they have on your blog’s ability to function property.  I am going to share some valuable tips on how to keep your Joomla blog in tip-top shape.

Format Headings Properly

There are two ways to format the text headings for your articles: the bad way and the good way.

One way to do it is to highlight the text, change the size, change the color, change the font and add bold.  Is that what you’ve been doing?  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that is the bad way.  This method creates lots of messy code and is difficult to maintain.  If you every decided to change the overall look of your blog, you’ll have to go into each article and manually change the headings.  Sounds like a big task, right?

The other way to format your headings is the good way.  Highlight the chosen text, go to the text editor, and select heading 2 from the dropdown list (it says “paragraph” by default).  If you ever want to change the look of your headings, you only have to open the CSS file and make the change once.  Much easier, right?

Don’t Use Huge Image Files

While Joomla is pretty great, it does have some flaws.  The inability to resize images is one of those flaws.  If you upload a huge file and simply resize it on the HTML editor, it will still load like a huge file – even if it looks smaller.  Speed is important.  No one wants to wait forever for a page to load.

Instead, resize the image before you upload it to Joomla.  This site will help you.

Don’t Use Spaces in a File Name

If you use spaces in a file name, they will automatically be replaced with the characters “%20.”  This creates messy code and tons of unpredictable problems.  Instead, use underscores.  If you name a file “pink car”, it gets changed to “pink%20car.”  A much cleaner name is “pink_car.”  If you want to learn more, read this article.

Put Images in Topic-Specific Folders

If you put all your images in the generic images/stories folder, you will quickly accumulate a big mess.  Instead, create a new folder for each topic.  For example, if your blog uses headshots of each contributing author, keep all their photos in a file named “contributing_authors.”  Remember, you are naming a file so be descriptive and avoid spaces!

Creating folders for images isn’t a default tool of Joomla, so go to site > media manager to add new folders.

Outside Links Should Open in a New Window

As a new blog owner, you want each and every visitor to morph into a loyal reader.  How will that happen if you send them away?  If a visitor clicks on an external link and it opens in the same window, they are probably gone forever.

All HTML editors allow you to choose “new window” when creating links.  Note the default for links within the site is to open in the same window.  Don’t mess with that.  You don’t want your visitor to have an untidy browser with tons of open windows.

Remember, links to external site should open in new window.  Links to your own site should open in the same window.

Use Descriptive File Names for Your Images

Descriptive file names make life easier for two people: you and Google.  If you choose an explanatory file name, you’ll know exactly what is in the file without opening it.  Google likes straightforward file names too; “image01.jpeg” is just confusing.  While “fruit1.jpeg” is better, “fresh_strawberry.jpeg” is best.  Plus, you might get some extra traffic to your blog from people searching for images of strawberries.

Copy from Word to Notepad to Joomla

No one is perfect.  Joomla included.  We’ve already talked about Joomla’s inability to resize images.  Joomla also doesn’t play nicely with Word.  It is a great idea (for a variety of reasons) to use Word to type your blog’s content.  However, if you simply copy and paste from Word to Joomla, you’ll make a big fat mess.  Not only will it potentially destroy your blog, it will definitely make Google angry.

There is a way to avoid this big fat mess.  And yes, it is obnoxious.  But the alternative is much worse.

After you type your article in Word, copy and paste it into Notepad.  Then, copy from Notepad and paste in Joomla.  This will strip all the unnecessary code.

There you have it.  My seven tips for Joomla newbies.  What do you think?  Have you been causing some of these problems on your blog?  Have any of them come back to haunt you?  Do you know of any other mistakes I’ve left off the list?  Let us know!

Guest author Jarrod Wright owns Subtle Network Design and Marketing.  Even though he owns the company, Jarrod is still very involved in each web design project.