The first steps of search engine optimization should start with the basics.  These apply to any site whether it is static, dynamic, joomla or any other CMS.  Start by looking at the domain registration and work forward from there.

For this set of articles a newly migrated joomla site and will make a good example to show what can be done to improve its organic ranking.  The example site will be monarchkitchenbathdesign.com a kitchen and bath remodeling design company that sells cabinets, appliances, and countertops in Orlando, Florida.  We review the whois information for the domain:

Registrant:
   Monarch Kitchen and Bath Design, LLC
   1802 N Orange Ave
   Orlando, Florida 32804
   United States

   Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
   Domain Name: MONARCHKITCHENBATHDESIGN.COM
      Created on: 07-Aug-06
      Expires on: 07-Aug-10
      Last Updated on: 03-Aug-08

   Administrative Contact:
      Rader, RW  compu at monarchkbd.com
      Monarch Kitchen and Bath Design, LLC
      1802 N Orange Ave
      Orlando, Florida 32804
      United States
      407-894-8778      Fax -- 407-894-8777

   Technical Contact:
      Team, Support  support at pointclickanywhere.com
      Point Click Anywhere
      P.O. Box 411
      Winter Park, Florida 32790-0411
      United States
      407 855-3939      Fax -- 407 859-7758

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS385.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
      NS386.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM

The information in the record appears to be accurate and the registration is for longer then two years.  If the information is not complete I would update it and make sure the domain is registered for at least two years.  The length of registration may be used by search engines as an indication of the seriousness and permanence of the domain thus effecting its ranking.  There are a couple other things we need to check but I will save those for another day.

In order to establish a baseline to judge the effectiveness of our optimization we need to gather some information first.  Lets go look at the Alexa ranking for the domain.

20,757,933 not great but there is no place to go but up.  Keep in mind that this site has been active for a few years as a flash site and was not searchable.  The joomla migration was completed about a month ago.  Next we look at the domains Google Page Rank and its no surprise that on a scale of 1 to 10 it has a -1.  This simply means it has no ranking.

Since the site has no ranking, the next step i to find out why?  So we setup a google analytics, and webmaster tools account and see what is going on from their side.  The setup is vey simple through google's interface.  It will require verification which can be completed by adding a metatage to your site or ploading an empty text file with a specific name.  Once setup and verified we can view the data.