How to install SEO Panel on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS?

Seo Panel is a free and open source SEO control panel application that can be used for managing search engine optimization of your websites. Seo Panel comes with all the latest SEO tools that help you to increase and track the performance of your websites. Seo Panel provides automatic directory submission tool that enables you to submit your websites into to major free and paid internet directories.

Features

• Provides site auditor and webmaster tool.
• Meta Tag Generator and Backlink checker.
• Supports 30 languages.
• Keyword Position Checker, Backlinks Checker, MOZ Rank Checker, and Search Engine Saturation Checker.

In this tutorial, we will be going to install Seo Panel on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Requirements

• A server running Ubuntu 18.04.
• A non-root user with sudo privileges.

Getting Started

Before starting, you will need to update your system with the latest version. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Once your system is updated, restart the system to apply the changes.

Install Apache, MariaDB and PHP

First, you will need to install Apache web server, MariaDB, PHP and other PHP modules to your system. You can install all of them by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install apache2 mariadb-server php7.2 php7.2-mysql php7.2-curl php7.2-json php7.2-cgi libapache2-mod-php7.2 php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-gd php7.2-mbstring php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-soap php7.2-xml php7.2-intl php7.2-cli php7.2-ldap php7.2-zip php7.2-readline php7.2-imap php7.2-tidy php7.2-recode php7.2-sq php7.2-intl unzip wget -y

Once all the packages are installed, open php.ini file:

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini

Make the following changes:

memory_limit = 300M
upload_max_filesize = 200M
max_execution_time = 400
date.timezone = Asia/Kolkata

Save and close the file. Then, restart Apache and MariaDB service and enable them to start on boot time by running the following command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo systemctl restart mariadb
sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Configure MariaDB

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. So you will need to secure it first. You can secure it by running the following command:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

This command will set a root password, remove the anonymous user, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database as shown below:

    Enter current password for root (enter for none):
    Set root password? [Y/n]: N
    Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
    Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
    Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
    Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

Once the MariaDB is secured, log in to MariaDB shell:

mysql -u root -p

Enter your root password when prompt. Then, create a database and user for Seo Panel with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE seopaneldb;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER seopanel;

Next, grant privileges to the Seo Panel database with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON seopaneldb.* TO 'seopanel'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'mypassword';

Replace 'mypassword' with a secure password of your choice in the above SQL query. Next, flush the privileges with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Next, exit from the MariaDB console with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> exit

After configuring the database, you can proceed to install Seo Panel.

Install Seo Panel

First, download the latest version of Seo Panel with the following command:

wget https://excellmedia.dl.sourceforge.net/project/seopanel/Seopanel.v3/seopanel.v.3.16.0.zip

Once the download is completed, unzip the downloaded file with the following command:

unzip seopanel.v.3.16.0.zip

Next, copy the extracted directory to the Apache web root directory with the following command:

sudo cp -r seopanel /var/www/html/

Next, give proper permissions to the seopanel directory with the following command:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/seopanel
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/seopanel

Next, you can proceed to the Next step.

Configure Apache for Seopanel

Next, you will need to create an apache virtual host file for Seo Panel. You can do this with the following command:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/seopanel.conf

Add the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin admin@example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/seopanel
     ServerName example.com

     <Directory /var/www/html/seopanel/>
          Options FollowSymlinks
          AllowOverride All
          Require all granted
     </Directory>

     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/seopanel_error.log
     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/seopanel_access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Replace example.com in the above file with your own domain name. Save and close the file. Then, enable Seo panel virtual host file with the following command:

sudo a2ensite seopanel

Next, enable the Apache rewrite module and restart Apache web server to apply all the changes:

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Access Seo Panel

Seo Panel is now installed and configured. It's time to access Seo Panel web interface.

Open your web browser and type the URL of your seo panel website, in my case http://example.com. You will be redirected to the page.

Once all the requirements are validated, click on the Proceed to the next step button. Provide your database details like database name, database username, and password. Then, click on the Proceed to next step button. Once the installation has been completed successfully. You should see the login page.

Now, click on the Proceed to the admin login button. You should see the Seo Panel default dashboard.

Congratulations! you have successfully installed the Seo Panel on Ubuntu 18.04 server. You can now easily manage search engine optimization of your website. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.