INTRODUCTION - WHAT IS JOOMLA!?

Joomla! is an award wining open source content management system (CMS). It's open source like the Linux OS, so that means it's free to use and millions of people give up their spare time to develop it.

OPEN SOURCE IS GOOD NEWS

Open Source is generally good news for individuals, non-profit organizations and those companies on a budget. You can spend a lot of money on a commercial CMS, but there are solid reasons for going open source. To start with, your web site won't be in the hands of a software company that can go bust at any moment and you won't be paying expensive maintenance contracts to these companies. 


Static HTML or DYNAMIC site? Take your pick.

a) What is a good news/media site? Actually today what is good site? ANY SITE needs these things.

Put simply:

• It has a 'front-end' (home page)  that changes frequently
• A template design that will appeal to the audience and is easy to navigate.
• It also has 'back-end' database that is stacked full of brilliant content generated by a team of journalists (or perhaps just you!).
• It's search engine friendly.

All major news sites are built around a CMS. Some 'big beasts' include Tridion (used by Emap) and eScenic (used by Daily Telegraph, CNN, Informa  and The Independent) - but you obviously pay a lot for these solutions.

b) Would you benefit from a CMS or are you better using straightforward HTML?

You don't have to be a big media giant to benefit from using a CMS.

1. Do you update your site more than once a week?  (you should if you want to come up in the search engines)
2. Do you have multiple contributors (e.g. writers) to the site?
3. Do you want to keep design separate from content?

If you answer 'yes' to any of the above - a CMS would definitely be worth a look.


JOOMLA! - FREE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND

There is something about using a CMS that sounds:

• Really complicated
• Really expensive

You can certainly make expensive mistakes - particularly if you take the advice of the designer/programmer, who created a CMS back in 2005 and he still thinks it's REALLY great.

So have a reason to reject open source solutions before looking to a commercial CMS.

Joomla its easy and free, so if you are developing a website with a design company using joomla you'll save lots of money and lots of time.

There are a number of free CMS to consider, alongside Joomla!

• Drupal see a video of some well-known sites that use it
• Wordpress (yes, this 'blog' tool is increasingly being used for websites)
• Xaraya see my post for more info.

There are others worth looking at like:

• Movable Type
• Expression Engine
• Radiant
• TextPattern
• DotNetNuke

It's amazing the number of editors that seem to 'apologize' for using free tools and want to keep it secret. All of them had a good look around and have concluded that Joomla!, Drupal, or WordPress actually fit the bill just fine. So say it loud and proud - I USE OPEN SOURCE!

WE WENT WITH JOOMLA! and RECOMMEND IT to ALL OUR CUSTOMERS!

For more information about Joomla you can go to www.joomla.org or just contact us.
We provide affordable, search engine friendly, CMS websites using Joomla technology. Click here to see some websites developed using this great technology.


Original Post: http://srh.typepad.com/blog