See How Easily You Can Choose The Right Template For Your Website
Based on a phonetic spelling of the Swahili word for “all together,” Joomla is a popular, award-winning CMS (Content Management System) that enables the easy assembly and control of websites and web apps (online applications). It is free, easy to use and can be customized, all because it is “open source” software. These features have made Joomla perhaps the most popular website-building software in the world today.
Briefly, a CMS is software that tracks the location, behavior and properties of every component of your site. The content being “managed” in a CMS can be text, media such as music and graphics, video, various documents and anything else you might think of including. Since using a CMS, especially Joomla, requires just about zero technical skill, it is a favorite of graphic designers as well as small businesses.
Abundant choices
Many hosting services typically offer single-click installation, meaning you can get your new or refurbished site up and running in a matter of minutes. You can get Joomla templates at literally hundreds of sites, and there are more all the time because the software is free and open to experimentation. With just a little more information and guidance, you will see how easily you can choose the right template to meet your website needs.
Designers and developers can build sites very quickly for clients, and the clients can be taught to manage their own sites with very little instruction. Even if your clients need specialized functions, Joomla is highly extensible (customizable). Powerful extensions, most of which are made available for free under the GPL license, are available in the thousands at the online Joomla Extensions Directory.
Judging and choosing templates
Whether or not you’re a designer, you need to start thinking like one at least a little bit. Think about the layout of the various template pieces, where the menu is placed and the position of the Joomla module. Make sure the content area is appropriate for your unique purposes, and consider the color scheme as well. The latter is important, of course, but shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, since you can change colors with just a bit of extra work. If you want things to be as plug-and-play as possible, though, see if you can live with the template as it is.
Never forget the saying, “Content is king.” Sure, website design is important, but the site content is much more so. In choosing a template, think of it as being, not a finished work, but the catalyst for your own special content. Pretty and clever and striking designs have their place, but the look has to positively present the content you will be creating and promoting. In other words, if your site will be showcasing good writing, then the content must be cleanly presented and easy to read. In this case, a dark or muddled color scheme or one that has low-contrast text will not effectively support your site’s purpose.
Branding and values
You are working with a customizable template, of course, but one of the main reasons you are using Joomla is that it is easy and fast. Therefore, as much as possible, the basic template you choose should be able to “match” or complement your brand with a minimum of fuss. The whole idea of Joomla is to save you time and effort, after all.
A functional, otherwise high-quality template is essentially useless if it clashes with your branding scheme, in color, intensity, style, etc. Branding is about conveying values, often wordlessly, so the template must be in the same “values ballpark” as your brand. Again, you want to accomplish this fusion – of style, content, appearance and functionality – with as little effort as possible, which means starting strong with a template that will work.
The old “SEO” rears its head
It is not a template, per se, that will mess up your Search Engine Optimization schemes or negatively affect your site rank in the major search engines. Actually, it’s messing around too much with the template that might do that. See, search engines appreciate websites with clean, straightforward and “un-cutesy” code, so piling on a heap of fun, funny or funky elements will unnecessarily complicate your site’s “web DNA.”
If you make a point of keeping things simple, it is much more likely that the search engines will reward you with good rankings. Decide ahead of time how much time and effort you can reasonably devote to the site, and use the time to customize, not reinvent, the template. The site copy is what’s important (remember “content is king” above?) and will be what eventually draws people to your website, notwithstanding all the marketing and promotional efforts you will undertake.
Bottom line
Quality content will make SEO work, and a smoothly functioning site will make your visitors amenable to your pitch or purpose. Start with a good, solid Joomla template, but consider it only the start, as branding realities and marketing truisms will never be repealed. This means you have to inject the spark, the sizzle and the eventual success into the template to create a winning website. Joomla makes it easier, certainly, but it doesn’t guarantee you a thing.
Business basics hold firm in this area as in all others. Know what you’re getting into and be prepared to do whatever it takes to succeed. Although Joomla templates are made to be used by “average folks,” some of us just don’t have a lick of design sense or the skills to write a simple paragraph. Get help in the areas you need it. In fact, you can consider the template metaphor as describing your entire venture. There are common business structures just like there are common website templates, so it’s what you add to the mix yourself that will make the difference between failure and success.
Using Wordpress templates to enhance your website – Part 3
Wordpress is a blog publishing system, or content management system (CMS) made for creating and maintaining weblogs or blogs. A blog is an online diary, so entries can be archived and searched at a later date. This means you need some kind of filing system, and this is usually in the form of a mini calendar that you can click on to select entries for a particular day.
Wordpress is open sourced (Open Sourced Software, or OSS), which means anyone can use and alter the programme to suit their own needs and then pass it on. It is free, so you don’t have to pay to use it. (This is different to a proprietary software such as Windows Live Writer which requires the purchase of a key to unlock it for use. Although, Windows also has a developer-hosted form in spaces.live.com. My Space and LiveJournal are also developer-hosted forms of blogging.)
Wordpress has been criticized for being too vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, but this is in versions older than 2.0.5. The latest release of Wordpress was 2.2.1, in June 2007, and this (plus older) versions are more security conscious and have worked to prevent these kinds of attacks.
Wordpress has the ability to customise your template, at a cost. So if you like a particular template but you want your business name at the top, for example, you can pay to have it put there. This is moving away from the free’ part of OSS, but it is useful as you still get the template at no cost.
Wordpress don’t allow advertising on their sites (one small ad for Amazon is allowed) so your site visitors won’t be bombarded by advertising, and you don’t have to worry about your site being overrun. However, if you violate their terms of service they can delete your account, leaving you site-less so don’t try to sneak in a little advert where you think no-one can see it. They do have an anti-spam programme, so you don’t have to worry about spam comments being left on your site, though. And they back up your site daily, in case something goes wrong.
Unfortunately, if you decide to do the whole thing on your own you need to either choose from a selection of templates (and run the risk of someone else having the same template as you) or pay to have one customised. Having said that, it is generally free and easy to use!
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TEMPLATES
So many sites are let down by web design, to give your site and your business the best chance, you may want to pay for a template, a template is a skin designed by professional web designers that installs in minutes and allows you to pick a look from a database of 1000 of quality web designs, enabling you to design a website in the same way you would pick a new kitchen.
These off the peg, paid for web templates can start from a little as 50 euro, they are free to customize when you download our free software.
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TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF JOOMLA TEMPLATES YOU NEED TO SIGN UP WITH A JOOMLA/MAMBO ENABLED
Custom Web Design
The JOOMLA template is not a website, and it should also not be considered as the complete website design. The template is the basic design. The JOOMLA template is a series of files within the JOOMLA content management system, which controls the presentation of the content. A skin which alters the outward appearance of your entire site. The templates work hand in hand with content stored in databases and modules, integrate a shopping cart using the online CMS interface and you change the nature of your web site template.
We will show you where the best places to look for high quality joomla templates are, and how to use the joomla/mambo control panel and our free software to reach into the guts of your template and brand your site with your company’s identity. Technically this is the low cost, affordable, budget web design option but of the highest professional standard, featured web designs can be seen in our rotating banner.
To read the full article you must visit To view our user friendly web design click here, if you want see the best web designs, the net has to offer then click here
Content Management System – Part 1
Content management system is crucial for the success of any website. Without accurate and updated content, you will not be able to hold a visitor on the pages for more than a few seconds. Therefore, the importance of content management system cannot be denied. It includes the updation of content of a website on a regular basis keeping up with the latest information, market trends or growth of the company.Thousands of visitors and customers visit your website everyday and you might be making efforts to increase your rankings on the various search engines. You might have put in efforts to make the website very appealing and attractive. But, despite this, if the content is not managed and up to the mark, you will not be able to make your visitor linger on and browse through your web pages.Content management system takes care of the complete content part of your website from all the aspects. This includes research of content, updating it, layout and segregation of the information that has to be on the website, navigation of the various pages and their connectivity with each other. In other words, it covers the complete lifecycle of a webpage.A detailed plan is prepared of all the pages and a central bank for the content is created. The content is written by experienced professionals according to the targeted keywords short listed by the search marketing expert for your website. A certain amount of density has to be maintained of the keywords to attract the attention of the search engines. When the content is being written, the presentation is also kept in mind. Long and continuous paragraphs can get boring and the visitor may not spend enough time to even go through the content of your webpage if the presentation is boring. Many times therefore, pointers, facts, highlighted text and other such techniques are used for effectiveness. Before publishing, the content is proof read for any flaws, sent for approval to the SEO team and the client. The content also needs to be updated regularly according to the latest in the market or to match up to the latest industry trends. Whenever the content of a certain page is updated, the different versions can be maintained tracking the changes. There are many factors that go into creating a successful and well-visited website and content forms an equally critical part when compared to other factors. It is always suggested to get professional and experienced content management experts to efficiently handle the content for all the webpages. sResource: s||
How to choose a content management system
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Content management systems for managing web sites don’t necessarily inspire the creative mind, but for many sites, they are the difference between a smooth ride and headache. Whether you’re thinking of buying an off-the-shelf package or designing one in-house, there are a few things to consider before you make your decisions. This article aims to explain the benefits of running a Content Management System and what you need to think about if you are considering using one.
Hand-crafting a big site is a thing of the past. It takes too long and there are so many ways in which it can go wrong. Time to buy a Content Management System? Probably, but wait! The software is only part of the job. You are going to have to think carefully about your needs, understand a bit more about what a CMS do, do some preparation before you start your project and change the way you think about HTML and graphical pages.
1. Understand the quantity and complexity of your content:
This is arguably the most important step in the process. How many things and how many types of things are you trying to manage? How much will it change and how often? Who are the content contributors? A thousand things of the same type is obviously easier to manage than a thousand things of ten different types. As you’re assessing your content, don’t forget to include multiple languages or localities – 100 things in 10 languages is actually 1000 things you have to collect, manage and publish.
2. Think about components inside your content:
If you work with the web, the concept of a page feels natural but there is more we can do if we think about the sub-components that make up a page such as individual news stories, adverts, products or calendar events. Some CMS manipulate pages but it can be more powerful to use a CMS that builds pages from these sorts of components perhaps letting the same information appear in different parts of the site or in different formats.
What sorts of components will your site contain? Press releases, tutorials, classified ads, messages, recipes, share prices, contact addresses? Well planned and organised content components will support your business as the business changes.
3. Design the database carefully:
Most CMS use a relational database such as Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL. Others will achieve the same effect using XML.
In a relational database, each component will be stored in a table with rows and columns – think of it like an Excel spreadsheet. Each
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Google Adsense And Wordpress Make Money Online
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If you have been considering a business in online marketing using Google Adsense then you should consider using Wordpress as a basis for your site.
Wordpress has dual functionality as a CMS or Content Management System as well as a platform for your blog. It’s very simple to manage your content with Wordpress and you will be able to post your content rapidly with little effort.
Wordpress functions like a word processor using a special administration panel called a dashboard to create and manage posts and pages. All aspects of your site including category management are performed using dashboard.
You can customize Wordpress in almost any way you can imagine to help you maintain your site. Thousands of different themes or templates, many incorporating Adsense blocks to improve your click through rate, are available to you. The practical result of this is that as soon as you upload an Adsense-ready template to your site, it becomes an Adsense website. A real advantage is having much more free time to concentrate on writing high quality website content.
Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO), many Wordpress templates that include Adsense link and ad units are designed to make the pages of your site as attractive as possible for search engine spiders.
Wordpress also ‘pings’ many services for you through pingomatic each time you create a new post. With each ping, search engines are informed that your site has new content, so that they can send their spiders to examine it. If you want a sitemap or an RSS feed, Wordpress can produce it automatically.
Because Wordpress serves as a blogging platform, this functionality makes it simple for visitors to post comments on any article you write. Site “stickiness” is encouraged with this sort of user interaction. Don’t overlook the advantage of increased site content each time someone posts a comment.
Wordpress now has thousands of easily installed plugins available to add functionality to your site. One super-useful plugin for affiliate marketers automatically turns words into links. Creating a list words you want associated with affiliate links is very simple.
Wordpress will make an Adsense or affiliate webmaster’s work a lot easier.
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Creating a Blog: Why Wordpress is the Preferred Choice
Wordpress is one of the most famous blogging platforms used by many web developers and users as it can do much more than just letting you post entries to your blogs. Using Wordpress as a Content Management System (CMS) for a website has many benefits which you may find useful.
Creating a blog using Wordpress has many advantages. Wordpress is easy to set up and use. And It requires only a few clicks if you have fantastico in your domain control panel (in your hosting account). If you don’t have fantastico in your hosting, you can do a manual installation. This can take a little more time but is not too complicated to do as long as you follow the directions faithfully. If you have no plan to set up Wordpress yourself or if you just want to make sure it is installed properly, you can always hire a technician or someone who can do it for you. You can be assured that hiring someone to install Wordpress will not be expensive since it only takes a short time and a little effort to do this.
Wordpress can make updating your blogging website easier for you. You no longer have to hire a web page designer to work on your website for you. Websites are technically complex to set up or edit, but Wordpress allows you to input or update content for your blogs by just following simple steps.
You can easily outsource website updates or changes with Wordpress. If you have a virtual assistant, you can let her have her own username and password whenever she needs to log in to your website to work. You don’t need to worry about having the most recent version of the website or overwriting the work of others.
Wordpress has other great advantages as well, including giving you total control and management of content for your website. You can use Wordpress to create categories and subcategories to assign your blogs to different sections in the website. With having Wordpress to make updating your blogs easier, you can update every time you want with no hassles, thereby making your website be among the top search engine rankings. RSS feeds also come with Wordpress, which will enable readers to be updated in real time every time you have updates on your blog.
To start creating a blog using Wordpress, it is advisable to have your own domain name which can easily be purchased for less than $10 a year.
Internet Basics: A Content Management System Is Like An Interior Decorator
Ever see an interior decorator at work? They come into a home and move things around, get rid of old things, bring in new things, and maybe even add new rooms. They do it all with ease and delight. They’re masters at changing things and making them look just so.
That’s what a Content Management System is like (except it doesn’t work on your house, it works on your website).
With a Content Management System (CMS), you can change the content on your website whenever and however you want:
·Change text
·Add/change photos/logos etc.
·Add/remove webpages
And a Content Management System that’s good will be WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzywig). WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get,†which means you just drag and drop things where you want, and all the coding required to make things look like that on your website is done for you automatically without you having to know about it or understand it.
If it sounds great, that’s because it is.
So why don’t most people have a Content Management System for their website?
Because up until recently, they were too expensive for the average website owner to have. But now there are lots of companies offering Content Management System services, and they fall into two types:
·Hosted solutions: the company has their own software installed on their own servers. You log in to their website and use their software to change your website.
·Software solutions: you buy software to install on your computer. The software lets you open your online webpages and change them instantly. A great example of this is a product made by MacroMedia called Contribute –- it’s easy to use and very affordable!
Whether you go with a Hosted or Software solution, you’ll love having the ability to make your website exactly the way you want it to be, quickly and easily.
And that’s why a Content Management System is like an interior decorator.
Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved.
Open Source Content Management Software Radiant Cms
When choosing the best content management system for your project, it is important to weigh both the technical and non-technical pros and cons. Both technical and non-technical reasons can ultimately affect the bottom line cost. Therefore, it is not recommended to simply choose a content management system based solely on technical language or feature set. In this article, we will take a look at an open source content management system called Radiant CMS.Its Ruby on Rails based which can speed development by taking advantage of the convention over configuration paradigm. In addition, the Radiant code base has excellent automated coverage in unit tests. This means the code is well tested and robust. Unit test code coverage can be one aspect to measure when considering open source content management systems. In fact, we could suggest the amount of code covered by automated unit and integration tests should be considered when choosing any open source library and/or framework. It is an easy indicator to measure and compare. But, that is an entirely different conversation.The Radius tagging system of Radiant is fantastic for adding dynamic functionality. It is nice that tags can be added directly to page content rather than some kind of comment or special character sequence in order to indicate non-static content.Radiant has an elegant, intuitive administrative interface. It is not intimidating to the non-technical user. In fact, the design encourages people to embrace using the system, because they assume it is going to be easy to pick up and learn.An additional, non-technical reason to choose Radiant CMS is cost. The project is open source and the community of ruby on rails developers and ruby on rails hosting providers is growing, so your cost risk of obtaining these resources is minimized.From a technical perspective, the open source, Ruby on Rails based Radiant CMS makes an excellent choice. From a non-technical perspective, Radiant CMS makes an excellent choice as well. When combining both perspectives, we have had many positive project experiences and deployments using Radiant over the past year and a half.
Using Joomla templates to enhance your website
Joomla is a free web based content management system, or CMS. It is based on Mambo, and borrows extensively from it. Although, it has been said that Joomla is preferable to Mambo as it was developed later, and amongst other things, the code is clearer. Joomla needs to prove itself, and only time will tell if it can. The database is not as extensive as it is for Mambo, and people have not had the chance to work with it as much. But then again, it is newer, and people are switching to it so maybe it will be here for the long run.
Joomla great because you can update your website without needing to know any of the intricacies of web design, and you can do it all on the internet. Joomla is open sourced software (OSS), which means that although it has been designed by experts, anybody can alter the programme to suit their needs and let others use the new additions.
This may raise questions as to why a person would design a CMS that is free anyone can download it and use it without paying and open sourced. Don’t they want to make money off it? Do they like people changing their programme?
People who design and distribute OSS do so for many reasons, but obviously money is not one of them. Because of this, OSS is usually better software as designers want to put out the best product they can. They’re not getting paid for it, so credit is what they’re working for kudos and applause! Also, as anyone can change it, there is usually a huge community of people who know the programme and can help out in the forums provided. Anyone can become an expert and offer their assistance.
Drawbacks can be overcome with OSS. Add-ons are developed to bypass issues such as incorporating other software; these add-ons are developed by the users so they’re usually what people want, easy to use, and still free.
Joomla is great when you don’t want to know about all the technical stuff, and if you don’t want to have to bother with integrating other scripts to your site. If you just want to use your mouse to install, set up and maintain the site, or if you don’t need user groups or permissions, or the possibility of someone else having the same template, then Joomla is ideal.
Some templates require you to keep a link or ad, for example, to the designer’s website. Copyright notices need to be read before you download the templates.
Like anything, Joomla has its drawbacks but in the right hands, it can be a powerful tool.
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