Advantages of using a CMS instead of HTML - or, why should you use Joomla?

  In the last year I have been building all of my clients' sites exclusively in Joomla, straying farther and farther away from static xhtml and css. Why? This has been a question I have been asked many times by clients, who by no fault of their own, have had no prior experience or knowledge with CMS systems. Truthfully many of my clients have limited knowledge of web designing and development in any form, and therefore have heard many different and sometimes conflicting opinions as to how to move forward with their site development or re-development.

  Content Management Systems (CMS) offer several advantages over static xtml, the largest being the ease of updates. It puts the power in the hands of the client, enabling them to write and publish their own content anytime and from anywhere in the world, offering the opportunity for the client to have fresh and relevant content on their sites at all times.

  Here is my list of the differences between Joomla (my preferred choice of CMS) and static xtml, and the advantages of using Joomla when building (or re-building) your site.

  Full administrative back-end. A CMS is separated by a front end (what the visitor sees) and an administrative back end (password protected area only you, or whoever you want, can have access to). Here is where all the action is - you can write, edit, delete, move around, and do everything to your site here. Nothing is kept locally on your machine, everything resides in a database on your server. To make changes all you need to do is log in as an administrator and go to town.

  Cross browser compatible. Joomla is compatible with Internet Explorer 6 and up, as well as Firefox, Safari and Opera. 

  Focuses on content. Content Management Systems are all about content - naturally, as their name implies. Joomla allows you to focus on writing and publishing your content with little more effort than is necessary with writing in Word. Type a paragraph, select a couple of options, and your content is instantly published on your site. You can even choose whether you want your new content (called Articles) on the front page or not. You can organize your content into sections and categories if you wish, and afterwards create a menu link that will either go directly to your article or list all the articles in a particular section or category. For example, lets say you're writing articles about entertainment. You can set up a section called "restaurants". Then create categories such as "Italian", "French", "Mexican". You write some articles about Mexican restaurants. So, you can create a menu link that will only pull articles that you have assigned to the Restaurants/Mexican section/category.

    Separation of content and template. Joomla works by completely separating the template from the content. XMTL combines them. So lets say you've spent a year working on your site, writing all your articles, but you want to update the look. With xhtml, each page is manually edited to include the new look. Even if it was built using strict CSS coding, it will be tedious to go through each page to verify that some part wasn't overlooked in the redesign. With Joomla, you can assign a new template easily, and the existing content will wrap around it's new template. You can change the look of your site instantly, anytime you wish, without losing what you have written - or having to re-write it all over again.

    Content can be written and edited on the fly. In an airport on your way to a client's meeting and want to update your event calendar before you board your plane? As long as you have internet access you can log into your account, make your change, and it will publish immediately. Anywhere you can get on the internet, you can get on your site and make your changes.

    Database driven, so pages need not be edited manually, and edits can be applied globally at once. This is important. I don't know how many times I've seen footers list last year's copyright on them. Sometimes they're correct in some pages but not others. Why? Generally this is hard coded within the xhtml page, and when there is a change, each page needs to be opened and modified. Tedious and with a wide margin of error. WIth Joomla, sections like this can be changed once, and all instances are updated instantly and globally across your site.

  Multiple contributors of content. You want your Marketing Director to write articles. You also want your SVP of Sales writing as well. Maybe you want  your Executive Assistant in on it, too. Plus there's you. You can assign multiple levels of visitors - public (which enables everyone to see the articles), registered (which only allows logged in registered visitors access) and authors (these people can read and write to their hearts content). However none of them have access to change anything in the back-end. Administrators and Super Administrators do that. Assign levels to whomever you choose, anytime you choose.

  Change the look and feel without changing content. With an easy implementation of one of the thousands of free or low-cost templates readily available, you can change the entire site's look and feel without having to redo any of the content - and the change is implemented instantly and globally across your site. Want to go back to the look you had before? Joomla keeps all templates and allows you to choose which one you want with a click of a button.

  Updates can be handled in-house, by anyone, instead of a web designer. Once Joomla has been installed and configured on your server, anyone you assign can write articles on the site, from anywhere, at any time. Which means no more having to write the article, emailing it to your web designer or developer, waiting for them to convert it to html and upload it to the site, your review, and if there are changes having to go through the whole process all over again. You control when articles are written and published, you control your content, you control your site.

  Search engine optimized. Joomla offers easy URLs, global meta tags/keywords/descriptions, as well as on individual pages. As all the content is easily indexed (from the menu items to the articles), picky search engines will be able to read the content and validate the site for their search results.

  Pre-built modules such as contact forms, blogs, polls, calendar, etc. Joomla comes with several interactive features right out of the box that are instantly added, such as contact forms, polls, blogs and more. Future functionality can be added by one of the thousands of free or inexpensive, easily added modules instead of using a developer to create them for you. Easily install these modules and you have them readily available to implement at your choosing.

  Easily add a password protected area or content. Who doesn't want to feel like a VIP? Give your registered users access to articles only they can see - or downloadable items just for them. Send them messages right from the site. Blast newsletters directly to them. A very powerful feature that generates direct and motivated leads.

  As new modules are created every day, Joomla is an ever expanding universe. It continues to grow strong. Once you begin to use your CMS you'll wonder why you ever wanted static xhtml in the first place. I know I've moved on myself and my clients couldn't be happier with the ease in which they can change their look, add new content and offer their visitors fun and interactive elements. You can too.

 

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