What Is a Joomla Web Site?

If you're running or managing a business (for-profit or nonprofit), Joomla is likely the best content management system (CMS) available to run your web site. For those unfamiliar with the term, a CMS offers you a central back-end interface to your web site, allowing you to publish or edit your content, publish blogs, administer your ecommerce, move things around on pages, upload files and images, and even change the look and feel of your entire web site.

You can manage the whole show yourself or collaborate with an entire team of people, each with their own areas to care for, features they can (or cannot) access, and other group and per-user privilege settings. All of this functionality is built into the core system, as are all of the other features of a high-end web site -- things like configuration screens, preferences, menu controls, category management, SEO features, and more.

Joomla features arguably the most advanced, up-to-date code base of the major CMSs. This means that extending Joomla is much easier (and standards-based) than other systems, which translates into less expensive consulting time and enhanced efficiency. "Extending" means going beyond the core package to provide specific solutions that your business needs, but which perhaps not all businesses need.

Take ecommerce, for example. Not all web sites sell products online. But, if that's important to you, then Joomla has pre-built extensions (many free / open source, some commercial) that you can choose from to extend your site's capabilities into this area. It works the same for most things that some business want, but not necessarily all of them desire -- things social media integration, directory applications, community sites, various alternatives to the article editor, sitemaps, forms tools, event registrations, CRM functionality, site backups, media players, etc.

The take-home message for all of that is this: Joomla offers your business a rock-solid core, and then you extend it to suit your needs -- and, most of the enhancements that typical businesses want are either free or inexpensive. What's great about extending Joomla is that this often reflects areas so specialized (non-core) that you really want a personal touch, anyway. It's nice to be able to choose, say, a media player that looks and behaves best for your preferences out of the many media-player add-ons available.

Some businesses may want to extend Joomla in ways that are even more customized than existing extensions might offer. For example, you may need to integrate Joomla with an outside database, or build your own applications on the site. Maybe you're a contractor, and you want to build a custom web page where people can input dimensions and details so that the site can calculate an estimate. No problem; with Joomla, it's easy for developers to do custom add-ons. (Obviously, that was a simple example, of course.)

What About [Some Other CMS]?

Well, Wordpress is great. It's world-class and extremely popular. But, it's lacking when it comes to the amount of control and functionality that many businesses need. If you're a blogger and you need a simple blog site that you're going to administer yourself, then by all means look into Wordpress. Joomla is a different animal; to use Joomla for a simple blog featuring cat pictures would be like driving a Ferrari to the supermarket.

Drupal is another big one that you may have heard of. Personally, Drupal isn't my cup of tea. I think Joomla has a stronger core, better code, and is more "agile" (to use a techie term). But, in the end, it's a preference thing, and it's also rather difficult to research online, as there's nothing so off-putting as techno-geeks bickering about which CMS is best and which ones are nightmares. Trust me: You'll never be able to get a clear, definitive answer. The answer is whatever you want it to be, in fact -- whatever resonates with you most.

So, What Is the Best Solution for My Business?

Let's meet and talk about it. Drop me a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , and we'll set up a time to chat.