Our Top 4 Reasons for Building Websites with Joomla
There are a plethora of systems available that can be used to build a website today. And more are coming on to the market all the time.
This makes it very difficult to decide which website system will be right for your company's website. What should you be looking for? How do you know which one is best? What are the professionals using?
We've been building websites for more than 10 years. After extensive research and testing, our website system of choice is still Joomla. (Read more about how we came to choose Joomla.) Here are our top 4 reasons why we prefer to build websites with Joomla:
1. Easy to use
Joomla is one of the world's most popular full-featured Content Management Systems. It is easy to use for non-developer/programmer people and is used by millions of folks to update their websites around the world daily. It runs around 2.7% of the largest 1 000 000 websites on the planet.
There are 2821 (and growing!) government websites around the globe using Joomla. To "see" this, take a look at this world map or you can look at this list .
You really don't need to be a "tech-guru" to run your website with Joomla. You'll be able to update your own info and images yourself whenever you want to - at no extra cost and without waiting for a web developer to have time to fit you in.
2. Technology & Development
For a start, Joomla is Open Source, which means there are no licence fees - let alone annual renewal fees - that need to be paid to use the system.
It is built using PHP and MySQL, which are very widely used web technologies. This allows the rich and reliable core of the system to be extended as required and make each website unique.
The developer community alone has over 425 000 active registered users across the various forums. Any security issues are fixed rapidly and development is ongoing and extremely active.
What this means for you, the end-user, is that unlike systems that are created "in-house" and which are limited to the skills and time of the original developer for further expansion, updates, bug fixing, security pathes etc, Joomla is a system that is constantly tested, developed and enhanced by thousands of people all the time. The result is an exceptional website system that is very stable, secure and robust and which has a strong and lively support community.
3. Flexibility, Scale-ability & Customization
The core functionality of the Joomla system can be extended and enhanced by means of Extensions.
This allows for customization of individual sites and the ability to add any functionality a particular website might need.
These extensions also allow an individual website to scale as it needs to and to be flexible in terms of offering new and different functionality as the business behind the website progresses.
So how powerful is Joomla and how big can it go? The following from Joomla's website:
What are some real world examples of what Joomla! can do?
Joomla is used all over the world to power web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example:
* Corporate Web sites or portals
* Corporate intranets and extranets
* Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
* E-commerce and online reservations
* Government applications
* Small business Web sites
* Non-profit and organizational Web sites
* Community-based portals
* School and church Web sites
* Personal or family homepages
Who uses Joomla?
Here are just a few examples of Web sites that use Joomla:
- MTV Networks Quizilla (Social networking) - http://www.quizilla.com
- IHOP (Restaurant chain) - http://www.ihop.com
- Harvard University (Educational) - http://gsas.harvard.edu
- Citibank (Financial institution intranet) - Not publicly accessible
- The Green Maven (Eco-resources) - http://www.greenmaven.com
- Outdoor Photographer (Magazine) - http://www.outdoorphotographer.com
- PlayShakespeare.com (Cultural) - http://www.playshakespeare.com
- Senso Interiors (Furniture design) - http://www.sensointeriors.co.za
Not all of the aspects you see on these sites come with a standard Joomla installation. Because of the way Joomla is built though, this isn't a problem as techies/programmers can create/change whatever it is they want and then integrate it into the Joomla system via components, modules, plugins, core hacks, CSS changes etc.
4. Design
The "face" or design of a Joomla site is controlled by the site's template. Joomla template designs range from the very simple to wonderfully rich and complex. Off-the-shelf templates can be used as is or customized to suit a particular site. This allows for infinite variation, uniqueness and flexibility in terms of design.
Browse through some of the existing websites around the world to see implemented designs.
All-in-all, from a professional and end-user point of view, Joomla offers a very comprehensive website system and we've found it to be a consistenly reliable and solid choice for hundreds of the websites we've built over the years.
If you'd like a website that offers all this, talk to us today: