Why Joomla?

Since it first burst onto the scene in 2005, Joomla has seen a meteoric rise in popularity making it the most powerful, non-commercial, Web content management system of choice, that is nothing short of astounding.  If you haven't heard of it before you might be surprised to hear it's the most widely used content management system in the world. There are many reasons for this, some of which we will be looking at.  Please click the Joomla CMS link for more information.

From simple home page sites based on a few pages to complex business applications and corporate websites, Joomla can be used by anyone without knowing a single line of programming code.  This hugely powerful application gives immense scope and the dynamics of a custom designed site, without the headaches of security, testing and bug fix that are part of every IT project.

There are also many books available on Joomla and a thriving Joomla community (see the official website, Joomla.org).   There is an abundance of information and help available should you need it.

Firstly, I want to explain in simple terms how Joomla works and just how easy it is to use:

How Does Joomla Work?

Joomla is built on a a structure using a template.  There are many hundreds (if not thousands) of templates, some are free and some are commercial.  The template contains place holders for content, for example the main article content, your sites banner and content blocks that can be arranged around the main article content. If a placeholder is not used, the placeholder is not displayed.  Therefore, using a single template, you can have just one main article, or several columns and/or rows of content.

Although, you can install many templates, only one is required to create a website that is rich, diverse and as large as you want.  This is because when a menu item is clicked, the page is dynamically displayed.  This means that the webpage doesn't exist until the user clicks the menu item and when they do, the page is constructed in the layout you have specified.  Needless to say, you can include text, images, graphics, video and audio in Joomla. A lot can be achieved with a little knowledge.

Easy to Use

Joomla is very easy to use.  It has a graphical user interface (as oppose to lines of code), administrator access through the backend application.  Permissions can also be set to allow users to add/edit content through the frontend, i.e. directly on the website.
Standards-Compliant

Because it's constructed on modern standards-compliant technologies (PHP, xHTML, CSS & MySQL - don't worry if you don't know what these mean, they are probably the top 4 technologies used on the Internet), you can be sure that Joomla is Web 2.0 ready and already future-proofed.  

You can also switch on/off menu items when  you want - especially useful for special offers and upcoming events.  It also means that you can put your ideas together and publish them when you're ready.

Joomla vs. WordPress

You may have heard of WordPress.  Many people are now using it as a content management system also.  It has a wonderful reputation for being easy to use and update.  Like Joomla, it also offers the possibility of installing a commercial template. 

Templates

WordPress templates are not as flexible as Joomla templates and tend to have a blog-like look (mostly 2 or 3 column layouts), even when used as a content management system. 

By contrast, Joomla templates tend to be very flexible, allowing content to be placed in a variety of positions known as module positions.  These positions are collapsable, meaning that if they're not used they disappear from the layout.

Many Joomla templates also offer the possibility of changing column widths and using different templates for different areas of your website.

High quality templates can be purchased inexpensively and many are free. With Joomla you can create a website "out of the box" that looks and acts like a robust enterprise content Management system.

Extensions

A key reason to use Joomla over WordPress is that there are thousands of extensions available, but Joomla tends to win out in terms of the number of extensions and the features available for your website.  Installing an extension is a means of increasing the features of your website at little or no cost.