Why A Content Management System Can Save You Money?

Business Owners are constantly reminded that they need their own Business Web Site but, one of the key problems is maintaining the content. How many times have you had to ring your web designer to ask them to change a sentence or add an image and how many times have you been charged for this? Considering using a Content Management system is a great option for getting round this problem and one of the best on the market is Joomla.

What is this joomla?

Joomla is a web based software application that helps you to manage the content on your website. The content can be pictures, text, graphics, or just about anything media wise and one of the great benefits of using a system like this is that it doesn’t require a high level of technical skill or knowledge to use it. Oh, and by the way it is Free.

Getting Started:

Although there is a learning curve, once you have mastered the basics it can be pretty simple to login and upload or edit your content. What is more, as a business owner, this can also be a great cost saver as you are not constantly asking your web designer to do this for you. In fact by taking a little time to read and watch some of the Joomla tutorials that are on the net, you can handle the management of your web site completely in house. The only drawback is that you will need to dedicate some time to learn how to use it first, but this will save you a considerable amount time and money in the future.

What next?

If you decide to use this application spend a bit of time researching and choosing the right ISP (Internet Service Provider). As always, the cheapest are not always the best. I have received many emails from frustrated business owners who have been left without a web site because they have found out that their cheap ISP doesn’t offer any support, so I would recommend taking some time researching this.

For Joomla, choose an ISP who offers you hosting with Joomla pre-installed. This means you are ready to start adding your content almost immediately after your account has been created. There is no need to have to download and install the application yourself when you can have a professional do it.

“What about the design of the site though. How can I handle this” you are asking? There are many sites that offer Joomla templates. Some are free and some you have to pay for, but most of the templates will be less than if you paid a designer to create a design for you and your ISP might even have some they can offer you included in the price of hosting.

Another great benefit to using Joomla is that you can also add extra functionality to your web site as your experience grows. There are a multitude of applications to choose from such as Shopping systems, blogs, Social networking applications to name a few and many of these “add-ons” are also free.

Benefits

So you can see that there are a lot of really good things about using a system like this. It is free, there are templates you can use for the design and best of all it will save your business a small fortune. Joomla will also allow you to grow as your experience and confidence grows and I strongly recommend that you spend some time familiarizing yourself with how to use the application first.

How To Have Your Own Content Rich Web Site

It is recognized how important it is to have a web site that has lots of content. This helps to score a higher ranking with the Search Engines which in turn increases the amount of traffic that visits your web site. But if you are not a web designer how can you have this type of site without having to pay a small fortune?

If you want your own content rich web site then you might consider using one of the Open Source Content Management systems. One that comes to mind is Joomla and what is more it is Free.

If you are going to consider using Joomla then you should first think about taking some time to read and watch various Joomla tutorials that are available on the net. Although there is a reasonable learning curve, once you have mastered the basics it is pretty straight forward.

The great thing about Joomla is that you don’t have to rely on Web Designers or other technically minded people to build your web site and your site will grow as your experience grows. I hear too many web site owners struggling with having to pay for updates when all they want to do is change a paragraph or add an image.

So let’s take a look at the benefits of using this type of software:

1. Content: It goes without saying, a content rich site requires a lot of content and if you are like me, you know how long this takes to produce, but with Joomla you can allocate other users to edit your content. That is not to say that you will suddenly see that you have content that you haven’t approved of. You can set up users with different access levels for example; you may simply want a colleague to submit news articles for you and this can be done by setting up a user to be able to login and create content but you will still have the ability to approve of the content before it is published.

2. Design: With the content taken care of the next question you may have is “how am I going to make my site look professional?” Another great feature of Joomla is the fact that you can obtain templates that you simply upload and Joomla will display almost immediately. This takes the headache out of having to worry about learning how to use Photoshop, HTML or Cascading Style Sheets etc. There are many sites on the net who offer Joomla templates. Some you will have to pay for and some you will find complicated, but with a little research and time you will find a design that fits your site.

3. Functionality: When you have got your content and design sorted, you can start to look at how you can add extra functionality to your site such as you may decide that you want to add a shopping system or a blog or a Social Community area and this is where you will find an industry of programmers who can offer you virtually any functionality that you can think of and many of these add-ons are free

So you can see that Joomla really is a flexible system that allows you to grow your site as you become more experienced and with a little time spent reading and watching the available video tutorials and user guides you will wonder why you ever needed help from the professionals.