Joomla - Fully Functional Content Management System
Joomla was one of the first major open-source content management systems to really capture a significant share of the market. Although the introduction of many new comers into the CMS vertical has cut into market share, it is still one of the widely-used platforms that power a lot of sites today. Despite the popularity of Wordpress and Drupal, Joomla has a very large, loyal customer base. Users seem to be attracted to its user friendly interface and scalability options for use in creating custom web design.
Search Engine Friendly
One of the biggest weaknesses of Joomla according to some users is that it is not as search engine friendly as it might be. It does however enable users to include the title of the page in the URL which is helpful for search engine optimization purposes. Mata tags pertaining to description and keywords may be set according to article. Even greater control over meta tags can be provided using extensions like SEO patch.
User Friendly
One of Joomla’s many strengths is its relatively easy to use administration interface. It comes with several useful features, including a WYSIWYG editor which makes the management of content much easier. Virtually anyone can be taught how to use it although some people feel that it can be a little difficult for some to learn initially. Generally, it is believed that WordPress may be a little more intuitive.
Flexibility Friendly
Joomla is extremely customizable. It uses a model-view-controller (MVC) framework which is similar to some other APIs. This enables developers to override the Joomla core without compromising the integrity of the system. Various components, such as e-commerce carts, forums and event listings can be installed which greatly enhances it usability.
Choice Friendly
With approximately 5,000 free Joomla templates and over 3500 commercial templates, Joomla has a tremendous advantage when compared with the newer kids on the block. Obviously, having an adequate choice of templates to choose from is important to most users. Indeed one of the traditional advantages of being in the CMS market place longer than other competitors is the momentum that comes from having lots of template choices.
One of the questions being talked about recently has to do with whether or not it is possible to have too many choices. Some psychologists and marketing gurus are suggesting that when a product or service offering has too many choices, it can cause choice paralysis. They contend that it is usually easier for customers and potential customers to make choices if they are presented with fewer options to choose from. There is even reason to believe that they are happier with their decision.
If there is an exception to the rule concerning choice paralysis, it would have to be in the area of content management systems. In this vertical, there is such a diverse need for template options and the end users are highly technical people who know exactly what they want to accomplish and are not intimidated by a wide array of choices. With over 8,000 templates to choose from, programmers and webmasters are like children in a candy store during the decision making process.
Guest post by: Stewart Cook is passionate about web design and SEO and is currently employed by WebConcepts a leading web development and design company based in West Jordan, Utah. In addition to providing SEO web design, WebConcepts also provides ecommerce website design, multimedia design and mobile application development.
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