Web design

Managing your website easier with joomla

2010-03-06T00:40:00.000-08:00

Wow, writing articles is not an easy task. I thought “What is the big deal about putting your thoughts on paper?”. It sounds easy when you have it in your mind, but when you actually trying to write something, that’s when you feel the lack of the knowledge in how to put everything together. So, I feel that my first articles will lead people to more questions than they had before. I apologize if something is not clear for you and it is because of the way I write.. The topics that I am writing about are not easy, either, especially when they need to be explained in short articles. Some people dedicate whole websites to explain just one program, for example Joomla. I hope you will accept my effort with understanding.

So, Joomla, right? What can I say about Joomla... It is a very good service for those who want to manage their website by themselves and don’t want to learn coding and everything that it takes to create a website. Joomla it is one of Content Management Systems (CMS). That means that you don't need to hire anyone to change something on your website, because you can easily manage a Joomla-created website on your own.

After installing Joomla, you will have a variety of website templates available, which are controlled by a code which makes the templates accessible to those who are not friendly with web development. So, if you want to create, add, or delete articles on your website created with Joomla, you only need to click a couple of buttons or write the content you want to add or edit, click “Publish” button and you are all done – it publishes the information you need on your website. The code which controls this process makes everything for you. It takes this info, transfers it into the code and places it where you direct it. So, this is pretty easy. However, you might need to have someone install Joomla for you, because it is kind of a complicated process. And, of course, you need to dedicate some time to learn how to manage your website.

A disadvantage of CMS is that you are limited in design. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you use a pre-made template. You can find a free template or you can buy one. Price varies from 20$ -300$. Such low prices come with a disadvantage – the company that creates your website usually places their ads and info on your webpage. If you want a custom made template with your unique design, it is going to be expensive. It can easily range from 700$ and up depending on how complicated the design is. In this case, however, you will not have any links, ads, or info on your website about a company that created this template.

I know that it is not enough information to describe the whole process, but like I mentioned earlier, you cannot put all the details in one or two articles. If you are interested to read more about CMS systems or custom websites, let me know and I will provide links to where you can find more detailed articles. My mission was to try, in a couple of words, explaining what options you may have before ordering a website. All options have benefits and limitations, and you have to choose what fits your circumstances the best. I hope that these articles will help those who don’t have much time to dive into the new world of web design.
I’ll see you in a bit.

Custom website versus CMS

2010-03-06T00:39:00.000-08:00

When you order custom websites, as mentioned before, there are a number of things to consider. The biggest benefit is that you have a totally unique website made from scratch, designed especially for you. Here are a few words about the process of creating a custom website.
First, based on your wishes, the designer draws the front page or home page for your website. If you like the design, he continues to do the rest of the job. The most exciting thing about custom made websites is that you can actually change everything you want at any time. If you want to add graphics or text, a banner or a button, you just go to the page that needs editing and make minor changes to the code and voilà! Seems very nice, but only for people who actually have knowledge of how to do that. Here come disadvantages of a custom website.

Let’s say, you ordered a website from a freelancer or a company, and after job is done, you are satisfied with the result. After awhile you see that you would like to edit, add or delete some of the content. In this case, you call the company or the freelancer who made the website and ask them to change it. Everything is fine, but the only negative thing is that you have to pay again. If you have a store online I presume that you will have a need to edit website pretty often. In this case, CMS systems like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress etc. come in handy. I will explain about one of them, that I am using, in my next article.

CMS systems are very easy to use, but have some limitations as well. I know it sounds very complicated, but don’t’ worry -you can handle it. The main disadvantage of CMS systems is that those who use them, utilize premade templates, thus limiting the creativity of the website. These templates are sometimes free. The thing about them is that they are ready to go. You just need to fill it with content. However, you are limited in design, because they are attached to the design used in the template. You cannot change a lot. For example, you see the place where you would like to add some text, add graphic, but you can’t. You have to do everything according to how the template allows you to.

Sorry, I'm misleading you... Actually, the design of the template can be changed but only by the person who how to do it. But in this case it can lead you to pay more money and probably having some errors on your website in the future, because if you want to do something that is against the rules of the template, you have to change the code and it is not always a good idea.
Let’s put everything together.

A custom made website:

Pros:
- Made exactly how you want it to be
- Cheap if up to 5-7 pages long
- Prices may vary from $100 and up
Cons:
- If you want to make some minor changes you have to hire someone and pay again. You cannot manage it by yourself without coding knowladge

Website created with help of one of CMS systems.

Pros:
- Can be used without any knowledge of the code
- You may manage the content of such a website, like articles, galleries, contact info etc.
- Template is ready to go, so you don’t have to spend time on making a design – just choosing it
- Hundreds of add-ons available for CMS such as web stores, calendars, databases, galleries etc.
Cons:
- You cannot change a lot in the design of the template used

So, here is a little bit of information about custom websites and CMS systems. I hope it all makes sense for you and you will come back to look at more of my articles. Read about Joomla system in my next article to understand the process of creating a website with the help of CMS. If something is not clear to you, please send me an email with your question and I will be glad to answer you.
Thank you for reading.

What do you need to know before ordering a website.

2010-03-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

If you decided that your business needs to make a step forward and get more customers, one of the great ways to do it is creating a website. In our times more people are getting access to Internet and every other person can afford to buy a computer. Everything is becoming more accessible through the Internet (whether you need to check store hours, directions, products availability in the stores, prices and many more). So, as you can see, creating a website and describing everything that is going on in your store or company is not such a bad idea. OK, let me get closer to our topic.

Before ordering a website you need to make sure that you have the information needed to create your website. Here are the questions which you will be asked:

1. How many pages would you like to have (depending on the business that you have it may vary from simple 5 pages to hundreds)? Usually for local business I wouldn’t publish too many pages with bunch of unnecessary information. Sometimes customers need just simple information, such as what you sell, what is the price, maybe review the pictures of the product and how to contact you. So, I would suggest 5-7 pages (for example, home, products, prices, gallery, contact etc.) You need to decide which pages you want your customers to have access to.

2. Generate content for you website, which is, honestly, always a pain in the neck. After I learned how to create websites and was ready to make something for myself, I understood that I don’t have enough text for my website to make it more interesting. Now I am learning how to write articles. So, don’t kill the messenger if you will see some errors. This is my first article. Let’s go back to content. You need to write approximately 10-15 lines of description of what your business is all about. You may add something about yourself. Maybe add pictures of you, your products or service and place where you are located or something like that. It will be very simple, but it will do the job. It will give your customers a good idea about your business or organization. They will find out more details when they will visit your business.

3. Choose your main colors. Not more then 2-3.

4. When you order a website, you need buy a domain name and hosting. Usually it is not included in the price for the website. The money goes to third parties companies. This is going to be more technical information, but we have to go through it.

To have website you need to buy domain name (more info about domain names you may find here or here. A domain name is the name of your website like www.google.com. A person who makes your website usually already has a few domain-selling companies for consideration in mind. The price for a domain name usually varies from $5 to $15 per year. Not very expensive as you can see. Secondly, you need hosting (more info about hosting you may fine here or here). In simple words, hosting is a certain amount of space that you rent on the Internet. All files for your website will be uploaded to this space. Rent for hosting is usually from 6-20$ per month. So you have to take it to your consideration.

Also some companies provide free hosting (space). But, as you already know, everything that is free has some ...let’s call them defects.

Some people can deal with those defects or limitations, some can not. My next project will be about creating a website that will be dedicated to information about free hosting and companies that provide free hosting. So, you probably will ask me “what defects does free hosting have?”. There are many of them, but here is a couple:

a) Free hosting companies publish their information, ads and banners on your website.

b) Name of you website (domain name) will be something like http://www.yourcompanyname.hostingcompanyname.com. It will be very hard for your customers to remember the name of your website. You care about them, right?! Sometimes these companies may have really weird name and it is not going to sound professional for your company.

c) Space that they provide with free hosting may not be enough for your website.

d) Speed to download your website may be too low. Some people don’t have enough patience to wait and may just leave your website without getting to know about your company.

There are many more defects and if you want to read about them check here.

5. Choose the way you want your website to be created. Managing a website is a bigger task than creating it. If you don’t want to pay someone money to add or delete something from your website after it was created, you probably want your website to be made using one of the CMS systems (content management system) such as Joomla, WordPress, Drupal etc. With these systems, you don’t need any coding knowledge. It is very easy to use for everybody. Of course, you will need to dedicate some time to understand how it works. There are some pros and cons about CMS and custom made websites. I will write about them in my next articles here and here.

I know that not everyone will agree with me about some aspects of this article, but everyone has different experience. I describe my own experience, so, don’t judge me too hard. Overall it is my first article and English is not my native language. My first languages are Ukrainian and Russian.

Read my articles and let me know if you have a question, comment, or concern.
Thank you for your time.