Building your business website: Understanding the options

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SMALL-BUSINESS WEBSITES By Will Fastie Your company website is the centerpiece for your online presence. It should be welcoming, attractive, and effec
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Norio, woody

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I was a little disappointed that you didn’t mention Joomla.

I’ve built about a dozen websites for nonprofits. I’ve found Joomla simpler and easier to use. Much less confusing that WordPress that I’ve also used for three others. WordPress still seems hung up on the Blog paradigm to me while Joomla allows for a more powerful and robust website.

Yes, there are fewer Joomla based websites out there, but I think folks are missing a powerful tool.

Joomla also works on pretty much every platform and you can find powerful extensions with more that are no cost than you can with WordPress.

With the (small fee) RSJoomla firewall it also is a lot more secure.

Cheers!
Bill Finkelstein – retired alpha geek (cisco systems)

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Will Fastie

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First, I have no affiliation with DreamHost. I’m just a customer.

They offer their “Remixer” website builder. But one their rather unique features is that design can be exported as a WordPress theme. So you can build your own design graphically and still use WordPress to make the site portable. Plus you have the option of designing a new layout and switching the WordPress theme to the new design without losing your content.

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Will Fastie

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wb6jao wrote:

I was a little disappointed that you didn’t mention Joomla.

Nor did I mention Drupal. Joomla, Drupal and others fall in the custom category because they are all complex enough that a developer is required. I’ve done rescues of Joomla sites but none for Drupal, which I found interesting because I considered Drupal more complicated than Joomla.

But I’m not a Joomla expert; my knowledge of it is old. Before I built my own CMS (long ago) I considered Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Concrete and a few others; I rejected them all for complexity. I have no doubt that a Joomla expert like you can build sites efficiently.

wb6jao wrote:

WordPress still seems hung up on the Blog paradigm…

Yes, that’s a very good point. WordPress has an essential, underlying ingredient, its taxonomy. Everything must be a post. In other words, if you have an ecommerce solution with products in a database table, all those items must be in the main post table. I agree that Joomla and Drupal are more flexible but the simplicity of WordPress in this regard makes it more approachable by the non-technical.

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Norio

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bret28273 wrote:

But one their rather unique features is that design can be exported as a WordPress theme.

Interesting. It’s the first time I’ve heard of anything like that.

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Another interesting and informative article, Will. Thank you.

We started with a custom site, but ended up switching to WordPress so I could handle the editing myself. Of course, my ideal would always be to have a professional custom design our site … maybe one day the budget will allow it!

The point you made about finding the right e-commerce extension/plugin really hit home. Finding the needed plugins – and not being overwhelmed by the choices – is the biggest challenge I find with WordPress. That and the fact that every new plugin means yet another learning curve.

I was also happy to find the links to your earlier articles for small business so I can read them all. I had only read your email article up to now.

Thanks for putting together such a series of helpful articles for us Woody fans!!

Linda

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IreneLinda wrote:

Thanks for putting together such a series of helpful articles for us Woody fans!!

I’m very glad you’re finding them useful. Thank you.

IreneLinda wrote:

We started with a custom site, but ended up switching to WordPress so I could handle the editing myself.

A very common story. WordPress is my biggest competitor.

IreneLinda wrote:

The point you made about finding the right e-commerce extension/plugin really hit home.

WordPress is free as long as you have a ready supply of elbow grease. The fact that it requires little or no cash inspires folks to look for free solutions in extensions. That can be a trap, as my brother discovered. He was actually paying for an ecommerce extension on his third try but eventually ran into problems getting it to work properly. He’s a tough customer; he’s not 100% satisfied with my solution (although he loved the price – I hate those family discounts). But the “light” ecommerce solution is very, very simple and he likes that.

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