There are many tools available to site designers today, ranging from Adobe Dreamweaver to fully WYSIWYG web based environments, and any combination of these.  So, how do you choose?  Several factors will determine the choice that fits:

1. What does the customer want?
2. How much content will the site hold?
3. How often will updates be made to the site?
4. Who is making the updates?

As a professional web designer, I have tried the majority of popular tools available, and one has found its place as my tool of choice… Joomla!

Joomla is an open source content management system (CMS) with an active development community, extreme extensibility, and a plethora of third party plugins, modules, and components.  Here are some of the main reasons why I make it my first choice as a development platform:

Template based –  Joomla styles the generated pages based upon css template design.  You can create your own templates, or use pre-designed versions available for free or at a modest cost.  These templates make it trivial to “try on” a new design with your site’s content.  Tweaking them to gain the exact look you desire is easy as well.

Rapid development – The core framework is in place when you install Joomla itself.  Your web server does need to support PHP and MySQL, which most Linux hosting packages do.  All you have to do at this point is add content, and create the graphic look and feel that you want.

Easy to migrate – The migration from development server to live server is a piece of cake.  Tools such as Akeeba Backup make the job so simple that virtually anyone can do it with the expected results.

Easy to update and maintain – This is perhaps the most important of the reason for using Joomla.  Anybody can update or add content to a Joomla site, even the customer.  While many design houses might not like this idea, we do.  It is a value-added feature when the client knows that they are not necessarily tied to you for small maintenance tasks.  With just two hours of training, we find that our customers are comfortable with creating in the backend.

Extensive selection of third party modules – Plugins, Modules, and Components, oh my!  There are so many out there.  Whatever functionality you are looking for in your site, chances are you’ll find a pre-built module that fits the bill.  Many of these are free (as in beer), and some are commercial.  The installation and uninstallation of these software components is so simple that it makes it a pleasure to give new ones a try.

If you haven’t given Joomla a shot, you really should.  It is a solid foundation on which to build a great looking website with modern functionality — in record time.