Use Joomla--and Why, and What That Means
There's a tendency, when you are choosing your Webmaster, to let the Webmaster use her tool of choice to develop your site. Typically, each Webmaster has just one or perhaps two tools that they use--so once you make that choice, you're stuck with what they use. It's valid for a Webmaster to use the same tool all the time, because these things are not simple to learn, and over time they develop expertise in the use of whatever tool they use, and can develop very quickly using it.
This seems fine, until that day comes when you want to change Webmasters. You may find that there is no way that your new Webmaster can work with the information on the site and continue to change it--that really the "master" information for your site, that enables its continued evolution, is on the former Webmaster's PC, and also locked within whatever tool she used to develop your site. So changing Webmasters often means redeveloping your site.
But that's not all. It's also the usual case that if you want to rewrite a page--and you should do this often, because search engines really like fresh content--once it's written you have to pay your Webmaster, and wait for them to get to this small task, just to put the new content onto the site. Because the master is locked into the Webmaster's PC, only the Webmaster can make these changes.
There have been very important new technology trends in the way Web sites are developed, though, and there are dramatically improved tools that are now used to develop sites, that address these limitations. These tools are called content managers. The entire tool runs on the Web site--all of the design is captured there, there's no master on the Webmaster's PC--and once the design is implemented, end users can be given permission to change content, about as easily as writing a document using a word processor. So you can have your own marketing manager write copy for your Web site and actually put it onto the site. Change it every week! You won't have to wait for the Webmaster to get around to it, and you won't have to pay a third party to do the work.
There are a number of content managers out there. Some you pay for--and they cost up to four figures to buy--and some are free. There's one that's free for a site up to 50 files, and then when you hit 50 you owe them three hundred bucks. But there's one that stands out, and it's open source--which means that it's written by a band of volunteers, so it's free for you to use it. It's called Joomla. Joomla gets installed on your Web server, and it stores your site in MySQL, and delivers Web pages to visitors through your Web server just like any other site.
The really good thing about Joomla is that it's very widely used, for small business sites and for sites of the largest corporations. Because of this large following, a huge number of extensions have been written for it, and they range in price from free to inexpensive. The functions provided by these extensions are remarkable--they do a lot that you'd otherwise have to program. So how to you go about getting a site developed using Joomla?
The first thing to do is locate an ISP that specializes in hosting Joomla sites. They will sell you a site for ten to twenty dollars a month with Joomla already installed and working. And they will likely be able to direct you to experienced Joomla site designers. If they can't, though, just do a Google search for Joomla site designers in your area. Visit them, see their offices, and see examples of their work. And talk to a few customers--how was the experience of working with them? Because of the popularity of Joomla, you'll find that there are plenty of Joomla designers who can be hired to build your site.
And when that time comes for you to change Webmasters, make sure that you have purchased the site hosting in your name, so that you can change the password for access to the site, and then give that new password to the next Webmaster that you hire to take over. And while you're at it, you'll never have to pay for any site development tools, and your site won't be held prisoner in one.
The Bottom Line: For a major site redevelopment, find and buy Joomla hosting, and then find a Joomla Web design company to build the site. Keep control of the hosting so that you keep control of your site, because it's yours and it's valuable.
