5 Steps Guide for Developing Joomla Website

The five key stages to developing your Joomla website are: Plan your website, Install Joomla, Use Joomla templates, Construct your Joomla website and Upload your Joomla website to a server.

ALSO READ: List of best web hosting South Africa services for your website

Those are the five steps you need to take to develop very Joomla website. Each step has varying degrees of difficulty therefore; we shall go through all five rights here.

1 – Plan your website

Planning your website is the foundation upon which to build your website. If you correctly plan your website then you will avoid numerous problems further down the line.

Categories

Start by breaking your website up into categories. There are some categories that are bog standard basic requirements of a website. These include the home page, the sitemap page, and the contact us page. After that–the types of categories available are completely up to you. It is unlikely that you sell only one variety of products, and therefore many people break down their categories into various product sections. However, it is completely up to you how you break down your categories.

Internal linking

The planning part of your website development is very important when it comes to internal linking.  Every page should have at least three links on it. One of those things should always be pointing towards your home page. If you plan your internal linking now–then you can be sure that when your website goes online–that it is correctly internally linked.

Content

 If you’re planning your content at this early stage then by the time it comes to creating your website and uploading it, you will have a good idea of what your website will look like. Consider very strongly how your customers, and potential new customers, will find your contents. Are they going to use a search bar? Are they going to use some form of navigation system? Are you going to have a menu where they can select the direction they wish to go? Are you going to give them a simplified sitemap?  Are you going to lead them by the hand? Are you going to let them dig around on their own and find what they desire independently?

Additional

The planning stage is a good time to start thinking about additional elements of your website. For example if you’re going to put videos on your website then now would be a good time to create them, so that when the time comes to go online, you are not missing a vital or saleable element. It is also the time to start thinking about what pictures you are going to put online, and how your website is going to function. It is also a good idea to start thinking about usability, and how easy it will be for your potential customers, and readers, to find the elements they require.

2 – Install Joomla

This is a very straight forward procedure, which should cause you no trouble. The only possible problem is that you will have technical difficulties, which will most likely come as a result of something on your computer being incompatible or in error. In which case you will need to consult technical support.

3 – Use Joomla templates

There are thousands upon thousands of Joomla templates available, so you should not have much trouble in finding one. You can of course develop your own template and start from scratch if you wish; although it seems silly when they are so many templates available online for you to use.

4 – Construct your Joomla website

Constructing your website at this stage should be a piece of cake. You have already outlined your plans for your website. This means that you know where everything is supposed to go, and it means you know how your site should be constructed. Adding content should be little more than a case of adding content into your template and then adding your style and original touches onto that.

5 – Upload your Joomla website

This is probably the easiest part, as all you need to do is find somebody to host your website (there are plenty of companies, which are willing, offer hosting services). All you need to do is upload your Joomla websites onto the server and you have finished.

Image Courtesy: zdnet.com

Leave a Comment