With almost 2 million active websites on the platform, Joomla is one of the most popular free content management systems (CMS). This CMS offers various advanced functionalities to help you make a dynamic website/app. But as with anything else, you need to understand the platform to leverage its features. Your Joomla website may not function as you wish if you don’t know the right way to create one. How would you learn that? Just keep reading this blog.
Ways to Develop a Joomla Website
1. Select a Domain Name and Buy a Web Hosting Plan
This step comes before you start your web development. You should buy inexpensive web hosting services when just initiating your site. But make sure your web hosting plan fulfills Joomla’s system requirements.
2. Set up Joomla
Here you would need the help of a Joomla development agency in the USA. You can install Joomla in one of two ways:
Bluehost for Fast Setup
You just need to register and pick a domain name at Bluehost. Afterward, install Joomla and fill in the software setup details for your site.
Manual Setup with any WebHost
Joomla keeps all your site’s content in a MySQL database, so you need to create one. Just head to your hosting service provider’s control panel and fill in details like the names of the database and its user, password, and database server address. The next step is to open Joomla’s download sections and click on the <Downlaod> button. Once finished, run the manual installation.
This process involves selecting a suitable programming language and inputting your website’s name. Then, fill in your database configuration details to link Joomla to the database. In the final step, you install Joomla after checking up on everything. Yes, we feel you — the process is too technical for any non-experienced person. A Joomla agency deals with this process daily for many clients. It’s wise that you hand over this task to them.
3. Get Grips with Joomla Essentials
Your local Joomla test site will be a simple website without any unique aspect to appeal to visitors. You need to sign in to the backend to make any changes to it that the CMS allows. Your Joomla control panel offers you shortcuts to the regularly used segments of the administration area, like creating categories, changing the modules’ structure, maintaining Joomla, and more.
However, the heart of Joomla is its taskbar. It contains various menus, including users, systems, menus, extensions, components, etc.
4. Choose a Joomla Template
You should select templates to make your Joomla site appear, feel, and function as you want. While choosing templates, ensure they offer technical support, updates, documentation, and customizability. After choosing a template, you need to install and activate it to see the changes on your site’s front end. Picking suitable templates may seem overwhelming, with loads of free and paid templates available.
A Joomla web development company has experience developing and maintaining multiple Joomla sites. You can consult their experts to choose the best templates for your site.
5. Craft Content Utilizing Joomla Modules
Templates help you design your site better, but it stays empty until you add some content to it. To add content to a Joomla site, you use ‘modules.’ A module is a small chunk of content that displays in various spots on a web page like building blocks. Firstly, you should try getting used to using ‘modules’ by adding some random content. Once you are comfortable, start adding your actual content. Secondly, enable <Preview Module Positions> by opening the Systems menu, selecting <Global Configuration>, and then <Templates> in it. You can toggle off the <Disabled> button to enable preview mode for module places.
6. Designate Modules to Positions
Select modules under extensions to see all your active modules, their positions, users, pages, and languages. Here you can delete any module you want and add new ones.
You can create and edit your content here as you do in any word processor. This step is easy, and you don’t need an expert or a Joomla development agency to carry it out. Just having the correct knowledge and some practice will do it.
7. Produce New Pages
In Joomla, you craft pages in a different place and make them show in another place. It means that the changes you make on the back end don’t automatically show up on the front end. Secondly, Joomla calls pages ‘articles’. You can produce and edit content here on an editing screen similar to what you see in the Modules section. In addition, you can select a page URL and optimze it for search engines.
8. Designate Pages to the Navigation Menu
Now that you have created your new pages, how would you show them to visitors? By assigning them to a menu. When you start your website, you only have one active menu – the main menu. Now you want to assign a link (page) to this menu. Click on the <Add New Menu Item>. Then, it will ask you to select the type of your menu item – select <Article> here.
As we know, an article means a page in Joomla, and selecting articles means choosing current content on your website. Hit the title of the Article you wish to assign and then add a Menu Title – the written part showing in the menu.
Now, pick the menu from the right side to which you want an article to assign. After saving your changes, you can organize your menu items by dragging them around on the screen.
9. Including a Blog Section
As you need to create ‘articles’ to create new pages in Joomla, you create categories to add blog posts.
Open the <Content> menu and select <Categories>. Here you click on <Add New Category>. The same settings screen will pop up in front of you as before. Add a name for your category in the Title bar and then hit save. Now that you have created a new ‘category,’ you can allocate it to a menu similar to what you do with a page.
Ensure that a category is assigned to the right menu and make a suitable menu title. After doing so, the blog post you assign to the blog category will display as a blog post under that category.
10. Download Extensions
Since the competition is pretty tough on the web, a simple website won’t do it for you. Therefore, extensions or plugins come in handy to add your desired functionalities and features to make your site more user-friendly. With over 6000 extensions, the Joomla Extensions Directory is a gold mine that provides nearly any functionality you need for your site. A prominent Joomla development company in the USA can help you choose the best extensions per your need and how to use them. Otherwise, you can pick them yourself by entering a keyword for the plugin, using advanced search or categories.
Where would you find them to install? Open the <Extensions> menu and select <Manage>. If you are a newbie, hit the button <Install from Web> at the top to access all the extensions directly from your back end.
Conclusion
Instead of wasting your time and energy by trying to get everything yourself in Joomla development, it will help if you get the correct knowledge before jumping in. Even after reading this blog and other information elsewhere, you will make mistakes while building a site on Joomla. However, you reduce them by a significant margin by learning from others’ mistakes.
And if you want to save even more time, you should find a promising Joomla web development company in the USA to hand over your web development project to them.
