Post By Heidi ~ 9th February 2012
I probably don’t mention it specifically but if you browse my website, you will find that I specialize in building websites with CMS tools. The three CMS’s that I specialize in is WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.
My goal is to give clients a website that is easy for them to edit the content and keep the web-content fresh and up-to-date. I provide training tutorials (pdf or video) showing how to use their website on specific things, but a lot of it is super simple where you click to edit content in a small word-like editor (referred to as a wysiwyg editor) and then click save.
Here is a recently released article with 10 Reasons Why Every Small Business Needs a CMS-Based Website that I thought was excellent and covers a lot of good points.
I would add a eleventh reason in using a CMS: it can easily tie in their social media presence that the business uses. It can be as simple as putting on their Facebook link but I would suggest more. For example, if you write a blog/news post in WordPress, then it can be auto-posted to your Facebook business page, then if people comment on on that Facebook post, the Facebook comments will be pulled back to your WordPress post a comment.
Post By Heidi ~ 8th February 2012
USCoachesClub is very vibrant colored site based on Joomla 1.7. It features 3 major functionalities:
- A credit system where coaches can buy packages of credits to register for events/modules
- Event registration where they can view upcoming events/modules and register for them using their credits. The events/modules are live classes held around the area to train soccer coaches for youth soccer.
- The last piece is tying all the user registrations into Mailchimp so the campaigns can be sent to notify coaches of new or upcoming modules.
Joomla 1.7 is a big improvement over Joomla 1.5. (I skipped joomla 1.6) It just provides an easier admin workflow than 1.5 and the built in user access levels is so nice.
Post By Heidi ~ 29th November 2011
I often go off a list to browse Joomla themes when I am looking for a good theme to meet client’s needs.
I am trying out Jogtheweb to allow you to walk through the Joomla theme providers (club and individual).
Feel free to use the jog for your own use:
Themes for Joomla
Post By Heidi ~ 26th October 2011
I often work off WordPress templates and then tweak them to create a “almost custom cost effective” website. The benefits of using a premade template:
- Templates are cost effective and don’t require paying for a graphic designer to come up.
- Templates give a lot of functionality that can take time to build into a custom template.
- Typography (different headings, lists with icons, highlighting, tables, quotes)
- Widget/Module variations
- Nice menu systems
- Hiring someone to tweak the template to get a custom look can be very cost effective.
Some of my favorite places to shop for WordPress themes in no particular order:
- Yoothemes
- Rockettheme
- Themeforest Be selective not all templates are created equally here. I read reviews and pay attention to sales/ratings.)
- Mojo themes Have not purchased from here yet, but they have an interesting selection.
- Headway theme for drag & drop, design customization, for a classic type site
Looking for a theme and identifying what you need:
- Think of your colors and logo
- Look/Tone (modern, classic, artsy, etc.)
- White with darker text or Dark with whiter text
- Do you like fixed or dynamic (fixed is a constant width and dynamic spreads out as window is made larger.)
- Templates are classified into a few categories: Blog, Portfolio, CMS/Business Focus on the category to narrow the selection to look at.
With a template, sometimes its hard to determine what your site will look like with your content and logo.
- The look/tone is set with the theme.
- Try look for a theme in the general color categories. Its easier to tweak a blue to the right color blue plus the accents of the template usually go with the main color.
- The menu items will change but the general look of the menu will stay the same. In the template, look at the horizontal menu and make sure you like the look and feel. Try also to find what a vertical menu will look like. Its definitely harder to change the look of a menu.
- If the template doesn’t have room for your header/logo, this is usually a pretty small change.
- Graphics as the background are small change and usually pretty easy.
- Fonts are easy to swap/change.
- Look at the titles of the blocks as well as what the blocks look like. Are they outlined? Do you like the titles & the graphics.
- Look at the typography, module variations, positions that things can go. A good template will include most if not all.
- Some templates offer multiple color styles. Make sure you check them all out.
- Sometimes templates have a lot going on. Many templates have a bunch of positions to put content/stuff. With most templates, if you don’t put something in a position is compresses/disappears.
- Functionality. WordPress makes it easy to add functionality (such as slideshow) so don’t get too hung on functionality. But if the functionality you want is a portfolio showcasing your work, definitely look for a wordpress theme with that functionality.
Post By Heidi ~ 10th October 2011
I tried out the Simple Facebook Connect WordPress plugin and am quite pleased with how it works and intregates your WordPress blog with Facebook.
There are a few steps to get it setup to work correctly and I covered them here:
- Obviously, step 1 is to install the Simple Facebook Connect WordPress plugin on your wordpress installation.
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You may have to change some things in your comments.php to allow the facebook login in comments to work correctly. The plugin’s FAQ covers this quite well.
I am using it for the following functionalities and it is nice to have one plugin take care of it all for me:
- Publisher functionality –> automatically posting Facebook messages to your Facebook Page Wall.
- Comment functionality –> Comments on the above post, come back to your wordpress blog comments.
- Users have ability to login with facebook and comment with their facebook acct.
Post By Heidi ~ 7th October 2011
Once you have entered your Facebook app id & secret key, then enter in the ID of your fan page. This can be found by visiting your fan page and finding the long number that occurs after your name.
You will know it is working correctly if underneath the Facebook ID & Secret it will give you the link to your applications wall.
Click on that link and visit your applications plugin. On their click “Add to my Page” and select your Facebook Page.
Once they are verified and added the app to our facebook page, you can enable the plugins you wish to do with SFC:
Enable the ones you want and click Save Changes.
You will be presented with more options.
To enable it to post your page, you need to grant access. Scroll to Publish settings and enable the Automatic Publishing.
Then click on Grant SFC Permissions and allow the tool to publish your posts to facebook.
You will know its working if you get successful Token Check messages that publishing and fan page publishing is ready to go.
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