Gone are the days of html sites and the costs of paying someone to update it for you!

I tried it all! I tried just about every type of structure out there for websites and then I found Joomla.  Joomla is simply the most flexible system to work with, and it is still simple enough for most users to be able to make their own changes. That's why our sites are all built using the content management system known as Joomla

Right out of the box Joomla is a very powerful application for websites.  The potential it has is amazing.  You can have as many or as few pages as you want for your website.  This can be great if you have a lot to say or a lot of information you want to supply to your clients.  Joomla was created to handle a lot of pages.

Joomla is a modular site structure which means that the site can be expanded in just about any direction, just like Legos.Some of the extensions that are opensource (which means no additional cost) are:

Newsletter Manager

We are all familiar with the different newsletter managers such as constant contact, icontact, aweber, etc.  All of these cost something plus it can cause a lot of headaches when you try to make it compatible with your site.  With Acajoom, (newsletter manager for Joomla) you don’t have to worry about extra fees or compatibility issues.  The application is open source so there is no fee associated with it. You have the ability to have multiple lists. It even gives your subscribers the ability to easily select which one of your newsletters they want to subscribe to.

Shopping Cart

One of Joomla extensions is a shopping cart that is also free for use.  You can provide discounts, keep track of inventory, accept payments through PayPal, and through other payment processors.  All extremely simple to use, and setup fees are reasonable – there is no cost for the cart itself.

Seminar Booking

This is an extension that allows for easy seminar/event registration.  Your clients can confirm or even cancel their attendance simply and easily. It accepts payments through PayPal. There are also many other scheduling or event registration options.

Social Profiles

The basis for a community networking site. User profiles that can be enhanced in a variety of ways, including personal guestbooks, personal photo galleries, personal RSS feeds, and much more.

Forum

This is a great add-on so that you can provide the central communication area for either social sites, or for business support forums.  It offers moderation, membership set up and much more. FAR simpler to use than PHPBB, and shares the template with your Joomla site, so setup is much easier and less costly.

Gallery

Galleries come in many flavors. They may be photo-community oriented, where users can submit photos and create new galleries, or they may be portfolio styled, where you are creating a gallery presentation. They come in both a grid style layout, or a slideshow style, and in varying ranges of complexity and flexibility. If you need a gallery, chances are, Joomla has one available that will do what you need.

Directory

More than a link directory. Joomla directories can manage just about anything, and can be used to catalog almost any kind of listing. Whether you need weblinks, course catalogs, resource listings, software libraries, or anything else, a directory is a flexible structure to add to a site to get just the right structure. With customizable forms for entering data, and many ways to extend the function, a directory can be much more than a list of links.

Article Submissions

Right out of the box, Joomla handles the process for both user article submissions, and an approval process (so nothing goes live until you say it can). This functionality can be enhanced in a number of directions, to give better control over the submission or approval process. It can even be integrated with social networking profiles.

Joomla is great if you are looking for a website that is easy to use and easy to update.  It also has so much potential for growth without having to do a complete site rebuild. Most extensions can be added to a Joomla site with little to know configuration needed.  Most of the extensions that you could ever want are also opensource which means no more paying for third party applications to expand your business such as newsletter manager, shopping cart application etc.

Joomla will save you  a lot of money not only because of the opensource extensions but also because there is no more paying somebody to update the website for you because you can do it on your own.