Joomla Content Management System – Some Useful Extensions

By Jan Pascal

Joomla is one of the most popular content management systems. There are two reasons for popularity. The first one is the universality of this CMS, the other is availability of many thousand extensions and templates. With Joomla you can make almost any imaginable website. Joomla in its basic form after installation has all the required modules and functionality you need for a website. But usually you need to add few additional extensions to simplify some tasks or to add some features that were not supported in the original system.

Every Joomla user has different needs and different approach to solve problems. For every additional functionality in Joomla there are at least few different extensions. It is up to you to choose one that works best for you. Some extensions are free while for others you will have to pay. This doesn’t mean that free extensions are not as good as those for which you have to pay. It only means that you have a choice.

There are many extension for adding ads like AdSense, AdBrite or Amazon to desired module position. The alternative solution is to use a module with which you can add any code at any module position. These ads are nothing more that just a few lines of code. Therefore with some extension as CustomCode or Jumi you can have total control on what code is added to your Joomla website. Google Analytics can also be solved with such universal extension but you can also use a dedicated Google Analytics module.

Maybe the most important aspect of any website is backup. You should have a copy of all the files and databases in the case you will have to restore your website after a major server crash. Maybe the best component for Joomla backup is JoomlaPack. It does everything for you. The final result of the backup is one single file which contains all Joomla files and the database. All you have to do after the backup is finished is to download this archive file. To restore the website you need also a small PHP kickstart script which unpacks the archive and starts the Joomla installation process. With JoomlaPack you can also easily clone Joomla websites.

Another pretty useful Joomla component is JoomlaWatch. JoomlaWatch monitors in real-time visitors and bots that come to your website. While this may not seem a big deal there are many benefits of having this component installed. For each visitor you see where did he came from, which pages is he browsing, how long does he stay on our website, etc. You have also a detailed statistics about the keywords people used to find your website, their IP addresses, countries they came from and if you spot some malicious visitor you can easily block his IP address.

A good idea is also to have a sitemap of your website. It can be either a simple page will the links to all pages or a XML file which is downloaded by the search engines. Xmap is a simple Joomla component that automatically creates sitemap from the menus we select. You can configure parameters like page change frequency and priority.

Joomla itself is an excellent product and a universal content management system. Even without any additional extension you can make a nice and useful website. But you can make it even more useful and pretty with just a few additional modules and components.

The author is a big fan of Joomla and likes to create websites about popular topics. One of his projects is http://revellmodelkits.com/ website which provides information about Revell Model Kits and Replica Plastic Kits.

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