Today I added a new blog on SocialGo.com where I continued my quest to be the first search result under the phrase the "best web designer in Canada", through a discussion of why I feel Joomla is the best CMS to base a website on. I also opened a discussion forum on the site to allow readers to post their thoughts about my quest, as well as ideas that I could test to improve phrase rank search results.

Today I want to look at content management on a Joomla CMS site.

1. In Joomla 1.5 (the current version), the main written information on a web-page is referred to as an article. An article can have a number of states, including published which is visible on the site, unpublished, which is not visible but remains available for editing or future publishing. This feature allows writers to write content on the site but not publish it right away.
2. When an article is written, the beginning publish and end publish dates can be selected. For many website owner operators, this is a great way to ensure that only relevant content is displayed. As an example, a store wants to announce an upcoming sale. The ad article can be written at anytime, with a start date of 7 days before the sale begins, and an end date the day the sale ends. The advertisement is published, but does not display on the site until during the start/end dates.
3. Joomla allows content to be written from the public front-end as well as the admin back-end. Select users may be assigned as Editors or Publishers. Editors may write articles, but they must be reviewed by a Publisher before the article can be seen by the general public. This allows site owners to collect articles from various writers, but they can filter and edit the content before it is posted on the site. All editing functions are built into the Joomla CMS, so that compete content management may be managed through the front-end of the site.
4. Joomla content is divided into sections and categories. I like to think of this like a magazine or newspaper. Both have main sections, with sub-sections or categories, and these can each include one or a number of articles on the topic. A local news section can be local news, local sports and community service announcements, which can all contain multiple articles. Joomla can manage articles in a similar manner. This organizational method can be used for any number of different website needs however.
5. An article may be set to display the whole article on a page, or just an introduction. When a Read More link or the title is selected, the reader is taken to the full article. Using the intro feature allows a number of articles to be introduced on a main page, and readers can read the complete article if they are interested.

Categories and Sections may be displayed in a number of different ways, including list, blog, etc. I have begun designing websites with sections being main menu items, and categories being sub-menu items within a main menu (section). Using this method, when a main item is selected (section) and it is set to link to a section list, so the page that is displayed links to all the sub-menu items (categories), and shows the number of articles in each. I typically set the categories as blog layout, and determine the number of articles (full and/or intro) I want to display. This allows new articles to be written by the site owner, and placed in a section/category, which will be displayed as the first article (or only one if the page is set to one). This makes it easy for owners to maintain their content, by simply placing it in the correct category. No change in menu items is necessary.

I try and avoid linking an article to a menu item. This requires that either the same article is always displayed on that menu item, or that article must be edited when changes are made, or the menu item is changed when a replacement article is written. A better way is to point the menu item at a blog category, then determine how many articles will be displayed. Changes can easily be made by just changing the articles published in a category, meaning it can even be fully managed from the front-end.

I hope I have explained this system clearly enough that others will adopt it, as it simplifies web content management and display significantly for site owners, while reducing their reliance on web designers.

Next I'll look at Joomla contact management.