Will the website:

1. Be informational only and provide a way to contact me
2. Provide a way for you to blog or publish frequently
3. Sell something
4. Provide for a way to update information frequently
5. Integrate with other applications…e.g MLS services, streaming stock quotes, etc.
6. Will you collect email or RSS subscribers
7. Will you integrate with Social Networking…eg. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Very often by answering these questions your technology development choice will be made easier.  Let’s take a look at why.

Informational websites provide information about who you are and what you do, where you are located, how you work with customers/clients and most importantly how to contact you.  Once developed and launched very little changes on the content.  This is a good choice for business owners who want to work with a website designer, develop a professional looking “website presence” and not really have to worry about frequent updates.

Content Management sites include technology such as Joomla and Wordpress.  These sites normally start from a pre-designed template and are “tweaked” to reflect your business branding.  You decide what menu (pages) you want and write your content.  What makes CMS sites exciting are the 100’s of “add-on’s” available to bring functionality to your site.  These include items such as

• Calendars and events
• Community areas and forums
• Enhanced multi-media features
• Verticel market enhancements such as reservations and property management
• News Feeds
• Registration and course management

The list goes on and on.  If you are considering Joomla you might visit:

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions

for a list of  Joomla “extensions”.  If you are considering Wordpress you can visit:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

for a list of Wordpress “plugins”.

Both Joomla and Wordpress are Open Source technology which means you do not pay for the software.  You may have to pay for extensions and plugins from 3rd party vendors who have developed the software.  Your cost is for your website developer to bring all these items together and build them into your great looking site.  Both systems allow for blogging and the ability for you to access a WYSIWYG type editor for updating content.  What is the difference then?  Here is a very informative site with all the details:

http://www.wordpressvsjoomla.com/

Our last two types of sites that I will mention in this series are e-commerce and those that are very specific to an industry such as realestate.  Have you noticed that we havn’t even reached “content” creation yet.  There is so much to decide up front.  But doing your homework ahead of time is going to pay off.