How to get the best look for your Joomla or Mambo CMS (content management system) website

If you've already made the first step of getting your website on-line and made the decision to use a content management system to enable you to update content easily, then chances are you're thinking of installing either Joomla or Mambo as these are 2 of the most popular open source content management systems available. However, one of the next choices you face is how best to go about turning your site into the best site in your business section. In other words, how to create the most professional look, the clearest navigation, the most up-to-date informational content, the most secure check-out procedures? This article concentrates on creating the best look for your website.

You'll almost definitely want to customize the look of your website to include your own logos and images. You'll probably have a preference of certain colours and want them to appear in your site. The question is, what is your best way of obtaining that look? There are primarily 4 choices available:

1. Use a free template and adapt it
2. Purchase a template and adapt it
3. Have a designer adapt a template
4. Have a designer custom build a template for you

Chioce 1: Use a free template and adapt it

Advantages are that this will cost you nothing up front, except the time you need to adapt the template. However, do not under-estimate this time. In many cases, free templates are free for a reason and you may even find that the template contains errors that lead to it not displaying properly. Other disadvantages are that usually there is no support for these templates and no instructions as to what you can and cannot do with them. And of course there could be many other websites using these free templates so you run the risk of losing your identity before you've even got going.

Chioce 2: Purchase a template and adapt it

Unfortunately it is all too often the case, in our experience, that purchased templates do not function any better than the ones that are free. This may depend on the price you pay for the template, but you should still be aware that unless the seller says the deisgn is only to be sold once then there could be multiple sites looking just like yours out there. Check with the seller if they offer any kind of support for the template. Frequently the templates you see for sale may look really good, but how easy will they turn out to be to customize with your own logo? Will you still need the help of a designer to change aspects of the template you don't like? If you have purchased a template and can't get it to work correctly on your site, contact us: we specialize in adapting templates and we'll even give you advice on how to get the best out of the template when you go to add your own content. Our services are charged at an hourly flat rate so this needn't cost you very much, in some cases less than what you paid for the template in the first instance!

Chioce 3: Have a designer adapt a template

If you've seen a template you like the look of, chat with us. We can offer advice on template customization or we can actually do the customization for you. Our web design services offer excellent value for money and we guarantee satisfaction by keeping you included at all stages of the design process. We charge by the hour to keep the costs down for you. Contact us to discuss your Joomla or Mambo template.

Chioce 4: Have a designer custom build a template for you

Although this may sound expensive at first, you'll be surprised at how little this could actually cost. By approaching us directly at the start of your web project you could save yourself a lot of time and effort needlessly spent searching for a free, or paid-for, template, trying to figure out how to include your own images in the template, testing it a number of different browsers with different screen resolutions, and trouble-shooting if it doesn't work out or doesn't display correctly. In a worse-case scenario, starting again from scratch and repeating this process. If you chat to us now we promise to give you the best advice we can based on the experience we have gleaned over the years regarding templates for Joomla and Mambo. We can easily build you a unique template to give your website a professional, distinctive image so you stand out from your competition. As we specialize in this and we only charge by the hour, this won't cost as much as you may think. Our ethos is to have you involved in the design process from the very start. This ensures you're happy with the work and means you get the best value for money. We also offer full support on any template we design so if you should run into any difficulties down the line we'll always be here to help you out with it. Contact us now or click on the chat icon on the left!