What you will learn
  • Create a feature-rich site that’s easy to expand, customize and maintain – without having to learn web languages like HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
  • Build a website really fast, step by step customizing it to fit your needs.
  • Design attractive home pages that direct people to the content they could be interested in.
  • Design clear navigation using menus, submenus and text hyperlinks.
  • Use templates to get your site to look just right; using your own logo, fonts and colors
  • Extend Joomla’s capabilities by installing must-have extensions that perfectly meet your purposes
  • Learn how to increase your site’s visibility for search engines applying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques

Chapters in this book

1 - Introduction: A New and Easy Way to Build Your Web Site

Learn why you'd want to use Joomla!: to create a cool looking, feature-rich site that's easy to expand, customize, and maintain.

2 - Installation: Getting Joomla! Up and Running

Learn how to install Joomla! on your own computer or on a web server, and how to install a sample site.

3 - First Steps: Getting to Know Joomla!

Get familiar with the basic concepts of Joomla!: the Joomla! interface and the principles of a web site constructed out of 'building blocks'.

4 - Web Building Basics: Creating a Site in an Hour

Use Joomla! to build a basic but expandable web site fast – customizing Joomla! 's default sample site to fit your needs, adding content, menu links, and changing the site's look and feel.

5 - Small Sites, Big Sites: Organizing Your Content Effectively

Make it easy to add and find information on your site: design a clear, expandable, manageable structure for your content.

6 - Creating Killer Content: Adding and Editing Articles

Learn to create content pages that are attractive and easy to read, and learn about different ways to tweak the page layout.

7 - Welcoming Your Visitors: Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages

Create a home page and overview pages to entice visitors to actually read all your valuable content.

8 - Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want: Managing Menus

Design clear and easy navigation through menus. How can you help the visitors to find what they want easily?

9 - Opening Up the Site: Enabling Users to Contribute and Interact

Enable users to log in and allow them to create content and manage the web site. Enable visitors to register and give them exclusive access to premium content.

10 - Getting the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla!

Learn how to extend Joomla!'s capabilities using extensions: using an image gallery to attractively display pictures, automatically showing article teasers on the home page, or enhancing your workspace by installing an easier content editor.

11 - Creating an Attractive Design: Working with Templates

Install and customize templates to give your site a fresh look and feel – and make it easy to create an individual look, different from a "typical" Joomla! site.

12 - Attracting Search Engine Traffic

Increase your site's visibility for search engines applying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, such as creating friendly URLs.

Appendix - Keeping the Site Secure

Learn simple, common sense steps you can take to keep your site safe from hackers.