5 Pieces of lousy blogging advice you need to forget

Video on building a blog with Joomla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bqG2iXiQOc


1. The purpose of a blog is list-building/SEO/virality

So why do you have a blog in the first place? It is okay to admit that it's part of your digital marketing strategy, and a great blog can be a key part of that strategy.

Read more: 5 Pieces of lousy blogging advice you need to forget

Breeze - An Updated, Free Joomla Template

breeze-new-logoOver the next few weeks we've several launches planned.

Some of these launches will be brand-new projects. Some of these launches, like today's, will breathe new life into old names.

We first published the Breeze template back in 2009. It was called "the World’s Easiest Joomla template".

5 years later, we've completely rebuilt Breeze. The new version is ready for 2014, but it's still as easy to use as it ever was.

Read more: Breeze - An Updated, Free Joomla Template

Watch the Joomla 3 Template and Overrides Webinar

Joomla Site-building

Last week we completed the Joomla 3 Intermediate class.

In that class, Rod takes us through the process of building a complete Joomla site.

The final lessons in the class covered design, using the Breeze template

After the class launched, Rod held a webinar with Valentin, the designer of Breeze. This is a great introduction to Joomla templates and overrides.

Read more: Watch the Joomla 3 Template and Overrides Webinar

The Secret Ingredient Your Joomla Agency Is Missing

Are you a Joomla developer turned agency owner looking to set your business apart?

Read on to learn about the #1 secret ingredient that your agency's strategy needs to try out -  today!

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5 Must-Have Joomla Extensions

Joomla's basic feature set is powerful, especially with Bootstrap being included in Java's core coding. Bootstrap is a collection of javascript and CSS snippets that are easily added to your website, the template, or modules. It provides a great deal of flexibility to an already great content management system, but sometimes you need features that Joomla and Bootstrap can't cover. The open source nature of this script provides fertile ground for an endless amount of extensions. When you're ready to go beyond Joomla's basic functions, a quick jaunt into the available extensions reveals a way to take your website to the next level.  

Read more: 5 Must-Have Joomla Extensions

Tips for Responsive Design on Mobile Devices

Responsive design spells the difference between creating one version of your site and creating dozens. Instead of tailor making your website for each type of mobile device, you let the responsive design take care of the heavy lifting. When you create a responsive design with mobile device compatibility in mind, you want to keep a few best practices in mind.

Read more: Tips for Responsive Design on Mobile Devices

How Does Marketing Automation Save Time?

Have you heard of marketing automation? It's the new school of marketing, which helps busy small businesses attract, convert, and retain customers.

One of the highlights of marketing automation is it's ability to complete all of these steps while saving you time. Ready to find out how?

Read more: How Does Marketing Automation Save Time?

The ins and outs of Flat Design

Joomla sees its share of user interface trends, as the latest web fad passes from CMS to CMS. One of the latest UI trends is flat design. Instead of 3D elements galore, with gloss dripping off of Web 2.0 everything, you have simple, nearly minimalist designs moving to the forefront. One of the most prominent displays of flat design came from iOS 7, which revamped its interface to embrace this simple style.

Read more: The ins and outs of Flat Design

Akeeba CMS Update for Joomla

Akeeba CMS Update JoomlaThe Akeeba Team recently released Akeeba CMS Update, an extension that improves the Joomla! update experience. Its main features include improved reliability across web hosts, update notifications by email, automatic updates via cron, and a backup-before-update feature.

If it gets good feedback and there's interest, it could potentially get submitted for inclusion in the Joomla core. The Akeeba Team are also the authors of the current Joomla built-in core updater, which I thought is reliable already, but I guess they wanted to take it to the next level. Kudos to them.

With that in mind, here's a preview of Akeeba CMS Update Alpha.

Read more: Akeeba CMS Update for Joomla

Web Design Failure as Part of the Learning Process

No web designer is perfect, and failure is often an essential part of the creative process. You can have the biggest budget in the world for a site, but sometimes things go horribly wrong. Instead of stressing yourself out over a web design that simply doesn't work, do a postmortem and determine how the design went wrong, and what you can do in the future to avoid similar problems.

Read more: Web Design Failure as Part of the Learning Process