I'm the web guy, the graphics guy, and the videographer guy for our company (two guys). I feel like I'm a jack of all trades, master of none with all of my duties and the short amount of time to complete them.

We run a web based publishing (music instructional books, DVDs) business and I'm just not a web programming guru. I used getafreelancer dot com to find someone to do our website in CSS, however, when it comes time for me to do edits, or add pages, I find myself pulling out my hair because I haven't a clue what I'm doing.

Well I just started reading about content management systems and I'm wondering if they would work for me. We paid $300 for a shopping cart about 3 years ago but it's old now and I'd like to use something different. Ideally something which can be integrated with order processing and Quickbooks.

Basically, I'm looking for a solution which I can implement and update, easily add content pages, news, new products to the catalog, maybe even RSS.

If anyone has any advice as to a good CMS, that fulfills all my needs, I'd be most appreciative. There's so much stuff out there these days, one hardly knows where to start..

b4 deciding upon a perticular CMS u need 2 take care of many factors ....
1st list ourwhat all features u looking for completely ....
then try 2 figure out which CMS can give u an optimal soln ...

well just from a brief read on some of them, they all look like they have more features than I could ever need. However, I did read some place that they're not search engine friendly which isn't good. I'm already in the top 3 pages on google for my keywords and I wouldn't want to lose that by going to CMS.

Offhand, do you know any CMS that ARE search engine friendly?

Do your servers have PHP/MySQL?

I am posting this post on the assumption that you have.

Wordpress

Ye ye, Wordpress is primarily a blogging system. It can, however, be used for a CMS and is very easily installed and intergated. You may need to copy + paste some of your current content into the pages and posts etc. But it's not that much of a heavily frustrating job. Also I have done a few searchs on a few sites and as far as I know it's quite Search Engine Friendly, however if you would like to take a look at the SEO for it, then you may do so by clicking here

Download Link : http://wordpress.org/download/

Joomla!

Ok, now Joomla is a CMS and not a blogging system like wordpress; however, there are masses of features that you will probably not need and could be a bit overwhelming for you. And after a bit of searching and research, it appears to me that Joomla! isn't very SEF (Search Engine Friendly) however I did find an extension to make SEF URLS.

Download Link : http://developer.joomla.org/sf/go/pr...frs.joomla_1_0


In conclusion, it's up to you; I have listed a few of the major free CMSs. For your needs I think wordpress is right for you as Joomla! isn't very SEF without installing add-ons etc. There is also help with installing wordpress on their website which you can acces by clicking here.

Hope this helps,
-
ChrisGilmore

Thanks for the reply!

I started to dabble a bit with Wordpress but never really got into it. Being that Wordpress is typically thought of as a Blogging tool, I'm wondering just how easy it would be to set up a shopping cart and other pages too...

Well I did a few searchs (good old google) and then tried a search at wp-plugins.net

So, here is the plugin.
http://www.instinct.co.nz/?p=16

Hope this helps
-
ChrisGilmore

No problem! Always happy to help!

Thanks for that link

Do you know offhand if it's possible to use wordpress as a membership type community. Well not really a community, but have a membership area wherein all they need to do is register in order to access certain content.

Yes. There is a register page somewhere there but I don't know offhand how you password protect pages, so... I looked it up on the Wordpress website (I go to extreme internet surfing to help some people) and the link is here. It's a huge read anf by the looks of things it doesn't seem to say how you password protect pages. But I haven't read it all, just scanned it through. If you can't find it on there, then be sure to check this site to see whether they have a plugin available for this type of thing.

Hope this helps,
-
ChrisGilmore

I started reading that page, way outta my league.. I can probably find something in the other plugins page though I'm sure..

Still trying to decide if Wordpress is the right choice...

Feel free to read this article http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/...dpress-as-cms/ if you have some doubt in your rigth choice.

What about this one http://drupal.org/about

Nadia

VirtueMart ecom / catalogue is available for Joomla is available.

I believe there may be one for Wordpress too, but you'd have to check with the Wordpress plugin sites :-)

Nadia

Well, I'm wondering why nobody mentioned TextPattern? It's a powerful CMS, yet not as overwhelming as Joomla. You can easily configure it to work as a blog or a CMS. You can check websites that are made with it on TextPattern Magazine.

textpattern actually looks like a pretty nice system from what I read so far, however, I don't see any mention of a shopping cart with it. Does anyone know if there is a shopping cart that works easily with textpattern?

As for Joomla, I looked into Virtuemart, and found out that there is no payment gateway that exists for Verisign/Cybercash which is what I use..

I would have to agree with Chris above.. I think both wordpress and joomla are excellent cms's. Make sure you get the right SEO plugins for either though.

I tried drupal awhile back but it was rather hard to skin.

Well I checked with the Joomlians and they said that if the payment gateway module doesn't exist that I could hire someone to easily create one for Virtuemart.

Anyone have any opinions on this article:
http://www.pearsonified.com/2006/11/..._one_month.php

We already enjoy top 3 pages on google for our keywords, but the big important keyword is down about #30 on there which isn't high enough to get clicks (I know this based on the referring stats) So that article on using Wordpress with the Cutline theme really caught my attention.

I went to the Cutline website http://cutline.tubetorial.com/ and read about it but I don't understand what makes this theme soooooooo different from the rest. From the about page:

So I've been doing a LOT of research on the "way to go" and everything is starting to point towards Joomla. That VirtueMart shopping cart add on has a lot of good features and you can actually download a Joomla installation with VirtueMart already installed in the same package.

I also discovered a template pack that exists, not expensive at all that integrates Joomla with Zen Cart and SimpleMachines Forum (let me know if you want the link). And yes, Joomla can be made as SEF as any other blog or CMS out there with the right plugin.

Still, that article that I mentioned above about wordpress and the cutline theme has me curious.. Does anyone know what the big deal about this cutline theme is all about?