The world is full of website "designers".  If your initial cost is your primary consideration, then using your sister's husband's nephew as your webmaster is probably your best choice.  Or you can sign up for one of those cookie cutter, build-it-yourself-in-five-easy-steps programs.  They're suitable for lots of people.  But, if you're like most business people we know, you want it done right the first time, and you don't want to create a new long-term expense.

Our secret is using a CMS!

That's short for Content Managment System.  Your website can be hand-built the old fashioned way (which is time-consuming, expensive, and hard to update), or it can have a program called a CMS that separates the computer code from the text and the design.  Traditionally, a CMS would cost you tens of thousands of dollars (I know because I've used them!). 

McColley Marketing Media uses an award-winning CMS named Joomla, which is FREE!  Joomla is used on tens of thousands of websites around the world from small businesses to international ones.  You've likely visited a number of Joomla-powered websites but didn't even know it, because the CMS is invisible to visitors.

Using the CMS means you get complete control of your website.  Adding or changing content is done through a special "back-end" part of your website that is completely password secured.  It's as easy as using a word processor or email. 

Want a special feature?  We've got lots of 'em! 

In addition to simplifying changes and adding new content, there are lots of special features available:

• Members Only Controls.  You can create content that is for members only.  Membership can be open to anyone who gives you an email address, or you can limit it to only people you explicitly approve.  You can use this for clients only areas, or as a way of building an email address list.
• Blogging Features.  The success of blogging arose because it is easy to create content, plus content can be "pushed" to others through syndication (RSS).  Others can respond with comments, or share it easily with their friends.  Joomla supports almost all the features of leading blogging software.
• Specialized Content.  Calendars, Reservations, Clocks, Maps, Weather, Quote of the Day, Business Directories & Recipes, are some common examples.  File uploading and downloading is available as well.
• Media.  Pictures, audio and video are all easily added to Joomla.  Podcasting, videocasting and photo galleries are all ready for you to use to make your site more interesting to visitors.  You can even add electronic greeting cards.
• Interactivity. Polls and Forums are the beginning.  Add instant messenging, quizzes, and video games.
• Income Producers.  Your site can have Banner Ads, Ads from Google (and several other ad servers), Auctions, and Classifieds. Shopping Carts and Payment Systems are easily integrated, and it interfaces with several enterprise scale e-commerce systems.
• Geeky Features. Search engine optimization, automated menus and sitemaps are all easily added - and very important for the success of your site.

You probably won't use more than one or two of these things, but they are there and ready to be added to your site if you want them.  And since Joomla was developed in a completely open standards way, it's easy for a large community of developers to add even more specialized features.