Travel Blog Promotion Blog

A lot of people ask the following question when I say I predominantly use Joomla for blogging: "Why aren´t you using Wordpress?" with tone of incredulity in their voice as though anyone who doesn´t use wordpress is slightly slow in the head. I always reply: "Why do you use wordpress?". Normally they just say because thats what everyone uses, and they have been told it is the best. I believe in choosing the appropriate tool for the job in hand. Well, here are the reasons I use Joomla:

• It has a much simpler templating system than wordpress, the html/php is all in one file, instead of split out. I get on well with this system.
• It provides more scope for expansion. There are many, many extensions for joomla which I may wish to add to the site at some point such as shopping carts, forums, access control, social networking, classified ads etc etc etc
• It has a really great framework for Rapid Application Development. I am into coding, and if I can´t find an extension I want, I can build really quite complex applications very quickly

So, there you have it, some of the reasons I use Joomla over wordpress a lot of the time. Here are some extensions I use on a lot of sites which I have found useful:

• jcomments. Just install it, choose the categories/sections you want it to appear on, and publish. Easy, simple, works out of the box and with lots of options should you choose to tinker further
• Acesef Search engine friendly urls. Used to use sh404sef, but was so buggy, had a horrible interface and you now have to pay for it, so switched to Acesef for urls. I use basic Joomla sef for many sites, but when I have additional components or need a bit of control, I use Acesef. The free version adds a link at the bottom of the site. The admin interface is simple and lush.
• Easyadsense. Just great for quickly whacking adsense on a site. You can block specific ips, for example your own, so you don´t accidentally click on your own ads. Also can be used to quickly and easily put snippets of php or javascript on a page.

There are lots more I use for specific reasons. And by the way, try and guess the component I used for this Holiday apartments Barcelona site and for this Barcelona properties site.