WordPress and Joomla make Great Lawyer Websites

WordPress and Joomla are both content management system (CMS) website platforms.

Yes, WordPress, originally a blogging-only platform, now enables incredible website functionality. It’s all in the WordPress theme you choose.

Distinguish: WordPress.org and WordPress.com are different. This blog post is referring to .org. The .org is the free self-hosted platform where you can install any WordPress theme you want and customize as much as you want. WordPress.com is hosted with WordPress. It’s free, but there are limitations.

Both WordPress and Joomla are free!

However, there are some costs in actually getting a website up and running with WordPress or Joomla, namely hosting.

Don’t worry, hosting costs less than $10 per month with Bluehost.

The best business decision I ever made was learning to build websites and blogs for my firm. I’m not a computer programmer, instead I use out-of-the-box website building services such as Site Build It! and CMS such as WordPress.

WordPress vs. Joomla for Lawyer Websites

You can build great websites in Joomla, but (in my experience):

Joomla takes longer to get a website up and running than in WordPress;
Joomla takes longer to learn using well than WordPress;
Joomla takes longer to add content;
It seems to me more people use WordPress than Joomla, which means the community contributing plugins (called extensions for Joomla – see side callout) is larger. A larger community contributing plugins will result in WordPress having greater capability (without having to know coding). That could very well be the case already.

Plugins (for WordPress) and extensions (for Joomla) are php codes you can install in your WordPress / Joomla sites to add functionality. For example, if you want a contact form in your website, you’d install a contact form plugin/extension. Most plugins / extensions are free. Also, you don’t need to know any coding to install and use most of them.

In the end, after actually building some of my firm’s websites in Joomla and WordPress, I took the path of least resistance and migrated all my law firm’s microsites to WordPress.

That said, check out Joomla. There are plenty of free templates to use to see if you prefer Joomla.

WordPress themes and Joomla templates

I’ve built websites for my law firm with Joomla. I would still use Joomla if enterprising WordPress theme developers hadn’t created WordPress themes that enable WordPress to function as a website and a blog.

I use StudioPress for many of my themes, including this website, The Paperless Lawyer. I love the StudioPress look and feel, and the forum support is top notch. I’ve also built a website using a Woo theme. It too is a nice theme; I didn’t use their support, so I can’t comment on it. Other WordPress premium theme developers that offer themes that could function nicely as law firm websites are as follows:

StudioPress,
Themeforest (offers both Joomla templates and WordPress themes),
RocketTheme (offers both Joomla templates and WordPress themes),
Woo Business Theme,
Solostream,
Gabfire,
WordPress Theme Market,
iThemes: on December 16, 2009, iThemes is releasing its newest theme called Builder. Check out the iThemes Builder video here. It appears to have massive out-of-the-box customization without having to know any code, and
Templatic

The only Joomla template developer I’ve used is RocketTheme. I like RocketTheme’s style. Just this past fall they started making WordPress themes as well (traditionally RocketTheme made Joomla tempaltes).

If you’re interested in creating your very own template for WordPress or Joomla without any coding at all, check out Artisteer software. Yes, it works for both WordPress and Joomla.

You don’t need to know any coding to create almost limitless styles and layouts for your website using Artisteer. I have Artisteer and have used it extensively. Not only do I not need know coding, but it takes very little time to create a brand new website and/or blog.

Caution about CMS themes and templates

If you’re venturing into WordPress or Joomla, and you don’t know much coding, ensure the theme’s/template’s features offer customization options in the WordPress options panel. This is where you can make changes by simple menus. Some themes/templates offer more out-of-the-box customization than others.

Another option for greater customization is building your own theme/template with Artisteer.

Theme (def.): A theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. A theme modifies the way the weblog is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Essentially, the WordPress theme system is a way to skin your weblog [source: WordPress.org Glossary http://codex.wordpress.org/Glossary].

Installing and setting up WordPress and Joomla

In order to install and set up WordPress and Joomla, you need web hosting. I use Bluehost, which costs me less than $10 per month, and I can host as many websites on one plan as I wish. Yes, I have all my law firm websites hosted for the same $10 per month. Bluehost’s technical and customer support is incredible. They respond to live chat inquiries within a minute most times. I’ve never been on hold on the telephone for more than a minute.

When I started with Bluehost, they stepped me through the installation process for both WordPress and Joomla. You’ll see they have preset installation setups for WordPress and Joomla which makes setting up your CMS websites a breeze. Yet they’re very willing to help.

Once you’ve decided to try using a content management system (CMS), set up a hosting account, then you’ll be up and running in no time for less than $10 per month (plus the cost of any premium theme / template you buy).

At the end of the day, learning to use CMS will give you and your law firm’s marketing efforts massive advantages to other law firms that rely on web designers. The more websites and blogs you build, the quicker you’ll get at setting up more websites and blogs. You’ll be able to create numerous websites to precisely cater to all your prospective clients on the internet.

For example, if your firm practices criminal law, family law, and wills and estates, you can set up a website for each practice area. Then, if you really want to target your market, set up, for instance, criminal law sub-practice area websites such as a DUI website, assault website, and so forth.

Having multiple websites for you firm enables you to supercharge your search engine optimization (SEO) for all your websites. I’ll be writing shortly about making several websites in your control work together for supercharging SEO.

Note, this post focuses on WordPress and Joomla CMS because those are the two I’ve used. There are other CMS out there. If neither WordPress nor Joomla work for you, check out other CMS solutions such as Drupal.

If all this talk about hosting and installing themes and templates doesn’t interest you, then consider the out-of-the-box website building services available. They are still a huge fraction of the cost of hiring a web developer and you can build multiple websites that you control. The flexibility is awesome. Several out-of-the-box website service platforms include:

This blog has affiliate arrangements with Bluehost, StudioPress, Themeforest, RocketTheme, Woo Business Theme, Solostream, Gabfire Themes, WordPress Theme Market, iThemes, Templatic, Site Build It!, XSitePro, Webdco, Homestead, 1and1.com and Go Daddy.