Joomla Services

The process of building, launching, and maintaining a professional website is by no means cheap. Unfortunately, web development costs are merely the tip of the iceberg, and for many, web hosting can come as an unexpected and unwanted additional expense. We recommend using the best free hosting 

WordPress is one of the best free website builders around. And the only one that's actually free, it being open source. https://www.bestwphosting.uk

Of course, you're gonna have to pay for your own hosting.

Finding the best UK WordPress hosting for yourself can be a tad confusing, especially with all the marketing.

Companies turn otherwise simple products into something similar to rocket science.

Despite the small differences in language from company to company, you’ll find the same plans appear over and over again, with a few exceptions.

There might be a “Shopify Hosting” option on one site That’s just a fusion of eCommerce, i.e. selling stuff online but on WordPress sites.

Or maybe things are listed that aren’t hosting at all. For example, the option to buy domains. Many companies provide all-in-one solutions like this.

Selling your Joomla services at the marketplace is really easy and only takes a few moments to open an account and to submit your services to the website.

It’s free to list your Joomla! services at the website.

We offer a low, fair and fixed commission fee of 20% for every service you deliver.

You get free exposure and promotion for the services you offer.

The website is simple to use, you can list your services in a matter of minutes.

You can set your own prices for the services you list at the website.

You can add extra items to each service you list at the website.

You can list as many services as you like at the marketplace.

You can commicate directly with the buyer via the easy to use chat system.

Customers can request custom quotes from you.

You are free to promote your services across the net.

We also promote your services on your behalf to generate more leads, customers and sales for you.

You can build up your profile and reputation by getting great reviews from customers which you can use on your website.

New Joomla services have been added to the Joomla marketplace website.

The latest new services for Joomla! include 

Custom Web designs

Web site security management 

Fix my hacked website

Managed website hosting

Having a beautifully designed and aesthetically pleasing Joomla website isn’t enough to wow visitors and be successful. Your site also needs to be functional and easy to use. Unfortunately, so many websites do a poor job of facilitating an intuitive user experience that is fast and carefree. As a result, they end up frustrating users and unknowingly encouraging them to click the back buttons on their browsers.

When a website looks fantastic and has a bunch of relevant features, yet still has high bounce rates and low conversions, the most likely culprit is speed. Is your website’s page loading time affecting your success? Well, if you’re past a certain threshold, then the answer is a resounding yes.

According to a study by KISSmetrics, every second counts when it comes to your page loading time. Page abandonment increases proportionally as page load time increases. Nearly half of all users – 47 percent to be exact – expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. And for every one second delay your website experiences, customer satisfaction decreases by roughly 16 percent.

This is a serious problem for many websites. Would you count yourself among this contingency? If so, then you need to shift your attention towards speeding up your Joomla site for maximum conversions and faster loading content. Let’s take a look at some tangible tips:

Choose a Good Hosting company

Everything starts with your host. While you can optimize your site all you want, it’ll always be limited by your hosting partner’s capabilities. It’s tempting to go with one of the massive hosting companies, but remember that your site will be thrown on a server with thousands of other websites. For some, this is fine. But remember that it could lead to slow speeds when people are trying to access the server at the same time.

If you need speed to be a priority/guarantee around the clock, consider going with a host who can meet all of your needs. Look at details like sites per server, server caching support, server hardware support and Joomla-specific support. When it comes to Joomla, hosts like Hostt, HostGator, and Bluehost are three of the best.

Enable Joomla Cache

When a visitor clicks on your website and loads a page, Joomla fetches the content from a database and loads all of the components required to deliver that page to the user. Depending on the page, this can take a few seconds. And while there’s no way to avoid this process the first time around, you can bypass it when the user visits the page again.

Do this by enabling Joomla cache. Once the plugin is enabled, the website stores each visitor’s information and shows the stored version of the web page on subsequent visits, instead of repeating the entire process of fetching content from the database.

Upload Media the Right Way

Images are obviously a very important part of a successful website, but did you know that your images may actually be damaging your conversion rates? If you aren’t uploading and optimizing them correctly, your images are more than likely slowing you site down and creating long page loading times.

Instead of simply uploading images from a desktop file – which can often be several megabytes in size – and pasting them into your site, consider using a free or paid tool to compress these files. When multiplied over many different images, the impact on your site’s speed can be noticeable.

Delete Unused Extensions

It’s time to do a spring cleaning of your Joomla extensions. How many of your installed extensions do you actually use? If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize that many serve no other purpose than to slow your site down. Even worse – having too many extensions opens your site up to security issues and threats. Go ahead and purge your site of the ones you don’t need - everyone will be happier and it will help you 10x with your marketing efforts.

Reevaluate

Joomla is one of the most powerful and secure CMS on the planet now. But Joomla itself is not enough to protect your site if you are running old version of PHP. People often criticize, its CMS fault when their site get hacked but they didn’t realized it's could be their server stack.

Joomla recently raised its PHP version requirements to PHP 5.6 or 7 however it can run on PHP 5.3.10+ too. PHP 7 is already released and it's a breakthrough of PHP history. So, its high time to upgrade your server PHP version to PHP 7 or at least 5.6+. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how you can do that.

**IMPORTANT : If you decided for PHP 7 make sure your Joomla version is 3.5+ in order to work properly.

Managed or Shared Hosting

The Easiest Way

Ask your host to update PHP version of your hosting. Most likely, they will do it for free and it’s the most easiest way to update. However, if they are refused or unable to do so, it's high time to switch to a reliable provider.

Upgrade PHP From cPanel

Most cPanel based hosting provider allow you to update PHP version from your cPanel. Search PHP Version Manager or PHP Configuration option and click on it.

Select PHP version 5.6+ or 7 and save.

Upgrade from .htaccess file

If above 2 method doesn’t work for you, your best bet is to upgrade PHP version using .htaccess file.

Go to cPanel, File Manager and choose "Web Root (public_html/www)". There create a new file (or edit the existing one) called .htaccess and add the following line:

To switch to PHP 5.6

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php56 .php .php5 .php4 .php3

To switch to PHP 7.0

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php70 .php .php5 .php4 .php3

This setting will apply recursively to all of the subdirectories. In case you'd like to have a different version of PHP in a subdirectory, create a new .htaccess file in it with the directive for the desired PHP version in it.

VPS or Dedicated Server

If you are running Ubuntu 14.04 or below you can update using this commands :

sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Lets add php repo in our list. Pleaes choose approprite version.

For PHP 5.6

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php5-5.6

For PHP 7.0

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Upgrade to PHP 5.6

sudo apt-get install php5

Your PHP version is upgraded now and you just need to restart your server

Apache : sudo service apache2 restart

Nginx : sudo service nginx restart

Upgrade to PHP 7

Upgrading to PHP 7 require a little amount of extra work. Depends on your webserver you can perform this commands.

Upgrading mod_php with Apache

First, install the new packages. This will upgrade all of the important PHP packages, with the exception of php5-mysql, which will be removed.

sudo apt-get install php7.0

Note: If you have made substantial modifications to any configuration files in /etc/php5/, those files are still in place, and can be referenced. Configuration files for PHP 7.0 now live in /etc/php/7.0.

If you are using MySQL, make sure to re-add the updated PHP MySQL bindings:

sudo apt-get install php7.0-mysql

Upgrading PHP-FPM with Nginx

This section describes the upgrade process for a system using Nginx as the web server and PHP-FPM to execute PHP code.

First, install the new PHP-FPM package and its dependencies:

sudo apt-get install php7.0-fpm

You'll be prompted to continue. Press Enter to complete the installation. If you are using MySQL, be sure to re-install the PHP MySQL bindings:

sudo apt-get install php7.0-mysql

Note: If you have made substantial modifications to any configuration files in /etc/php5/, those files are still in place, and can be referenced. Configuration files for PHP 7.0 now live in /etc/php/7.0.

Now update your Nginx server block with new php7.0 socket path.

fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;

Save and exit the file. Now you are just a restart away.

sudo service nginx restart

Check your PHP version for Joomla admin > System > System Information. You can see your PHP version number there.

Akeeba Backup

Chances are slim that you do not already have this extension installed, but if you don't Akeeba Backup is the very first extension you should install on your Joomla site. Period. I recommend opting for the professional version and setting up automated backups to an off-site resource (We use Amazon S3, but Dropbox is easy.) Even if your web host says they provide you backups, you should still maintain your own for redundancy and to make sure that you have the most options for when disaster strikes... Because it will.

Firewall

I've been writing on security quite a bit lately, and for good reason, hackers are more aggressive than ever. An application firewall is a strong line of defense against having your site compromised (though it doesn't replace staying up-to-date and following good security practices.) We use Admin Tools Pro for the most part, but I've been impressed with RS Firewall as well.

RS Forms Pro

Having your Joomla site as an always available representative of your business is powerful, but many sites only provide one means of communication: from you to your customer. Forms enable you to open up communication from them to you. At their most basic, you have a simple contact form, but using an extension like RS Forms Pro enables you to easily streamline your interactions by creating more complex forms to collect relevant information in advance of the phone call or email to follow.

Easy Blog

Even if you have no intention of blogging regularly, having a blog on your site is a powerful addition. Every business needs a soapbox and a blog is an ideal platform to stand on when you need to communicate with your customers, leads, and clients. If you do decide to blog regularly it is a powerful tool for developing your brand and building the website as a channel. Easy Blog is a polished solution which has advantages over normal articles in commenting and social integration.

JCE

After some discussions about the best way to implement it, we came up with a simple way to ensure this 'just worked' across all our sites without any complicated settings.

Clone (or download and extract) the repository here into your template folder, so that the folders 'gtm' and 'functions' are in the top level of your template - e.g. templates/your_template/gtm and templates/your_template/functions

Edit each file in the gtm folder, replacing the code snippet with the relevant code from your GTM environment - don't forget you will have one piece of code that needs to go in the head (environment-head.php) and one which needs to go in the body (environment.php) - if you don't know how to get the container snippets, check out this walkthrough article.

Modify the index.php file of your template to include the files in the functions folder as explained below:

For the head include:

<head>    <!-- add include of GTM file per environment case -->    <?php require_once __DIR__ . '/functions/gtm_head.php'; ?>        <!-- add everything else that you need for the head of your template file --> </head>

For the body include:

<body>    <!-- add include of GTM file per environment case -->    <?php require_once __DIR__ . '/functions/gtm.php'; ?>

<!-- add the structure for your template body --> <div id="pageWrapper"> </div> </body>

How does it work?

Adding the includes above to your template file mean that when your template is loaded, it will execute the files gtm.php and gtm_head.php within the functions folder.  

This first identifies the URL being accessed and determines whether it matches any of the predefined environments - in this example, we have used 'dev' and 'demo' but you could change these to match your own workflows by editing the files.

In our case, if the visitor is on dev.mysite.com then the file gtm/dev.php (and gtm/dev_head.php) will be loaded, whereas if the visitor is on demo.mysite.com then gtm/demo.php (and gtm/demo_head.php) will be used. If neither of these matches the environment, then gtm/live.php (and gtm/live_head.php) is used.

How can I check it's working?

Educating your client about the CMS is one thing, but telling them that you cannot capture their high-gloss and shine due to either your own lack of design skill or the CMS’s limitations, will not gain you any favour with the client. So you have to balance three elements - design, client’s branding and function. What do you do?

Well this is not such a huge conundrum as it may sound or seem.

Communication with the client

I think that communicating with your client about the enmity between form and function. In this conversation, you need to emphasis that functionality of the site, always takes precedence over form (high-gloss and shine). This does not mean that the site must/will look ugly. You need to educate your client that the reason we use CMS is to ensure high functionality and ease of use on/of the website.

design is king

Of course any design can be converted into a Joomla! CMS website and if this means outsourcing the job of converting a high-gloss Photoshop file to a template-maker, then so be it. It is important to ensure that the CMS marries if it does not enhance and elevate the client’s branding and image. So while it may be a pain to convert that design into Joomla!-compatible file(s), it will gain you favour with you client. Also, as techies, we do not really pay attention to the aesthetic element of the client’s branding and how this reflects on/into a CMS site. We tend to focus more on functionality more than on how good the website looks in the end.

 Audit the client’s needs

Documenting your client’s needs (update content, comments system, a newsletter, job board etc) and then searching for add-ons that will meet each of these needs is extremely important. Is your client an HR agency? Do they want to take candidate’s CVs online or not? Are they going to send these candidates regular newsletters and updates? If so, how often?

The next step will be to prioritise these needs with your client and then bring the cost into the discussion. Are you buying premium add-ons or are you going the free route? Does the client really need all the functionalities or are some just luxuries? If so why. Once you have prioritised the functionalities, you can then take to the shops to get the highest quality add-ons and testing them on your client’s site.

Strike the balance

Functionality is important, so is beauty or aesthetic appeal of the site. It is this aesthetic element that captures the brand essence of the client. So it cannot be a secondary factor. So how do you strike the balance?

Well, you need to choose the components, modules and plugins that will achieve the functionality very, very well. And then you also need to ensure that you choose the template or your converted design very very well. The latter is important as most clients will want the website that speaks to their brand ethos.

In order to maximize the efficacy of your Joomla blog, you need to have a plan in place for how you’ll satisfy your users’ demand for simple, aesthetically pleasing sites. Not only is design a significant component of your overall brand message, but it also plays an important role in pushing users through your conversion funnel. While every blog differs in terms of specific goals and outcomes, the following Joomla blog design tips should provide universal value.

1. Cleanup the Sidebar

Have you ever visited a blog with an overly crowded sidebar? It’s intimidating and overwhelming. Sidebars are meant to add value and convenience to your blog, not distract and confuse. Unfortunately, many bloggers don’t know the difference.

Some of the more common sidebar mistakes involve long blog rolls, referencing a long list of tags and keywords, having too many drop down menus, and having a sidebar that’s longer than the actual content.

Sidebars serve a purpose, but they need to be streamlined. The Nutrition Secrets blog is a great example. The sidebar has an opt in box, search bar, brief author section, handful of popular posts, list of recent posts, and a couple social icons. And while that may sound like a lot for a sidebar, it’s displayed in a very simple manner with no distractions.

2. Gently Encourage Users to Sign Up

The second thing to think about is the opt in box. Just as in the Nutrition Secrets example, you also need to consider having a sidebar section that allows users to provide their email address in return for regular offers or updates. This is one of the keys to developing a successful blog. It allows you to build an email list, which can then be leveraged to accomplish much bigger goals. It’s best to place it near the top of the sidebar.

3. Select a Clean and Simple Color Scheme

Your blog’s color scheme is obviously very important. Whereas the wrong color scheme can distract users and turn them away from your blog, the right color scheme can keep them engaged and immersed in your content.

The Help Scout blog is a strong example. The blog has a very clean and simple color scheme with a predominantly white background mixed with bright color pops in the form of congruent rectangles and shapes. While the bright colors grab the user’s attention, it’s the white background that adds consistency and stability.

4. Ensure You’re Using Headers

One of the things bloggers often forget to use is headers. Headers exist for a reason and should be used in every single post. They help break up large sections of text and provide guidance and direction for the eyes. Headers follow a systematic order, starting with the largest (Heading 1) at the top and moving all the way down to smaller headings (Heading 3,4,5, etc.) as you get towards the end.

why Joomla should be your choice for e-commerce

Joomla is the middle ground between WordPress and Drupal. It isn't as complex as Drupal but it has the awesome ability to manage complex functionalities for an eCommerce website, besides offering must-have features for a website out-of-the-box. Here are the five solid reasons why you should choose Joomla for your e-Commerce website.

Enhanced Security

Joomla has built-in secure layers that make your eCommerce website invulnerable to security threats. Starting from the CSRF protection to preventing other known vulnerabilities, Joomla excels. Apart from this you also have extensions that help you boost website security. These extensions allow you to add an additional security barrier in the form of captchas, protection from SQL injections, XSS attacks and more. Since e-Commerce websites deal with sensitive customer information day in and day out, these features come in handy to ensure safe transactions on your website.

built-in features

This is Joomla's selling point. It's vast range of features that  allow you to do almost anything with your store. A fine-grained access control lists allow you to manage different user (customer) groups with ease. You can sell to a retailer and a wholesale merchant all on the same website. Powerful content management with the built-in meta management gives you a greater SEO advantage. You don't have to rely on external plugins as Joomla itself offers you a great publishing platform.

Multilingual 

Another big plus is the multi-lingual capability. In the globalised economy, businesses are targeting customers worldwide. You can build a multi-lingual online store easily when compared to other CMS platforms. You can also host websites in any kind of language thanks to its multilingual support. The features are limitless.

 Third Party Extensions

Want to add a membership feature to your website ? No problem.  Need to accept donations ? Yes. You can. Need to sell tickets and taking bookings for your events? You have got it. The CMS has more than 8000+ plugins to extend the functionality of your website. The best of all, many of the extensions are free and well-supported. Developers, out there are constantly bringing in new plugins and modules that can make running an e-Commerce website smooth and hassle free.

Another thing to love about Joomla is the fantastic array of templates available in the market. And you have them designed for every kind of e-Commerce possible. The best part is not all of them have to be paid for. There are a great number of fantastic free templates if you have budget constraints.

friendly community

Along the way building your website, you need help. With Joomla, you can get it easily.  The Joomla community is vibrant,responsive and you can accelerate your learning curve smoothly.You have a lot of experts on the forums who provide helpful advice, hacks, and solutions to newcomers on how to set up their eCommerce on Joomla. The community is quite large and you can receive a lot of help for Joomla related queries.

Are you looking for a professional, highly skilled Joomla web designer to work on your next website project ? At the Joomla marketplace we have some of best designers from around the world who have listed some amazing web design services at the website which will help you create an amazing website for you or your client.

To find out more and view all the high quality Joomla web design services visit the marketplace website today.

I will secure your Joomla site from hackers.

I will secure your Joomla website from hackers. I will provide detailed information (if requested) so you can change the security settings to your liking.

Website already hacked? No worries I am here to help.

Are you looking for an Joomla SEO professional whom you can actually trust? A person, who won’t mess up your site. A person, who is easy to talk to and bounce ideas off.A person, with up to date SEO know-how, 6 years of experience & successful track record.

Joomla! 3.8, the latest in the Joomla! 3 series is released. 

The new release features over 300 improvements to the popular CMS, with two primary major features aimed at developers: the new routing system and the beginning of a forward compatibility layer with Joomla! 4.0. Additionally, two security issues have been resolved.

what is new in Joomla! 3.8

whats new in the latest version of Joomla 3.8

New Routing System - The new routing system gives users more control over their URL structure, including the often requested ability to remove IDs from URLs

Joomla! 4 Compatibility Layer - The development of Joomla! 4 has made some changes in how the core code is structured by migrating classes to use PHP namespaces. Joomla! 3.8 includes a mapping layer to allow developers to use the older class names while being able to take advantage of the new class name structure.

Improved Sample Data Installation - It is now possible to install sample data within your site backend after finishing the installation process, allows users to create their own generic data sets or extension developers to provide easy-to-install sample data for their extensions

Sodium Encryption Support - PHP 7.2 introduces the new sodium extension for processing encrypted data, through a polyfill of this library Joomla! 3.8 makes this new API available for all of our users even before they upgrade to PHP 7.2

Visit the Joomla! 3.8 site to learn more about this release.

Is your website ready for Joomla! 3.8?

Joomla! 3.8 is a one-click update just like previous 3.x versions. Before upgrading, it is important to update all of your third party extensions and also to take and test a full backup of your site. This is also a great time to connect with your hosting company and check your PHP and database versions. We recommend upgrading to PHP 7 or 7.1 as it will bring a considerable speed boost to your site. Further system requirements can be found on the technical requirements page. As always with new features affecting the structure of your website, we strongly encourage you to test thoroughly in a staging environment and put redirections in place before enabling the modern router on your existing sites.

Security Issues Fixed

Core - Information Disclosure in LDAP Authentication Plugin (affecting Joomla 1.5.0 - 3.7.5) More information »

Core - Information Disclosure in com_content Archived Articles Model (affecting Joomla 3.7.0 - 3.7.5) More information »

Looking for professional and affordable Joomla maintenance services to help you get the most out of Joomla ? Visit the Joomla marketplace website today to view all the Joomla support and maintenance services the website has to offer.