During this process I’ve had to call on friends all over the place to Beta test for me so I knew where the bugs were.  Nobody can find the flaws faster than someone with fresh eyes.

My good buddy Bofe commented on my just-barely-better-than-craptastic load time on the site, so I’ve been engaged with speeding up my sites.  I find that my experiences with Joomla center around mastering one aspect at a time, so this time it’s optimization to reduce load time.

Right now, I’m using the 23-odd domains that I have to experiment with different caching techniques in Joomla so that I have a good basis of comparison.  The Extensions section on Joomla.org led me to a tool called PageCache 2.0.10 from JoomlaPerformance.com and the immediate results were good.  I saw, according to their measurements, auxillary page load times decrease to almost 1/5 what they were.

The problem was the index pages.  On one domain, RDL-USA.com, I saw page load time soar from 9 seconds uncached (high) to 17-19 seconds cached (outrageous).  Still haven’t figured this out yet.

So, after reading the usual “I know more than you ever will” banter on the Joomla forums, I found that I might have another issue: just watching the page load I saw that ads.mylogancounty.com stayed in the status bar in the bottom left of Firefox for quite a while.  When I unpublished the modules containing those calls to OpenX, the page load time dropped DRAMATICALLY.

So, if you’re out there, please- I’d love to hear about your experiences with managing a Joomla site with Cache enabled and banner management.  Thanks!

This month the focus will be on higher conversion rates with less traffic and expense from AdWords.  We dropped our two highest traffic keywords due to CPC being high, and conversion being low.

I have reached my March goal 5 days ahead of schedule.  My April goal is another 50% increase in total visits while maintaining our quality time-on-site and bounce rate scores.

I’ve noticed a number of sites in our general sales area starting to copy our model, but I doubt it’s going to happen for them like it will for us.  Here’s hoping.

• RHSTeachers.com
• LCHSTeachers.com
  

These sites are coming on the success of my wife’s daily blog for her classroom which received great acclaim and success. I’m very excited to see this come together.

Both of these sites are free and sponsored by MyLoganCounty.com, which is right now in final revision.

MyLoganCounty.com will incorporate all of the following features, most of which are free!

1. User-Submitted Articles from the community and community groups
2. Commentable articles to spur discussion
3. Discussion Board (tentative, but it will launch. We’ll see how the masses do.)
4. Classifieds
5. Job Listings
6. Home Listings (may launch late, a pay service)
7. Community Calendar (HUGE! Can’t wait for this!)
8. Business and Organization Directory (one stop shop for finding everyone in the county with unlimited picture uploads!)

So, as you can see, the site is LOADED with features! I’m very excited about it, and I’ve already started selectively leaking news of it’s arrival.

One of the major obstacles that I think I’m going to come up against is the downplay on a “catalog” style site that so many of our competitors do. We are a premium lab. It’s like the difference between going to Linens-N-Things and buying a piece of art or having someone paint something for you. You pay more for having someone paint a new item, but there is a certain value to it.

So, with all that in mind, my semi-weekly newsletter from Web Marketing Today arrived this morning telling me about keyword search tools – and specifically the free service offered by Google itself! It’s amazing to me already the services that Google offers, but the fact that they freely offer up not only the keywords you suggest, but related terms, and then tell you how much your competitors are using of each term. They’re practically handing you market niches. Amazing.

Here’s the tool. Check for yourself.

Google AdWords: Keyword Tool

ProStruck.com – This is a business with a new presence in the area. The site was designed to deliver the most critical information in the most straighforward manner to a less-than-technical audience. The design of the site was such that you can find out how to contact the right person to get the information that you need in the easiest way possible.

LCHE.org – The Logan County Home Educators website has been a thought floating in my mind for many months. It has incorporated some of the most powerful Joomla! components availiable and, hopefully, will enable this organization to reach new levels of communication and effectiveness. The site was designed with two primary goals: to educate prospective members and curious visitors as to what homeschooling is in the LCHE, and secondly to reproduce all of the tools (plus a few new ones) availiable to the group through their existing Yahoo! Groups site. For the users, it is a way to communicate not only their neccesary documents, but hopefully will now be a place where they can improve all of their individual homeschooling pursuits.

Russellville Dental Lab – Link is the DEMO. The site is up in it’s BETA form on the .com domain. We have acquired the .com and russellvilledentallab.com domains in addition to the original russellvilledental.net domain in order to secure as much of the traffic as we can. The site, wether it is on the .com or existing .net domain in the end will now give us the power to increase email functionality, to communicate products and services more effectively to our doctors, and will reinforce the brand and quality or work to existing and new customers. The addition of a newsletter to our offerings (along with giveaways) will keep our clientele coming back for more. We will be implementing Google Analytics with a targeted AdWords campaign to increase traffic. The site will also be a way of passing along technical information and communicating the robust professional pursuits of our technicians to an otherwise uninformed community. We will be running less of a “we offer these products” showcase site, and more of a professional community designed to increase brand awareness. Exciting stuff.

Logan County Republicans – the site was updated to include more content and Google Analytics was added to track traffic in addition to BSQSiteStats component in Joomla. This site is in final form and requires only general upkeep.

LeeCoursey.net – The “What I’ve Learned About Joomla!” page was added and the “About Lee Coursey” section was updated at the same time to tell more about me. I was in a writing mood.

RusselvilleDental.net (.com) is currently undergoing review (at the .com address) for final install.

Russellville Dental Lab, LLC (demo)

Pro Struck, a company with a new branch in this geographic region, is getting a new site from me. That will be prostruck.com . They will be using Joomla for content, Google Apps for email, and Google Analytics for stats (first combination with Joomla, but all early reports are that it works very well).

LoganCountyRepublicans.com underwent a MAJOR renovation recently. Be sure to check that out. More content is coming soon.

The Russellville Arts Council has talked to me about setting something up for them, so I’m hoping to get that knocked out this week.

I have proposed that the Logan County Tobacco and Heritage Festival needs an autonomous web presence seperate from the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, but that is taking a back seat until at least the ’08 Festival.

RussellvilleMethodist needs a facelift now that I am more comfortable with Joomla and designing for it, but it is functioning. Training members of the “web team” for this and LCRP is the biggest obstacle to overcome.

I am developing courseyblog.com and fullerblog.com in my spare time. Hopefully I’ll be able to have MORE spare time after I get done with some of these projects.

MyLoganCounty.com and ShopLoganCounty.com have also been relegated to “spare time” projects. I know what MyLoganCounty will be, and I know how to do it, but I don’t want to do it a little at a time – I want to go full board and get it done in one spurt. ShopLoganCounty.com will be a premium extension of MyLoganCounty.

Wish me luck.

http://www.russellvillemethodist.com

Logan County Republican Party website is up and functioning, though the layout is going to have to change.

http://www.logancountyrepublicans.com

Next Up!

• http://www.courseyblog.com
• http://www.fullerblog.com
• http://www.russellvilledental.net
• http://www.mylogancounty.com
• http://www.shoplogancounty.com
• http://www.omgthatsalotofwork.com

So, here’s what I’m going to do: (this is probably more for me than it is for you)

• hybridcars template (modified)
• JCE (replaces cluttered WYSIWYG editor)
• jCal Pro (better than the other cals)
• BSQ Site Stats (more complex site stats)
• jPack (backup software)
• mosList Messenger (mailing list manager)
• CommunityBuilder (haven’t done this before )

Demo on the Joomla Test Site

Also, once again, Google Apps will handle the email/dashboard. If you haven’t check it out, do so.

• JCE – Joomla Content Editor – A better interface for your content creation areas. Allows custom CSS to be applied to the editor simply by creating a new CSS file in your template css folder and making it work for you.
• jCal Pro – while still lacking in event repeating, the interface is better than ExtCal, and the bots and modules are cleaner. Overall, it’s an improvement from the clumsy interface of ExtCal
• jPack – a Joomla one-click backup that allows you to migrate and then re-up the entire site. Great f you went to test, then deploy (as is the case with the UMT website.

Normally my wife will leave around 3AM for her continuing education at Morehead State and I will get up and get going.  This morning the baby woke up, the baby wouldn’t go back to sleep, I fell asleep putting the baby to sleep, my new rig would not function, and two trips to the *gulp* computer repair shop did nothing either.

Big shout-out to  Matrix Computerz for at least taking a look at it to reaffrim my suspicions – it was hopeless.  New motherboard was D.O.A.  I’ve boxed it up and it will go out Monday.

Now, back to business.  Let’s identify the keys for success in the remaining time we have today…

RussellvilleMethodist.com(.org)

• create new demo site on their server
• install newest versions of colophone, JoomlaCal, etc.
• update current “Coming Soon” page to include location, address, etc…
• organize link/content structure to new ideal

LoganCountyRepublicans.com

• install AdvancedPoll and WebCalendar
• create new link structure

Used Times New Roman to emphasize the whole news/portal feel. We’ll see. It’s simple enough.

Let me hear what you think!

MyLoganCounty.com

http://www.russellvillemethodist.com (and .org)

This came after a meeting Monday night. I already have them up and I hope to start re-building the demo site there (now that I’ve found some decent templates and don’t have to use all my time in developing to that end).

Currently I am testing this on v5webmarketing.com.  With my host, I can not use this service to modify the main page and on down using Google Page Creator, but I could start a mypages.domain.com or something to make it work for users.

I am very excited about applying this in conjunction with some other tools to at least 3 new domains…

• courseyblog
• fullerblog
• logan county republican page

This is an exciting tool that allows for more decentralization of efforts while increasing functionality and efficiency.

More later…

http://www.leecoursey.net/gop

Probable changes:

• mouseover and active state for nav
• nav to UL/LI setup
• ad or event space below nav
• changes in placement or color to “feature”
• IE horiz centering

Possible changes:

• Calendar of Events and/or linking to Google’s new suite of domain srvcs
• photo gallery

typed with baby in one arm

I did a sketch of a basic site that I thought would suit our needs, but my old friend CSS Float had turned it’s back on me. I was FURIOUS. Now, however, I have somehow managed to make it work something like what I had intended. I made a few minor changes simply for the sake of, well, simplicity.

http://www.leecoursey.net/testing/locorep.html

It took me many hours this week to get that basic layout working, but I think I now have the tools and basic architecture that I need to make it function well.

Overview on the intent of the site so far:

• info on Men’s Breakfast
• info on Women’s Club
• info on local, state, and national races
• upcoming events
• endorsements
• philanthropy
• fund raising

With these thoughts in mind I intend to create a mostly static site without using a CMS this time. With the structure I’m giving it, my intent is to not have to manually update anything more than once a month (1-3 hrs. max). I will be presenting to the Executive Committee sometime soon.

Revisions posted at:

http://www.leecoursey.net/gop

I’ve been using the js_royale free template and I have modified it till all that’s left are the ugly table borders.  I could go back and re-write the html with the content areas in mind, but I don’t really understand the whole visible/hidden thing and how certain things show up in some pages and not others.

For example: on the main page and the Events page I have it showing the Upcoming Events in a (I’m assuming) css block called user1.  There are 9 of these, and only 1 seems to able to be used in this template.  If I re-work all this I could make it where at least user2 and user3 are availiable at the bottom of the page.

More later – I’m going to get my daughter.

Joomla uses Sections, Catergories, and Content items to organize.  It’s a (now that I think about) simple, outline-esque way of organizing information.  Even static information. Here’s how it works…

1. Food (This is a Section)
1. Meats (This is a Category)
1. Pork (Content)
2. Beef (Content)
3. Lamb
4. Chicken
2. Fruits (Category)
1. Apples (Content)
2. Oranges
3. Pears
4. Tomatoes

So, you can link to the Food Section and it will show you all of the content in Meats and Fruits.  If you link to the Fruits section it will only tell you about Apples, Oranges, Pears, and Tomatoes.

I love it when the light goes on.  Some of the phrasing in Joomla is still ambiguous, but you can figure it out.

Currently, the UMT website can be found at: http://www.leecoursey.net/methodist

This website is operating on the Joomla! CMS backend. This is my first experience with this CMS product and it has been an entirely so-so venture. Thus far I have been able to figure most things out, but a few things still avoid me. Today will be primarily focused on creating a new template for Joomla for the church and updating and inputting actual content.

Currently installed plugins/features:

• Joomblog
• EventsCal
• TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor

Pros and Cons of using Joomla thus far:

Pros: it’s fairly easy to install and set up and it’s also fairly easy to input content once you figure out the lingo.

Cons: learning the lingo, the fact that Joomla seems to be designed primarily as a way to relate articles, clumsy controls about creating content (creating a page on the site and creating a new News article function and happen the exact same way)

Overall it’s a very cool product for the money – free. There also seems to be a very large user group and plenty of developers – many of whom seem to be looking to make a profit too. It’s not an entirely open-source community. Templates seem to be the primary money-maker.

The following plugins are active from the start:

• akismet
• wp-cache
• wp-backup

This blog is currently running the Barthelme theme because I have other things to do than make css for a blog. I’ll get to it later.  I swear.