Joomla or WordPress? Which one to Choose?

If you look at these Opensource Content management systems, then people use them for Blogging and Building websites.

Joomla
Now Joomla with al its extensions is great for building a good solid website with all the features you want.
And you can bring it to high rankings in the search eninges as well, if you start with the proper technical improvements.

Templates in Joomla make it easy to get a good layout for the site, and you can find lots of good free Joomla templates.
For a good business website I suggest you look for a good commercial template based on a Table less design with external css files.

WordPress
For Blogging you cannot beat WordPress, especially if you do the right setup, making the permalinks work right the .htaccess file and set the options to /%postname%/.
Creating posts and giving it the special keyword tags is really easy.

Templates for WordPress are also very easy to obtain and to implement.
Besides that…Google loves WordPress Blogs

My advice?

Use them both!!
Setup your main site in Joomla! and start working on the content, create good quality content.
In a sub directory, or a subdomain, install WordPress and start blogging, using the keywords you also use for your website.

WordPress with its create SEF functions and categories will bring you traffic, this traffic reflects to your main domain.

And with the content on your main website, you work to keep your visitors captured and make them come back.

Yes, I know there is a great Component to integrate WordPress in Joomla from j-prosolution.com (Site is no longer available, but a great replacement can be Found on http://www.joomlify.com/) and I use it also on my website www.pathos-seo.com
And if that is not enough, they even use it for the news via blogs on http://www.joomla.org/ !!

Still I like the separate installation better, because there are more features I can use for Search Engine Marketing and Viral marketing.

In my short experience with combining them that the combination of Joomla and WordPress are a killer combination for getting High Search Engine Ranking!

10 responses so far ↓

1 Barrie North // Jan 14, 2007 at 3:54 am

I don’t think I agree here :). I started out with the WP port but it was so clunky. I ended up building my blog from scratch and default Joomla:
http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-blog/joomla-reviews/why-you-want-to-use-joomla-instead-of-wordpress.html
2 Hummerbie // Jan 14, 2007 at 7:58 am

Hello Barrie,

Although the WP Port can have some odd behavior at sometimes, I still think its better then the default Joomla Blog Functionality.

And Before I started with the combination of Joomla and a separate WordPress Blog, I have read your post several times.
And sometimes go back to see how it evolves.

But for me, the WordPress installations I use are also SEO Optimized and rank very well in the Search engines.

And I love WordPress for Blogging, but I think Joomla is easier and better as a Content Management System.

So I use the Blog to get the rankings and that pulls my Joomla sites to the top as well.
Af course they have to be Optimized for SEO as well.
3 Blog your Joomla site Up in Google | Joomla Search Engine Optimization // Jan 17, 2007 at 2:26 pm

[...] IN December I wrote a post on Joomla and WordPress on how you can use a WordPress Blog along your Joomla site to get better rankings. [...]
4 Marie // Jul 12, 2007 at 4:09 pm

Great! I’m building a new site with more diverse content that I probably won’t be able to organize with WP. I want to provide a database of products/shopping cart, news section, and “lessons” section aside from the blog. I can do that with Joomla right?
I’ll also put up an Advice section with different columnists probably with WP.
I’m worried though if installing both Joomla and WP may eat up the memory?
That’s going to be 1 unified design but separate coding for Joomla and WP, right?
5 Hummerbie // Jul 12, 2007 at 4:45 pm

@Marie

Your memory question is of course depending on how much space you are allowed to use from you provider.
But I think you won’t have any problems with that.
If its an Internal memory issue, there is not much overhead from both systems.
If it should create a cpu overload problem, you can use Cache functions in Both WP and Joomla to tackle that.
I have had no problems running them both at the same time… otherwise you would not be reading this.

As for the Design, I guess you could make it look very much the same, but I prefer to use the Blog totally seperate form the Site, as you might see here.

Now its possible to Blog with Joomla as well, but is difficult to setup and you miss the easy way WordPress handles trackbacks and comments.

For your content questions, yes all these can be done with Joomla and the Virtuemart component.
6 Mick // Jul 12, 2007 at 8:38 pm

j-proslution.com link is not working as the author has stopped supporting it.If anyone has got that download,please email it to:
bramptonstud (at) gmail.com

Would appreciate that.
Thanks
7 Hummerbie // Jul 12, 2007 at 9:22 pm

@Mick

Here is some more information and the Download links for Opensef
http://www.pathos-seo.com/joomla-seo-blog/where-to-download-opensef.html
8 Madhu Kaleeckal // Sep 27, 2007 at 9:18 am

I checked this URL it’s not working properly http://projects.j-prosolution.com/en/projects/os-projects/project-openwp.html
9 Hummerbie // Sep 27, 2007 at 12:14 pm

@Madhu

I have to change te URL since J-prosolution does not work anymore.. some spammer got the domain name now.

Bit if you are looking for WP Integrated in Joomla, there is a new component build on OpenWP called MojoBlog.

http://www.joomlify.com/component/option,com_versions/Itemid,48/

I have downloaded it and installled and will be testing it on one of my domains.

I hope to have a review on http://www.hummerbie.com by the end of this week, but it is looking good!!
10 Working a WordPress Blog into Joomla! with the MojoBlog Component // Sep 28, 2007 at 9:34 pm

[...] Year I wrote about the fact that it is a Great Option the use a WordPress Blog in a subdirectory of your Joomla installation the Improve the Search Engine Visibility of your [...]