1. Contact Enhanced Component
Don’t you want to make sure your clients know how to Contact You?
You know those fancy Google Map location maps on Contact Us forms – you like them, don’t you? And you do want them on your website too.
And whilst we’re at it – the Joomla Contact form could do with a few enhancements and more flexibility don’t you think?
We’ve got the solution to all your “Contact Us” problems right here!
Contact Enhanced is a Joomla extension which is a contact manager and form component extension. It plugs in some of the missing features in the core.
Just a few notable features provided by Contact Enhanced component:
QR Codes,
unlimited form fields,
Google Maps integration,
integrated Captcha,
integration with AcyMailing and other 3rd party mailing systems and so much more!
First things you’ll want to do after installing Contact Enhanced Component
Once it’s installed, create a Category for your Contact Enhanced Contacts. Go to Components > Contact Enhanced > Categories and create a new category and then go to Components > Contact Enhanced > Contacts and either create a new Contact or import your Joomla Contacts.ContactEnhanced create contact Category
To use contact enhanced as a manager create your contacts and configure the component options then category OR categories menu item.
You can now display the Contacts using the Contact Enhanced Contact Slideshow, or Contact Enhanced Category. If you have many contacts you can enable the Contact Enhanced Alpha Links to display A-Z links;Contact enhanced various display modules
To create a new form in Contact Enhanced, go to Components > Contact Enhanced > Form Fields and create the new Form Fields for the categories you want.
You can extend the functionality of Contact Enhanced by integrating it with other extensions and/or services like iStoreLocator, SalesForce, Google Spreadsheets, AcyMailing, Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, Constant Contact, …
2. RSFormPro
Why code your form when you can create them with a few clicks?
One of the things I’ve always secretly but absolutely hated about the CMS has always been the contact form. It’s very basic, it’s not flexible and it could do so much better. We’d love and would want to will it to be better – but it refuses to – and just sits there in all its simpleness.
Fortunately, there are some many great Joomla extensions that come to its rescue.
Besides contact forms – many websites will require extensive types of forms.
Whether for picking leads, creating customer satisfaction surveys, gather some kind of information from your visitors, request for quotations with specific custom fields, custom forms are an essential piece of functionality you’ll probably want to have.
RSFormPro is our first choice when it comes to create custom forms. Again it does all the things you want and need from a forms component – and is one of those components you’ll be kicking yourself for not having found and/or tried earlier!
First things you’ll want to do after installing RSFormPro
- Create your first form go to Components > RSForm!Pro > Manage Forms and click the new button. Use the wizard to make your life even simpler.
Create a new Joomla form
- Give the form a name (this will appear in the frontend) and choose what the form will look like (1 columns, 2 columns etc.) – there are various choices you can make. We recommend you choose Responsive – what with mobile being so popular nowadays.
A recommended option is enabling the mailing of the results to your email address (set to Yes and include your email address). You can also choose to enable a send confirmation of the form submission to the user – which is of course highly recommended too for an optimal User Experience.
Choosing to display a thank you message or redirect the user to another URL (a thank you page) after the form was submitted is a touch of class that you should implement.
Why don’t you link to this video of minions making a happy dance? 😉
Configure choices for your first Joomla form
- Let’s just make create a pimped up contact form won’t we since we’ve been complaining so much about the native contact form 😉
- Fine-tune it to your heart’s content and save. Just look to the left to see the sheer amount of components you can add to your form!
Configure the fields in your Joomla form
- As a final step – let’s hook the form up to our menu – because of course, we want our visitors to have this as a main menu option! Click on the “Add to menu” option and you’ll soon be able to configure this as a menu item.
3. Hikashop
You won’t be making much money unless you’re selling online!
If you are not productizing your services and or selling some physical or electronic goods – we believe it’s going to be hard for you to make some good income 🙂
Online shopping has become more common than ever and your website should have an online shop too!
We do believe that an online shop which is directly integrated with your website is much better than a standalone online shopping software.
There are a number of offerings, but our preferred Joomla extension is HikaShop. We’ve been blown away by its simplicity of setup – literally, you just install, follow the wizard and publish your shop.
Listen to us, grab yourself a copy of HikaShop, and start selling TODAY!
First things you’ll want to do after installing HikaShop
- Run through the simple Setup Wizard
The wizard allows to select what menu items you want to create (whether you want to display a link to the products, to categories of products etc.), how you want to display the products, your address, what tax will apply to your shop, your Paypal address and whether you want to install any sample data (we chose not to).
HikaShop Setup Wizard
2. Add some of the products you want to sell – drag and drop imagery related to your product – visuals are much better than text descriptions.
Hikashop add some products
3. Publish one of the (automatically created) menu items linking to your brand spanking new online shop!
HikaShop publish menu item.
4. Publish the cart module and one of the modules listing specific shopping categories in a sidebar or your preferred location. There’s many to choose from, categories, best sellers, last viewed items, random products, best products and many more! You can see how quick and easy it’s going to be to setup your online shop right?
4. Joomla Content Editor (JCE)
This is one of those Joomla extensions which we literally install on every website!
The feature set of JCE is such that you really can’t live without this one.
Most of all, it’s the great integration and uploading capabilities of images in the Joomla editor. The native editor, really and truly leaves much to be desired in terms of image management. If your articles are not featuring any images – then you really need to rethink your content marketing strategy and see how images are able to make your content dazzle!
Of course, JCE is not just about great image management. it makes formatting much simpler with Office-like functions, allows you to quickly and easily create internal links, has an integrated Spell check and so much more.
Take it from us – get this installed on your website – right now!
First things you’ll want to do after installing JoomlaContentEditor.
Set JCE as the default content editor in the Global Configuration.
Joomla Content editor – set as default editor.
Blog and author content with your all-new awesome Joomla Content Editor! Here’s a sample of what your new editor is going to look like. Overwhelmed? – you shouldn’t be … it’s all fairly easy stuff!
5. Accordion Menu
Make your site stand out with the awesome Slider Joomla extension
There are two things which you are bound to find on so many sites, that you will be hard-pressed to find sites without them 🙂
The first is a good menu system.
For those who have many menu items to display, you’ll need to make sure to create multi-level menus that do not confuse your users. The accordion menu is one of those great options you have which allows you to hide menu items until they are needed. Of course, styling this menu to suit the feel of your site is also important, so flexibility in styling is a must.
Luckily, Accordion Menu has both.
6. SmartSlider
Next up is the SmartSlider.
You’ve probably noticed that a lot of modern websites feature content that slides or changes in some way.
This is a great technique to highlight multiple pieces of content within a limited space and visually capture the user’s attention. SmartSlider is one of the best sliders out there … you won’t get it wrong if you go for this one – it’s extremely flexible and will work well with such a varied set of sites.
Don’t believe what we say? Check out the excellent look and feel on the SmartSlider DEMO site and let that convince you!
