You can place a Widget on your website to allow visitors to your website to call your office for free, using Google Voice. It also gives your site a finished, professional look. Click here for a video on Google Voice.
First, sign up for a Google Voice account, and get a Google Voice number. Click here to get Google Voice started.
Open your Google Voice account, and click on Settings. Choose the tab marked Widgets, click the checkbox, and you will be able to copy the html code that will allow you to embed the widget on your website. That just means that you paste the HTML language into a page on your site. It's much easier than you think.
Next, go to the article or module where you want to embed the Google Voice widget. Click the little icon in the text editor that says HTML. It will allow you to work in HTML code. Don't worry if you don't speak or read HTML. Just paste the Google code where you want to see it. If you want, you can include text to explain how to use the widget. Save the article or module, and take a look at the website. You should see the Google widget graphic, that a visitor can click on and then fill in a name and telephone number. The visitor then clicks on the Connect button, and Google will place a call to your office and to the visitor's telephone number, for free.
Joomla
recently released its version 1.5.14
, for immediate installation. This is a security update, with a couple of bug fixes. Joomla has also announced that they are working on Joomla 1.6, but no goal has been announced for its release.
Some people think that Joomla
and WordPress
are rivals, made for the same purpose. I don't
believe that to be true, any more than a Subaru competes with a Suburban. I think that being able to use both is a real strength for anyone wanting access to the power of Content Management software.
Joomla is more sophisticated than WordPress, and at this point can do more things. Joomla has a more active, some might say, fanatic, user base. However, WordPress is able to do many things more easily than Joomla. For instance, inserting a sound file is more difficult in Joomla, and probably involves finding a Plug-in to store and play the sound file, such as .mp3. It is a much simpler process in WordPress. One the other hand, themes in WordPress are almost impossible to format. If you have a theme with a column on the left, you probably are not going to be able to move the column to the right.
BREAKING NEWS:RocketTheme
is, in my opinion, the best theme developer for Joomla. In 2008, RocketTheme
talked about developing their themes for WordPress. In August of 2009, I inquired whether they would be coming out with WordPress themes, and got a carefully worded reply, suggesting that they would do so in the near future. On October 7, 2009, RocketTheme announced that they are now making WordPress themes . Click here for information on their themes for WordPress. They immediately released six themes, based on recent Joomla themes. I like Replicant 2, with a number of different color styles built in. Since then, they have added more, some of which will work better for a typical professional practice website than others. December 18, 2009 -- WordPress 2.9.
The new release of WordPress, version 2.9, includes some really nice features, including easier embedding of links for video or other content, and editing and placing images in pages. This is really nice, and WordPress promises that it is a preview of what will be coming, presumably in release 3.0. Don't take my word for it -- here is the official WordPress video. NOTE: if I had been using WordPress 2.9, it would have been faster and easier than with Joomla!
RocketTheme Template Club has introduced HiveMind, a new, very attractive template, which works very well for a professional website, such as an attorney, legal organization or law firm. The template has a clean look, which has been described as elegant.
Blawg 
e to use both is a real strength for anyone wanting access to the power of Content Management software. 
d about developing their themes for WordPress. In August of 2009, I inquired whether they would be coming out with WordPress themes, and got a carefully worded reply, suggesting that they would do so in the near future. On October 7, 2009, RocketTheme