Virtuemart has long been the preferred e-commerce solution for Joomla sites as it is feature-rich, there are a lot of extensions available and it's free. However, it is often criticised for lack of updates and difficult configuration. So if you want to sell something online, here are some alternatives to consider:

Launching a website is a bit like opening a store at the end of a one-way street. At first, no one knows about your site, no one finds your site in search listings and frankly no one cares about your site (except you!)

I have had a bit of a break producing this newsletter but now it is time to ramp things up again with another great Joomla tip. This week you will learn why search engines think you have two websites and how to correct this with a free extension.

Rightly or wrongly, web developers feel a sense of ownership over their finished work. In the past, whenever a website update was required, the website owner asked the developer to make the change and all was good. Joomla allows site owners to make their own updates but developers get cranky when their hard work is ruined by the site owner. Keep your developer happy (and your site visitors too) by avoiding the following common mistake.

There are a few methods available to add captions to images that appear in your Joomla articles. The easiest solution is to use a free extension called EasyImageCaption.

One challenge in understanding Joomla, particularly if you have built websites before using static HTML, is the separation of content and layout. You can display the same content in multiple ways and I demonstrate my preference in the full tutorial series. The following is an explanation of the layout options available for category/section/frontpage blog layout. You will find this helpful the next time you create a menu item, or you can edit the layout of your existing items.

The latest addition to the Joomla website is People. This is a social site with features similar to Facebook. Here you can mix with other Joomla people to learn more, make friends and simply experience the enormous size of the Joomla community. I encourage you to register and when you have logged in, head over to my profile and add me as a friend.

Visitors to your Joomla powered site can search for content whether you like it or not. This will come as a surprise to most, but it usually isn't important, as long as you understand a couple of key points. Get this wrong and at best you might be embarrassed - at worst - you could lose your job!

Whether you like Facebook or not, it's hard to ignore its impact on the web. There are over 400 million Facebook users and the current growth rate is phenomenal. On average, each user has 130 friends. And, on average, each user creates 70 pieces of content each month. That's one enormous website and I'm embarrassed that I haven't done more with it. That's about to change soon, so head over to the Build a Joomla Website Fan Page and join in the conversation.

Here are three great extensions to help you spice up your Joomla powered blog: