Convert Joomla to static website

Speed Matters?

Faster speed is known metric for Google particularly for content-focused websites. The visitor is less likely to spend time reading your content the longer they have to wait for the page to load. For example the BBC has released information showing that every 1 second delay equates to 10% fewer visitors. 

Save money go serverless?

Static sites do not require a database or a scripting language such as PHP. Therefore the Web server resources are much lower which is why the sites load faster. Hosting a static site uses so little resources that the major cloud providers offer hosting for free.

Secure by design?

Joomla! is the second most popular content management system after WordPress and is therefore a significant target for hackers. Version 3 of Joomla! has been updated 50+ times since the original release of version 3.0 the majority of which were due to security weaknesses within the platform enabling hackers to gain access to a site. Static websites generated off-line are secure by default and cannot be hacked.

How to convert your Joomla! website to static HTML?

There are no Joomla extensions available to create a static site directly from Joomla! and this would appear to be discouraged by the Joomla! community as the topics are locked on the forum. 

YouDoCMS supports migration directly from Joomla MySQL database. Jekyll also supports Joomla conversion to markdown. However this does not include categories. Hugo also has a Java tool for converting Joomla to markdown. Similar to Jekyll nested categories are not supported.

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How to import Joomla into a headless CMS?

YouDoCMS supports direct conversion of Joomla! 3 into a static equivalent. On import all existing content is imported as html and the relationships between articles, categories, pages, and menus match the originals. A google for  "headless cms import Joomla" does not find any other Jamstack CMS supporting import from Joomla!

Updating Content

Traditional static site generators such as Hugo and Jekyll require the user to learn the markdown language and edit using a text editor. For Joomla! users regularly using the default TinyMCE HTML editor this is a step backwards. Furthermore internal links between content manual not automated. YouDoCMS incorporates the same editor as Joomla! (TinyMCE) and a similar process is followed to create internal links between content. 

Cloud Deployment

Joomla! CMS users are familiar with updating content which then becomes instantly available on the website. Switching to the JAMstack with a static site generator will involve manually uploading files to the cloud hosting provider using the command line. Not my idea of fun. YouDoCMS GUI is integrated with the five leading cloud API's for a single click deployment to your host.

SEO and Redirects

Joomla! provides users with functionality to publish dynamic content on specific dates or stop publishing if the content has expired or no longer relevant. If content is removed from the site Joomla! creates a redirect on the server to point the old URL to new content to avoid 404 errors with search engines. Traditional static site generators do not have this functionality. The YouDoCMS desktop application incorporates similar functionality to Joomla! publish/unpublish of content plus 301 redirect rules which are synchronised to the cloud.

Site Backup

Akeeba Backup is the most popular Joomla extension and we do not see why a user should go without this important feature. Static site Generators do not incorporate any backup functionality and you will be dependent upon your local machine backup to store your files and we all know how problematic that is, particularly in Windows. YouDoCMS incorporates single click site backup including images into a single file which can be stored anywhere on the network or a USB drive.

Site Analytics

YouDoCMS includes server log analytics which is linked to your content to provide common metrics such as entry and exit pages, bounce rate, visitor geolocation and search engine crawl monitoring. AWS CloudFront and Azure both offer analysis via the server logs which means you do not need JavaScript tracking. Firebase is reliant upon Google analytics which can be blocked by browser extensions. However if you are an existing Google analytics user then Firebase is the best option. Cloudflare also provides JavaScript analytics (paid). See site analytics.