Insights
Choosing a Content Management System
August 17, 2010What Is a Content Management System?
Content management system (CMS) is a term that, at its highest level, can describe any system (manual or electronic) that manages data or content. In this paper, we use the term to describe electronic systems, specifically software applications, that manage the content of a website. By content, we are referring to items such as text, images, and documents, as well as the files that control the look of the website (code, css, etc.).
A content management system is a tool that gives you a visual representation of your site. It allows you to see not only the content of your site but also the structure. From this tool you can then make changes to your site, such as changing the content on a page, adding a new page, or changing the structure of the site (i.e. the hierarchy of the pages). A content management system can generally be accessed over the internet through a secure login, allowing you to make changes to your site from any location as long as you have access to the internet.
Why Would I Use a Content Management System?
There are many benefits to creating and maintaining your website with a content management system (CMS). One of the main advantages of a CMS is that it separates the content to be displayed from the technical components that control how it is displayed. This means that once a site has been created, you do not need a technical person (such as a developer or webmaster) to be involved in updating the content of the site. The CMS will allow a business user, such as a marketing team member, to update content and control the publishing of the content to the website.
Content management systems also make it easier to make large changes that affect many pages because they use templates for page creation. Instead of making a design change on every page, the change only has to be made on the template. Not only is this easier and faster, it also ensures consistency across the pages in your site.
Another advantage is that a CMS will allow you to create roles and permissions to control what content users are able to create or change. Workflows can also be created that require changes to be approved by specified users before they can be published to the site.
Overall, content management systems greatly improve the ease of making changes and keeping your site up to date and consistent.
What Solutions Are Available?
There are literally hundreds of content management systems available, so choosing the right system for your needs requires research. The benefits mentioned above will generally be found in any system, but there are many other features that are system-specific. Before you decide on a system, you need to determine which features you need so that you can find the correct system for your business. You obviously don’t want a system that doesn’t meet your needs, but a system that offers much more than what you require can also be disadvantageous due to higher cost and an increased learning curve.
There are dozens of features available in the various systems. Some of the major features that you will want to consider are: multilingual support, caching, staging, analytics/statistics, role-based security, workflow, blogging, forums, reporting, multiple site support, and mobile support.
As mentioned above, content management systems allow non-technical users to maintain your site. However, there is generally technical work involved in the initial creation of the site and in any large changes. Because of this, one major consideration in choosing a system is the technology upon which it is based. If you have a development team that will be creating the site, you will likely want to select a system that uses a technology your developers are familiar with.
There are also many open-source systems available. These are certainly the less expensive route, but there can be some disadvantages that should be considered. Because they are open source, there is no guarantee of future upgrades to the software, and technical support may be sporadic or nonexistent. Documentation for open-source systems is not always as accessible and complete as it would be on a proprietary system.
At Netsoft, we have partnered with Sitecore CMS. In fact, our own website uses Sitecore. We have found it to have a rich feature set that meets our customers’ needs, while also being easy to learn and use. Sitecore has thorough documentation available on their website, and there is also a large online community of Sitecore users who share their own experiences and insights with the product.
Summary
Many websites can benefit from the use of a content management system. Maintaining a website becomes a simplified task that a business user can easily execute. The most important aspect is taking the time to determine your needs (features, technology, budget, etc) and finding the CMS that will be the right fit for your business.
