Develop and Maintain Your Website with Ease
A simple Google search for the phrase “Content Management System” yields almost 2.2 million web pages. This mind-boggling statistic underscores the importance of content management systems (or CMS) in website development and maintenance. This article defines CMS and explains why it has become so important for businesses of all sizes, so that you can determine whether your business would benefit from CMS.
What Can CMS Do for My Business?
If you have only a simple HTML website, updating and maintaining your pages is relatively worry-free. But as soon as you add fancier features, a little bit of interactivity, and content that changes frequently, you’ll probably find that you are in need of some professional assistance whenever you want to add, update, or remove a webpage. If you’re in this situation, then CMS may be able to help.
With CMS, you can develop and change content more easily before you upload it for public display on your website. There are special boxes for typing text and dialog boxes for uploading images (or you can simply use placeholders). Many CMS programs are designed to let you see the page as it will display in a web browser while you are simultaneously changing the underlying code. Also, CMS programs manage all the metadata content, such as keywords, descriptions, and page titles, by accessing a CMS database for generating Web pages. Usually the CMS programs are web-based and can be run without installing any special software. Users who have little or no background in IT can easily log into the CMS platform from a normal web browser and change and update content for their Web pages with ease.
CMS programs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on the specific needs of the business. The simplest programs are appropriate for small businesses or individuals, but larger companies with complex websites may need a more sophisticated CMS with additional features, such as workflow management and multiple permission levels, which limits individual employees’ access to specific functions.
The Pros and Cons of CMS
With a CMS system, your company can expect to greatly reduce the cost of outsourcing its web updates to IT professionals. With CMS, virtually anyone who can use a web browser can suddenly design, maintain, and update your company’s website. And no one will need to become an expert in coding HTML. You’ll find that it becomes easy to update your website quickly whenever the need arises.
A good CMS program also helps to ensure consistency within your website design, because all pages are based on pre-designed templates that keep colors, text styles, and image placement consistent. In the future, when you want to change the design of your website, you simply need to change the underlying template and all of the pages that were built upon that template will update automatically, saving you valuable time. In addition, you can easily have the CMS program import information from an existing database.
Despite these advantages, CMS programs have a few drawbacks. Websites that are built with CMS tend to load more slowly. Also, search engines are better at indexing static HTML pages than those that have been built in CMS. Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy solution if you choose a CMS program that includes the ability to publish the pages as HTML and adapt them to be more appropriate for search engine technology.
CMS programs are also pretty expensive. Even with an open-source solution, someone must install it and set up in your offices. The initial costs of using CMS can be significant, but in the long run they are almost always less than the costs of hard-coding HTML pages.
CMS Acquisition
Your company has four basic options for acquiring an appropriate CSM program, as described in the following list.
Create an in-house CMS. Most companies won’t choose to make their own CMS because they lack the in-house professionals to do so. Plus, the costs of doing so are unpredictable and there are problems with knowledge retention once the individuals who created the program leave the company.
Outsource your CMS development. Although there are many vendors who will offer to create a CMS for your company, this is an expensive option with a minimum price tag of $5,000. Any additional features or customization will raise the price considerably, with no upper limit.
Buy an existing CMS program. If you need a reliable, basic CMS, this is the simplest and most cost-effective option. There are many different products in the market, and with a little research you can choose the one that best meets your need. These CMS are generally reliable and trustworthy, but they can sometimes be frustrating because they lack the flexibility to accommodate your company’s specific needs. And you may still need to contract some IT assistance to install the program and help you get it up and running.
Use an open-source program. In terms of quality, many open-source CMS are equal to those that are sold in stores, yet they are absolutely free, per the terms of their public licenses. The programs can also be modified and re-distributed to meet your company’s specific needs. The software development community has a high level of familiarity with these open-source programs, so it’s relatively easy to contract someone who can help you tailor it with the additional features that you need.