Should you be using a content management system (CMS)?
Posted 1 March 2007 at 10:41AM by David Crowther in Managing your website, Website development
If your objective is for your website to bring in new and repeat business (which I assume it is!), then it's vital that you update your site for two reasons. First, you cannot maintain a competitive position in the search engines if you don't regularly refresh your content. Second, your customers and users won't have the incentive to revisit your site if there is nothing new for them to come back to - also an important point for intranets.
In a nutshell, you have three options when it comes to regularly maintaining your site:
- Outsource your site's maintenance by passing on your updates to a third-party, which is usually best managed through a 'maintenance contract'
- Manage your updates in-house if you have technically-minded staff who know what they're doing
- Invest in a content management system (often referred to as a CMS) to enable staff to manage site updates in-house.
So, what is a CMS exactly?
A CMS allows a company to maintain their website or web content themselves through a user-friendly interface. This means the site's administrator does not have to have any technical knowledge to update the website. Simply put, a CMS does all the technical work for you!
Why should we use a CMS to manage our website?
- If yours is a large website - or intranet - with many pages, a CMS can save time and cost when updating it.
- With a CMS, you have ultimate control over timing the release of sensitive information
- You can permit more than one individual or department to submit new site content or edit existing content
- A CMS allows you to add new content (or to delete or edit outdated content) regularly
- Many CMSs are inexpensive or free/opensource, meaning they high return on investment over time
- If yours is a large company or organisation, you'll more than likely cut costs by enabling non-technical staff to maintain your website content using a CMS. The ideal arrangement usually in this case is for the IT department to install a CMS, so that the Marketing or Communications Team (or HR in the case of intranets) can then manage the website content
- A CMS facilitates a fairly automated workflow process for any necessary reviews, edits and approvals to proposed content before it is published on the web
- Information can be delivered through a CMS in multiple formats, such as PDF and Word documents, mobile applications and RSS feeds
Are there any disadvantages of using a CMS?
- While a CMS typically gives you a high return on investment over time, it's usually a more expensive option in the immediate term because time or budget have to be factored in for the set-up of a CMS
- It can be more difficult when using a CMS to implement best practices for search engine optimisation. This varies significantly depending on your choice of CMS
- Content added to a website through a CMS may not comply with web standards
- If you use a CMS, it may be difficult to integrate new functionality or features with your website further down the line without expensive re-engineering.
- Proprietary CMSs will prevent you from switching to another hosting provider or developer
- Your website administrators will have to undergo training to use the CMS, but in most cases a CMS interface is fairly self-explanatory and training won't need to be more than an hour or two
Further reading:
- OpensourceCMS - test content management systems in one place.
- CMS Matrix - compare up to 10 content management tools at once.
Tags: CMS, content management system
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