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Content Management Software (CMS)

Websites based on Content Management Software

  • Making changes to a website does require a significant level of technical skills and knowledge. A good Content Management System (CMS) can make it much easier for non-technical staff to create, edit and publish changes to a website without needing a good level of website programming and design skills. The look and feel of the web site is maintained through the use of templates created for the Content Management Software.

Why have content management software (CMS) on my website?

If you want to make regular updates to your web site a good Content Management System (CMS) may be the best and most cost effective solution for you. The benefits include:

  • Instant updates - whenever you need them, creating competitive advantage
  • Control - you are in control, not an independent web designer or IT department
  • Cost Reduction - no paying out for all those regular maintenance changes to your website to keep it fresh and up to date
  • Ease of use (relatively) - expert internet or website programming skills are not required but some basic understanding is helpful (see below)
  • Consistancy - maintain the look and feel of your website with a variety of web site content authors
  • Accountability - your staff can be responsible for their own information

Easy to use?

Whilst Content Management Software (CMS) is intended to make it easier to update a web site for non-technical people by hiding most of the programming side of websites it is fair to say that it is helpful to have some understanding of the basics of HTML and what makes a good web page so that the website is properly maintained (from the point of view of Search Engine Optimisation, Disability Accessibility and to keep the website healthy and efficient).

Copy and Paste: There can also be issues resulting from creating copy elsewhere and pasting it into the CMS as hidden formating code may also be copied (or created by the conversion process from, say Word, to HTML). So it is helpful to have a working understanding of basic HTML and often best to take unformatted copy and do the formatting within the Content Management System.

Graphics and Photos: Whilst the CMS will let you add images to your website they will not prepare the images for you. So you will need to understand how to prepare images in terms of resizing them and optimising them for use on the web. This will require access to specialist image manipulation software.

You control access

Within a Content Management System (CMS) you can normally set up user accounts that allow different levels of access from Full Administrator to updating specific sections of content giving you the flexibility to control who updates what.

Adding CMS to existing sites?

Generally speaking rather than integrate a content management system (CMS) into an existing web sites it is easier to start again with a new web page template but it is normally possible to reuse the content. However it would seem to be a good opportunity to review and update your website content.

Which content management system (CMS)?

We no longer develop our own content management system (epecentre) - we now use widely available open source systems such as DRUPAL and WORDPRESS.

This gives customers the significant benefits of

  • not being tied into a CMS maintained by one company plus
  • a wealth of features and addons at no extra cost provided by the community maintaining the CMS

Limitations of content management systems (CMS)

Content Management Systems are software and data base driven systems, the page content is extracted from the database and placed on the web pages according to parameters within the software. This tends to be:

  • limiting in terms of web designs and layouts that are practical
  • not very flexible in terms of what you can do on the web pages
  • not ideal for search engine optimisation
  • not very good with disability accessibility issues
  • can result in slower page loading

Summary

A Content Management System (CMS) can be a good solution for many people whose websites need regular updating and have new content added frequently (such as News Articles, Cases Studies, Announcements, Job Adverts ...).

However please do not imagine they are without their problems and limitations. To effectively maintain a website with a CMS you will need some understanding of the basics of HTML and what makes a good web page from the point of view of Search Engine Optimisation and Disability Accessibility. These skills can be relatively easily learnt for most people who have an aptitude for learning different computing skills but may be a problem for people who have no interest in understanding the basics of website maintenance.

A Content Management System does not remove the need to have some understanding of the workings of web sites.

If you want to update your website regularly (ie at least once a month) and you have the desire to learn some HTML basics then a CMS may work well for you. On the other hand, if you are unlikely to update your website regularly or feel apprehensive about learning some basic web design skills, you are likely to have difficulty using a CMS so I would suggest you do not go down this path but leave your website maintenance to a professional web designer.

If you are unsure and would like to see what it might be like to use a Content Management System to see if it is right for you I would be happy to give you a demonstration.