Content Management Systems

The pros and cons of usingContent Management Systems

Ease of UseCreating a website without a CMS, no matter how trivial, requires some technical knowledge, which is hard to find and expensive to buy. Content management systems allow us to publish content without getting wrapped up in technical details. A CMS is a website maintenance tool for non-technical people.

T h e W h o l e S h e b a n g Some content management systems allow us to build an entire website, including web applications, database access, and transaction processing. As you might expect, though, the more flexibility and functionality a CMS provides, the more difficult it is to use. There's always that tradeoff. However, for blogging purposes there are a bunch of CMS's that are easier to set-up and use. For more in-depth information, check out our coverage on choosing the best blogging platform.

Low Cost Free is my favorite price! WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are the most popular CMS's. There are free versions of all three. The ancient reluctance to use free software is almost gone, but we must still consider availability of support when deciding what to use. All three of these are popular enough that we should be able to find support without too much trouble.

Consistent Appearance

Many CMS's provide templates that can be used to format new and/or existing presentations. This separates formatting from content, allowing staff to specialize in one or the other. This specialization suggests better productivity at a lower overall cost.

Collaboration & Versioning Version control and collaboration between multiple authors are supported to one degree or another in many CMS's. Some provide a check-out / check-in process to prevent multiple updates overwriting each other.

Other Considerati ons

…Just before you proceed to choosing your CMS

E x t e n s i b i l i t y

Some CMS's allow anyone and everyone to create add-ons or plug-ins or modules or what-have-you. This was a good business decision because specialized features can be made available more quickly if it's not up to one single organization to do all the work. However, wading through the thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of extra features is too daunting a task to make it worthwhile. Word-of-mouth recommendations and critiques are especially helpful. One point to remember: Just because it exists doesn't mean it's good (or safe).

D e p e n d e n c e o n Ve n d o r

With the dynamic nature of the Internet, any tool we use must be updated on a regular basis. For security purposes, updates should be installed as soon as possible after they are released. If a CMS supplier ceases to exist, the company using the CMS will face some unique and immediate challenges.

U n sta b l e U R L ' sSearch engines assume that URL's don't change. If a CMS changes the content's URL, it will take some time for the search engines to catch up. In the meantime, part of your intended audience will not be able to find your content.

S e c u r i t y

Do you need to control access to your content? Check out the features built in to the CMS to see if they will help you in this regard. Many do.

Pe r f o r m a n c eA CMS can slow down your website. Or maybe it can speed it up. This is a much bigger topic than can fit into one paragraph, but it's something we need to investigate before selecting a CMS.

S c a l a b i l i t y

How big will your website become? How do the CMS's support this growth? Example: If the CMS requires everything to be on one server, scalability may become an issue down the road.

M u l ti l i n g u a l S u p p o r t

If your website requires multilingual support, make sure the CMS simplifies the process.