Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Importance Of Content Management Systems

When shopping around different web designers, the phrase “Content Management System”, or CMS, comes up very often. But what is it? And more importantly, do you need it?

What Is A CMS?

A content management system enables you to manage the content of your website without the help of a web developer. Essentially, it is any system that allows you to post content up on a website. For example, if you have posted a picture up on Facebook, or sent a tweet through Twitter, then you have been using a kind of CMS.  For more information on the scope of what a CMS can do, check this article.

Why A CMS?

The biggest benefit of a CMS is that it enables you to manage a site by yourself without having to sift through the code behind the site. You are essentially your own webmaster, as long as you are willing to spend the time to learn the system and update your site. As to the importance of a CMS, imagine if every time you wanted to upload a picture to Facebook you had to send an email to changeyourprofile@facebook.com and a Facebook employee would have to upload the picture for you. Imagine the trouble if something went wrong in the process, such as if they uploaded the wrong picture to your profile (which could be potentially really bad depending on the picture). Without a CMS, Facebook would definitely not be nearly the size that it is today due to a lack of manpower, and it would assuredly not be a free service.

Thankfully, due to the open source movement along with several independent software development companies, there are several CMS’s that are either very cheap (a couple hundred dollars) or completely free to use. These generic systems are very open and customizable, so web developers can offer an enterprise-level backend without starting from scratch. In addition, the community of users of a particular CMS usually contributes a number of add-ons that extend the CMS’s functionality, enabling web developers to meet their client’s needs.

Who Needs A CMS?

In the web 2.0 world that we live in, I would argue that the vast majority of websites (if not all) need some type of CMS powering them because of how important current information is in the new decade. From adding meeting info to an upcoming event to adding news relevant to your business, a CMS can greatly help you ensure your website is current. Also with more advanced technologies such as live feeds whose content is constantly changing, the only way to keep that pace is to be able to modify your website on the fly. Even if you are fortunate enough to have a webmaster managing your site, a CMS could drastically reduce the number of mistakes that webmaster makes since he or she wouldn’t have to delve into the code to manually update the site each time. The CMS makes your site update process more streamlined and more efficient.

It is very tempting to skimp on building a CMS since developers will naturally charge more to set this up, but in the long run, once you incorporate the expense of hiring that same developer to make even the most minor of changes the extra initial cost becomes more justified.  A CMS-powered site empowers you to take control of your own website, or greatly increases a webmasters efficiency in managing your website for you.. And since the cost for this convenience has gone down drastically, most businesses and individuals can now afford it.