Deft Creative Articles

Content Management Systems, an Introduction

November 22nd, 2006

A Content Management System (CMS) puts you in control of your website’s content. If you have areas of your site that need updating on a regular basis then chances are you’ll need a CMS of some kind to allow those changes to be made.

What is a CMS?

In simple terms there are two different kinds of website, static, and dynamic.

A static website is one where the pages are created, linked together and then the site is put live. If any changes are needed to text and images, or if new pages are needed then a web designer will be needed to make these changes for you.

A dynamic website is one where the content is kept in a database online. You have a front-end, the bit that visitors to your website will see, and a back-end, which usually consists of a control panel where you as the administrator can make changes to the site content. With the content kept in a database like this it can be manipulated in different ways. For example you may want the flexibility to maintain a news article section on your site. A CMS could not only allow you to write new articles, but a keyword search could be offered, certain articles could be moved to an archive, you could display the latest 5 headlines on different pages on your site, and many other applications.

With a dynamic site, there isn’t necessarily any content on the page, but code to tell the database what to display, and how to display it.

What do you really want control of?

A CMS can literally range from a few hundred, to a few hundred-thousand pounds. If you are requesting a quote from a web design company and you do want the ability to maintain areas of your site, it is important not to ask for too much. I often receive quotes that contein phrases such as “full control”, or “update everything on our website”, when in fact all they really need is to add a news article once a month. I can see how companies can be miss-sold a CMS and end up paying for functionality that they will never use.

At the higher end, a CMS can also include editorial features. Different areas of the site might be maintained by different members of staff, each of which is overlooked by a master administrator, who has to approve articles/content before they are set live. Again, this is something which wouldn’t be needed for a small single office company. A simple conversation will suffice, and potentially save thousands of pounds.

Are all CMS’s equal?

As well as making sure a CMS does what you want it to do, the following should also be considered;

• Does it produce valid code?
  Taking web standards into account, it is important that the pages that are dynamically generated are of a good quality
• Is it search engine friendly?
  Search engines can sometime have trouble navigating through, and indexing dynamic content. They do love regularly changing content however so it’s important that this content is indexable by engines like Google.
• Will it work in my browser?
  Sometimes, particularly with WYSIWYG editors (which allow you to view exactly what you are editing like in Microsoft Word, you can highlight text and make it bold, italic etc), sometimes these will only work in certain browsers.

and finally, does it actually do what you want it to? Or does it do far too little or too much. It’s good to allow for expansion of functionality, but when a CMS is involved, this is one area where companies are paying far too much for their websites.

Entry Filed under: Deft Touch, Glossary