The most important aspect of owning a website is having the ability to update it yourself in a quick and easy manner. Following are some Q&A's regarding Content Management Systems:
What is a Content Management System, or CMS?
At the risk of stating the obvious, it could be said that a content management system is quite simply - a system that manages content.
However, it is precisely the obviousness of what a CMS is and does, that has created a degree of confusion amongst 'would be' purchases of such a system. Wrapped up in a seemingly harmless statement is enough ambiguity to enable desperately inappropriate products to masquerade as content management solutions.
To fully understand what it is a CMS does, we have to first define:
- what it is we are referring to when we talk about content
- what it is we understand under its management
- what do we mean by a system
What is Content?
Content is in essence, any type or 'unit' of digital information that is used to populate a page. It can be text, images, graphics, video, sound etc - or in other words - anything that is likely to be published across an inter-, intra- and/or extranet. For a closer look at how content differs from a document click here.
What is Content Management?
Content Management is effectively the management of the content described above, by combining rules, process and/or workflows in such a way that centralised webmasters and decentralised web authors/editors can create, edit, manage and publish all the content of a web page in accordance with a given framework or requirements.
What is the CM System?
The system itself is definable as a tool or combination or tools that facilitate the efficient and effective production of the desired web pages using the managed content.
To combine all three, we can say;
"A CMS is a tool that enables a variety of (centralised) technical and (de-centralised) non technical staff to create, edit, manage and finally publish a variety of content (such as text, graphics, video etc), whilst being constrained by a centralised set of rules, process and workflows that ensure a coherent, validated website appearance."
Why do you need a CMS?
In a world (not so long ago), where web sites were built by one man and his proverbial dog - publishing a few web pages was a relatively easy and simple process. The gradual and long awaited demise of the belief that the web is merely a means of publishing an electronic brochure and the ever increasing demand that intra-, inter- and extra-nets publish an organisations internal and external information has changed this irreversibly!
Traditional tools and methods of building web pages were/are not only labour intensive but also inefficient and extremely costly. For example, something as simple as changing a single word in a piece of text on a web page with traditional methods would have to be done by someone who understood HTML. This process not only bottlenecked all creation of information and content through IT departments, but it also prevented more effective use of the IT skills within that department (purchased usually at considerable cost).
The desire to increase the amount of information being contained in web pages and the need to include an ever widening circle of groups into the 'modern' web publishing process has exacerbated this situation to the point that many web management teams are no longer able to cope with the growing demand on their resources.
For those old enough to remember, this situation is no different to that that faced organisations in the 1960's with the rise and fall of the typing pool. In fact, the revolution that was caused by the introduction of the word processing system is similar to the revolution that will occur as more and more companies realise the benefits of using a CMS. Those companies that choose not to adopt the new technology will suffer the same fate as those that thought they could carry on using the typing pool instead of implementing word processing systems. Their websites will become choked, out of date and most importantly in a world where the other websites contain more information that changes on a more regular basis, the sites that don't use a CMS will become stale in comparison and visitors (both internal and external) will stop coming.
The world of the webmaster or web team being the sole method of getting information onto a web site is over. It is not so much a case of whether you should implement a CMS - but more a case of when and which one........
What are some of the benefits of using a CMS?
- A CMS enables online information to be fresh, consistent and a high quality.
- Reduced customer (internal & external) dissatisfaction created by having incorrect information.
- Reduction in legal issues created by displaying incorrect information.
- Increased value perception of the information provided.
- There is a higher likelihood of a customer re-visiting the site.
- Almost all search engines rank pages that change frequently higher in search results.
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