As website developers and company branders, it's only natural
that we're suckers for great design. But as much as we care
about form, we know that really great web design makes our clients'
lives not only lovelier, but easier as well. There's little
more annoying than cruising through your user-friendly,
beautifully-designed website and realizing that some of the content
is outdated or even inaccurate. While good web designers can
and do update content, the unavoidable delay between deciding on a
change and seeing it implemented can be frustrating. Content
Management Systems are a great way to maintain the integrity of
your website by putting you, rather than a web designer, in control
of your content.
What is a CMS?
Content Management Systems generally work in one of two
ways. Some CMS systems are designed as software that installs
on your servers or your computer, while other (generally less
expensive) systems are hosted by the system's developers and
accessed over the Internet via a browser. Either type of CMS
can lower maintenance costs by streamlining your content update
process - you can publish directly without costly help from web
designers. And either will help keep your web content current
and correct by eliminating the delays associated with handoffs from
marketing and sales departments to I.S. and back to marketing and
sales, which translates to a better site and more traffic.
What should you expect from your CMS?
While lower maintenance costs and streamlined updates are two
generally accepted benefits of a CMS, not all systems are created
equal. We've developed the following list of 8
questions to help you decide which CMS is right for your
business.
1. Is it User-Friendly?
CMS systems come in varying levels of complexity, and can be
deployed by both large and small companies. One thing to be
aware of is the ease with which you can use your CMS. We
suggest that you look for systems that have all of the features of
Microsoft Word, and that are straightforward enough that content
developers can begin creating and editing site content immediately.
A well-designed CMS should allow authorized users to create,
access, and manage menus, submenus, hyperlinks, new page creations,
and more. It should offer authorized content developers the ability
to navigate quickly and intuitively, using pull-down and drill-down
menus to get to specific areas of your web site.
2. What Kind of Training & Support is
offered?
While a well-designed CMS should be intuitive, it's only natural
that you might have questions as you learn the system. When
deciding which CMS is right for you, be sure to take customer
service into account. How much training is the developer
willing to provide? What if you have a question a week after
implementing the system? A month? A year? Find
out what type of customer support they're willing to offer, and for
how long.
3. Is it Accessible But Protected?
While you want a system that's easy for you to navigate, you
don't want one that anyone can get into. Many of the
better-designed CMS's are based on authentication level, which
means that content developers are granted permission to access
authorized areas. Most CMS's have an auto-log-out procedure that
can be implemented if a content editor leaves an active session
open without making any changes for a certain predetermined length
of time. In such cases all unsaved work should be queued for
immediate review once the content developer logs back in.
4. How Long is the Response Time?
A well-designed CMS will have no restrictions on page length or
quality of content, and should allow your content developers to
easily preview new or changed content. Users should be able
to make a number of changes at once that will take effect
immediately, without an extensive wait or reload time.
5. What Are the Photo Options?
Pictures and images are extremely important to some companies'
websites. You may need to upload new photos often, and remove them
when they are obsolete. If this is the case, you'll
definitely want a system that allows easy photo uploads and
removal. You'll also want to find out exactly how much
control you'll have over where and how your pictures appear within
the layout of your page - this is an important question that many
people neglect to ask.
6. How Readable are the URLs?
This may seem like an odd thing to ask, but one of the most
important features to look for when evaluating a CMS is its ability
to publish content with clean web addresses, or URLs. URLs
should be readable - a visitor should be able to get a good idea of
what your page is about simply through the component parts of a
well-structured URL. This can be hard to achieve if your content
management system constructs its URLs using obscure article or
category IDs - the visitor can't get a sense of the page's content
from a seemingly-random string of numbers. What's more,
descriptive, readable URLs index better for search engines and
therefore make your content more findable. This feature is key not
only because it keeps your website easy to navigate but also
because it tends to betray the manufacturer's underlying
understanding of how the web itself works.
7. Does it Accommodate Recent & Emerging
Technologies?
With Web 2.0 taking firm hold, site visitors increasingly expect
to see a range of more interactive features. You'll want to make
sure that RSS feeds are available, and ask about technologies like
Ajax, which are easy to implement on the front-end.
Should you choose to use these technologies, will your CMS be able
to service the requests for data that are needed?
8. How Many Sites Can it Support?
If you run, or plan to run, multiple content-managed sites,
you'll almost certainly prefer a CMS that can handle multiple sites
to several single-site CMS systems. Multi-site capability can
save not only on initial cost, but also in the administrative
overhead of needing to manage, upgrade and maintain multiple
systems.
We hope the above checklist will help you to choose the CMS that
best fits your company's needs. After all, your website is a
critical connection between your company and your customers.
The right CMS can help you take control of your own content, keep
your site up-to-date and accurate, and ensure that your website
works for your business, not against it.