7 Reasons to Use a CMS
Posted by Johan Cyprich on 25 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: General
Most web sites today are built the traditional way using a web design tool like Dreamweaver. Each page of the web site is an individual file, which can be .html, .php, .aspx, or some other extension. Any changes or additions to these pages are done by editing the page directly.
The problem with creating web sites this way is that they require a qualified web designer to do it. While anyone can learn how to build a web site, it requires a certain skill set for making good web sites and for updating them. This is something that not everyone can do, or would even want to do.
A content management system (CMS) changes all of this. The following are 7 reasons why you should be using a CMS for building web sites.
1. Easy to update.
Adding articles or editing them is much easier than opening an HTML page in Dreamweaver. The advantage of a CMS is that you can modify content through a web browser instead of stand alone client application. A knowledge of HTML is not necessary for creating content, but knowing it can give you greater control on how information is laid out on a page.
2. Does not rely on web designer to update web content.
How quickly does your web designer make changes to your web site? When you need them to add or modify content, are they unavailable because they’re out snowboarding? This is a problem that many business face. Changes to web sites need to be made quickly, but many web designers can’t do the work as soon as desired which can be due to other jobs they are currently working on. With a CMS, you can update or add new content anytime.
3. Change appearance of site with templates.
Changing the appearance of a traditional web site could take hours if there are hundred’s of pages that need to be modified. With a CMS, you can easily change the appearance of a web site or sections of the site just by choosing a new template.
4. CMS software constantly improving.
When a web site is created manually, it’s usually a finished product. A CMS has a large community of developers and users adding features and fixing bugs. Most traditional sites created by web designers rarely have their code updated.
5. Extensions to add functionality.
CMS’ functionality can be extended by installing plugins or components. This could be things like a language translator, forums, advertising modules, or buttons to share an article on social networking web sites. Finding an appropriate extension could save money where a programmer would need to be hired to the code a similar task.
6. Community support.
If there is a certain feature you don’t understand, you can ask a community of users. The community also provides themes, extensions, and additional documentation.
7. Database driven content.
This is a very important point. Web content is stored in a database which makes it easy to manage, add content, and make backups. The only disadvantage here is that stand alone HTML pages load much faster than calling information from a database and places less load on the server. This isn’t something you need to worry about until your web site is generating high traffic, where at the point you’ll have the advertising revenue to purchase a dedicated server.
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There are many CMS’ out there and you need to determine what your web site will need before committing to this software. Popular CMS’ for PHP are Joomla and Drupal. WordPress is a PHP blogging application with a very large following. DotNetNuke is a favourite CMS for .NET web sites. All of the applications described here are free. Look at the free and open source CMS’ before examining the commercial ones. The free ones may more than meet your requirements.
No matter what you choose, a CMS can only enhance your web site and with it, you can focus on creating content instead of designing a web site.
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