Sep
18
Written by:
Project Complete
9/18/2009 12:17 PM
There are tons of acronyms in the business world, and websites are no exception. One you'll hear bantered about is CMS, which stands for content management system. As it implies, it is a system to manage content, in this case, of a website. Why do you care? I'm glad you asked, because content management has a number of advantages that traditionally developed websites don't offer, so you might want to become aware of those benefits.
A content management system is a set of automated processes that support several features you may want for you website. News organizations, educational institutions, and eCommerce websites all use content management websites because of the complexity of the site as well as the opportunity for several authors to manage the content. Are you beginning to see the pattern here? For a number of people to have access to the changing content of the website, you'll need to have role management, so that those users can be identified as those who are authorized to access and/or change the website.
But even if you are your own company, and have no employees, it's still a good idea to have a content management system website, and here's why:
Extensibility — your website will grow with your company. It's very easy to change the site, add pages, change the look and feel of it, etc. Need a new page? A few clicks and it's done. CMS could stand for "Changes Made in Seconds"!
Reliability — since the modules that are used for the functions of the website are used by tens of thousands of people and not subject to the errors of one lone programmer, they are extremely reliable.
Affordability — because the complex portions of building a website are already done (programmed in those modules we referred to), your website can be finished more quickly and at a savings to you.
Flexibility — we alluded to this feature above, but it basically means that those people who need to work on the site can, while those who are not authorized to do so, can't. This means you have control over every aspect of your website, and yet it can be changed relatively easily. Need a calendar? Plug in a calendar module. Need an eCommerce page? Plug in an eCommerce module. How about adding a video on your website? Done!
This whole concept has been used for years with hardware components of computer systems: plug in a chip here, a motherboard there, and voila! Your computer's ready to go. A content management system uses the same basic principle only it's applied to the software that's used in the framework of the website.
Like the technology that's changing rapidly, your business changes quickly too, so prepare your website to keep up with the times and switch it to a content management system.