Managing your site more easily using a CMS

What’s a Content Management System?

A Content Management System (or CMS) is a software program that allows you to update and manage your website… on your own! The main purpose of a CMS is just to make it easier for you to update your website, and make it possible for you to do this yourself, rather than relying on outsourced web design companies or specialist IT staff.

Benefits of a CMS

There are many benefits to a CMS system, depending upon your situation and the CMS system that is chosen, including:

Take control of your website
You won’t have to rely on outsourced web designers to make every little update to your site. Instead, you or someone from your organisation will be able to do it yourself.
Save maintenance costs
By doing the updates yourself, you should save money in the long run.
Save time
Passing changes along to a wed designer to update your site, having them make the changes, checking the changes, and then sending the designer any problems and final corrections can be a very time consuming process. Usually, it’s much quicker just to make the changes yourself using a CMS.

How does it work?

A CMS usually runs right on the web server, so you can update your site directly rather than having to edit it on your computer (using a HTML editor) and upload it to the server (using FTP), making it much easier to make changes on your own. A CMS also make use of a template (or templates) for your site, ensuring that each of your pages is displayed consistently within your website, using the same logo, images, and navigation. Again, this makes it easier to both add pages to your site and edit the existing pages. It also makes it possible to quickly change the look of your entire site—just update the template, and your site can have a whole new look!

This is just the basics of CMS systems. More advanced systems may also have a host of other more features, including:

search engines (allowing visitors to search your website)
version control (for the tracking of changes to your website)
document management features (for the uploading of PDF and other documents to your site)
workflow and approval processes (to ensure that the proper guidelines are followed in updating the site if many people are tasked with keeping it up-to-date)

CMS systems aren’t just for big companies anymore

In the past, CMS systems used to be very expensive, costing $10,000 at minimum. Some systems even cost $500,000 or more! But this is not the case any more as many affordable systems are now available for as little as $1000. Some suppliers also offer their systems for rent rather than purchase, for monthly fees as low as $100/month, including hosting of your site and other services. The moral is, shop around as there’s a CMS for every budget and need.

Implementing a CMS

Usually, the vendor will assist you with setting up your CMS. Some systems require that you install the software on your server, in which case they’ll provide the instructions required. However, if you don’t have a server of your own, you’re better off going for a hosted solution where all of the setup, hosting, and support is included. Again, hosted CMS packages can cost as little as $100/month.

Where do I get a CMS?

The following are a list of CMS providers that we recommend. Their solutions are affordable and very good value for the solution that they provide:

webComposer (Cornerstone Technologies)

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