If you’re looking to build a new website from scratch, or rebuild your current website, you may have heard about Content Management Systems or CMS. A CMS offers a number of benefits to businesses seeking to create a modern, flexible website.
Let’s compare two common approaches:
Basic HTML website vs. use of a Content Management System (CMS)
Basic HTML websites are fast to build and don’t require programming knowledge or special web server configurations. Most small businesses and organizations either have a tech-saavy staff member, friend or neighbor create a website this way. This method is fast and relatively easy to design. It can also be cost-effective for very small websites. Site maintenance is usually handled by the person who originally designed the website. This can work ok, however, what happens if your tech-saavy friend leaves town and is no longer available to make changes for you?
Now you have to scramble to find someone who can make simple changes to your website on your behalf. This often leads to websites becoming outdated, as you are unable to update your website yourself. To be fair, learning basic HTML is not rocket science, however, consider whether it is worth it for you to spend hours learning and struggling to update your website instead of working efficiently on your business.
A Content Management System (CMS) can often fill the shoes of your tech-saavy friend. Unlike basic HTML-built websites or sites built with proprietary web programming software, a CMS-based website is built on a standardized, unified system. A website properly built in a CMS presents a user-friendly, non-technical system for adding, editing and maintaining web content.
An abbreviated list of the type of website content your business can manage with a CMS:
- Homepage and all other page content
- Image galleries and image management
- Calendars and events
- Customer directory
- Staff directory
- Multiple users
- News feed / RSS / blog
- Content spell-checking
- File sharing / downloads
- Direct audio and video
- Customer testimonials
- Social media integration
- Subscriptions
- Portfolios
- Comments and more
While it is possible to present these types of content with a basic HTML website, as your business grows, your content needs will quickly surpass the ability of one tech-saavy friend to manage them. Additionally, content is best entered by the person responsible for it. Who should better represent your business than you. A CMS makes this possible.
Another added benefit to a CMS is the ability to draft content and save it for future inclusion on your website. That is, you may enter content in to the system, but leave it in draft mode. It will remain for further editing and review, but will not display on your website publicly until you decide to publish it or schedule a specific time and date to auto-publish. Some businesses will set up a simple workflow where one staff member manages content and a different staff member reviews and approves the content. This is especially easy in WordPress.
CodePress builds CMS-based websites using WordPress, an easy-to-use, flexible and extensible CMS suitable for any modern website. Our web services are offered as a turnkey package, with the following advantages:
- We provide phone support and one-on-one web-based training to you or your staff members to use WordPress. Additionally, we may include printed and video documentation on how to manage your website.
- When you enter content via WordPress, you will achieve predictable, repeatable results—that is, once you learn how to add a piece of content, be it a new page, image, or product you’ll follow the same steps each time, confident that your content will appear on your website right where is supposed to be.
- Typically, you will not need to call us (or pay us) to make routine changes to your web site. We prefer to empower you to do it yourself.
- With no special effort on your part, your web pages will feature user-friendly and search-engine friendly URLs that are easy to read and understand.
Learn more about how a CMS-based web site can support the goals of your business. Contact us to schedule and appointment and receive a free estimate on a new website.