In this 2nd blog post I am going to focus on content management systems (CMS). More specifically I am going to look at what they are and why every website should be created using them.

Put in a very simple terms a CMS is a web based system that, as the name suggests, allows the content of a website to be easily managed. Once you get past this very simplistic definition however you will run in to a fair amount of dis-agreement as to what a CMS is.

Some will argue that a CMS is a product in its own right. Something that can be sold and deployed in the same way as any other piece of software you have ever bought (e.g. Microsoft Office). Others will argue that it is a framework that only has value when used as the basis of something larger, for example an e-commerce website.

There is no right or wrong answer to this so it is far easier to think of CMS as both a product and a framework. It has value in its own right and can be easily built upon in its role as a framework for other systems. Importantly, a website can be built without a CMS but a CMS is pointelss without a website!

Far more important than arguing over the semantics of what a CMS is would be to consider what you can do with it and what benefits this provides to your business.

The core purpose of any CMS is to make the job of maintaining and updating your website easier. It provides an interface to manage content and is extensible in various different ways to allow functionality to be added.

This leads me neatly on to my top 5 reasons that every business should base their website on a CMS platform:

1. Easier to Update – A good CMS system allows users with no technical expertise to maintain and update the content on their website. In other words, it puts the management of content back in the hands of those people who should be managing it (e.g. your marketing team).
2. Faster Deployment – A CMS system provides a suite of functionality out of the box (e.g. menu generation) that can significantly reduce the time-to-live for a new website when compared to traditional hand-coding techniques. Once live, these same features allow the real time addition of new content ensuring your website always stays fresh.



3. Database Centric – All CMS systems are database driven (i.e. their content and a lot of the parameters that drive the whold system are stored in a database). The importance of this should not be under-estimated as it immediately makes the task of archiving and retrieving old content much easier.
4. Easy Extensibility – Good CMS systems will have multiple ways in which they can be extended, be it via community provided extension modules or by programming additional functionality yourself. This allows you to quickly take advantage of new website trends such as social media and web 2.0.
5. User Community Support – Most CMS systems have active user communities that are not only testament to the popularity of CMS but also provide a helpign hand when necessary.

All in all, a well implemented CMS can provide significant benefits for any type of website and, ultimately, these benefits will be reflected in your ROI. So what are you waiting for?