I was asked recently about this and as much as most people know what this is – somebody out there doesn’t and beyond that they won’t even realise how brilliant these are in making sure you can do the simple updates to your own website.
So what is a Content Management System (CMS)? This is what so many websites are built upon. It is a software package that organises the content of your website. It lets you log in and go to a page of your website so you can look at, amend, replace or add/delete words, pictures or any other content you have (video, graphs etc).
The easy of the system depends on many aspects from the system being used to how it has been implemented by the web developers.
Examples of systems and the global use:-
- WordPress – this powers about 38% of the worlds websites. It has a huge following and support – it is the best for a very good reason!
- Shopify – 2.8% – great if you want a shop only and you are happy with the templates they offer
- Joomla 2.3% – A good system but can be very complex, especially for simple websites. It has, in my opinion, grown over the years into somewhat of a sledgehammer product.
- Drupal 1.5% – We have had a few requests to build in this over the years for specific projects
- Wix 1.5% – again this is a budget system with limitations. WordPress is a much better system and many people who use Wix will find the limits as soon as they want to do something a little different. Stick to what it does and its OK for a free system. Kehorne have generally only moved people from Wix onto a WordPress based system.
After this we really get into minority type systems – and there are loads more on this list – Reference https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management
I should point out here that the way your website actually “looks” is dependant on a “theme” and not the CMS used. For example – Kehorne mainly use WordPress for our websites, but then the choice of theme depends on the budget for the website. With a small budget we might use an off the shelf theme and customise it to what the client wants but with a high end website we get a designer to work with the client and the content to make a visual effect that can be miles away from anything else and totally individual looking, a bespoke theme – so the way the site looks has very little to do with the CMS.
So why do you need a CMS? If you have a suppot package for your website – which is what we at Kehorne advise our clients to get – you do have a certain amount of help available to update your website, but even then you might want to make minor (or major) changes and you want them done immediately – don’t we all! So with a CMS you just log in, go to the relevant page and make the changes and press “Update” and you are done! Easy! No long waiting, no explaining to someone what you are trying to achieve….
So a CMS is really worth it. We advise going with WordPress because it is well supported, portable and there are lots of people out there who know and understand it so you have plenty of available help.
If you want more information on anything or any comments I would be glad to help, advise or correct anything I’ve written that confuses you!
Paul Fogg
