There are many different CMSs available.  Some are free, some are not. There are pros and cons with each and every one of them. It is important to do your research and choose a system that will work for you now and also later as your business grows. I have personally found that both paid systems as well as free systems have varying degrees of support. One paid system that I worked with was completely nonresponsive. We could get no technical support and there were serious (known) conflicts with the server. We never did get that system running and demanded our money back (we did get it back). In the end, we used a free system that still is working beautifully to this day.

Some of the free systems have the most superb support and communities that are available. Here are a few of the ones I work with regularly (I will add more as I work with them in the future). I will be going into much more detail as I write about each separately in future articles:

Joomla!

There is a huge worldwide network not only supporting the core system, but also there are hundreds of extensions available to make any Joomla site do pretty much anything you would like and if there’s nothing out there, there is probably someone who can and will make it for you. In my experience, the developer and user community forum is the best and most responsive one out there. I am truly thrilled to be a Joomla! enthusiast and have built dozens of sites using Joomla as a basis.

Most of the extensions for Joomla! are free, but there are also many for a fee available. They are usually wonderfully supported whether they are free or not and more often than not have their own forums to help out when you might have an issue.

As far as administration of the site, the learning curve for Joomla! can be quite steep and it takes a little while to learn it, but with newer tools available for management of the admin area, the interface has become somewhat easier to work with and define.

Joomla! templates are a little tricky, but once mastered are a real joy to work with and very flexible. One of the cons of working with Joomla! extensions is that many of the extensions are not standards compliant and are still table-based. There are workarounds for this, but it can be quite tedious if you want a completely tableless design. I am seeing more and more of the developers moving toward standards compliance and accessibility, so I believe it’s just a matter of time. Hopefully a short period. This is by far my only primary complaint for Joomla! sites.

WordPress

Ok, I know what you’re going to say. WordPress isn’t a CMS - it’s a BLOG!  Yes, that’s true, BUT it can also be used as a CMS and it works BEAUTIFULLY!!! I am not kidding - I have developed many, many WordPress sites using them as a CMS and the blog as a secondary aspect of the site. It is very versatile and has tons of extensions available, both on the site and if you do a Google search for “Wordpress plugins” you will find lots more.

One of the main appeals for WordPress as a CMS is the user dashboard interface. It’s simple, easy to understand, customizable and I’ve yet to have a client complain that they needed assistance once the site was live. Instead of requiring a user manual like some of the systems I work with, I send WordPress clients a 2-page quick start document customized for their site and I’ve yet to have any questions from any of them and YES they are posting constantly to them!

The one caveat to a WordPress CMS is that it is a little more difficult to set up than most of the others that you would just upload, configure and add a template to. To make WordPress a content management system requires a little more time and configuration. Once it’s done, though, it’s AWESOME!

Website Baker

Website Baker is a basic content management system that I have used successfully for small organizations such as non-profits and municipalities. They generally just want basic pages with content, maybe an image gallery, generally just the basics. But they want to be able to have multiple administrators, private areas for staff postings, and the convenience of being able to edit the site from any computer in their office. Website Baker allows for all of this and more. It is the absolute EASIEST interface I’ve ever seen in a content management system.  When I have clients who have little computer experience and knowledge who do not need a robust content management system, but want to be able to edit their own content, add, remove and rearrange pages and maybe have a small private section or two, I use Website Baker.

To be continued….

Content management systems are all the rage right now.  What is a content management system? In a nutshell, an online content management system is a web-based graphical user interface that allows the end user who knows NOTHING about code or html to create and maintain a professional, versatile, dynamic and interactive website.  Most content management systems have a WYSIWYG (pronounced WIZZYWIG or what you see is what you get) editor with icons similar to what you would see in Microsoft Word or other word processing programs. Content can be added and formatted, media can be uploaded and linked, even multimedia such as flash movies and podcasts.

The general idea is that the website owner has control of the content of their website without endangering the design and layout that often can easily get skewed or completely destroyed using a traditional html editor. Trust me - I have repaired countless websites destroyed by well-intentioned clients trying to save a few bucks. It can be very costly and time consuming to have to pay a designer to fix what was unintentionally skewed. It is rarely a simple, easy fix.

Using a content management system, you can log in from literally anywhere in the world that has access to the internet and edit, add and delete content on a website. It allows small businesses to have truly dynamic, up-to-the-minute website content that can keep the customers coming back. The more website content is updated regularly, the more often the search engines will index the site, resulting in more hits.

In future articles I will be discussing different open source content management systems, what their pros and cons are as well as degree of difficulty in installation, upgrading and maintenance.