What is a CMS and why do I need one?

So you might of heard the term CMS or Content Management System and thought  “What is a Content Management System”? Let me explain What a Content Management system is and Why I need one for my website?

The easiest way to envisage a Content Management System is a piece of software to input and manage content on a website, which allows a user to write text for your site, upload images and populate your site without little coding knowledge. In other words, it can be described as a Microsoft Word for the web.

Do I need a content management system for my website?

Now that we know what a content management system does, we know need to consider if your website needs a system like this. There are certain considerations that need to be made before implementing a Content Management System.

1. The Learning Curve

Like any other software, a user needs to learn how to use the software to enable them to add the content to your site. The sight of an CMS can be daunting at first, with a plethora of options, menus and features to get your head around, but it could be easier and less time consuming that learning a programming language such as HTML or PHP.

2. Future Updates

One of the main considerations that are often forgotten when implementing a new system is future maintenance and updates. Any software will need to be updated at some point and will require some maintenance to help keep your content organised, and your site running in tip top condition. A user will have to factor a certain amount of time for these critical updates.

3. Content considerations

When implementing a system you will also need to consider if your content will need to change as your site develops. Yes, you may be just adding written content at first, then later down the line you may choose to develop videos to provide additional content. If a system that is great for written content, but may be difficult to add video later without a large amount of changes needed to be made. So it is essential that your content management system is considered future proof.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when considering this question for you website?

  • Am I going to make regular updates?
  • Do you want to spend time maintaining and updating your website?
  • Are you able to write code?

A good CMS will allow you to make regular updates to your site, it also makes maintenance and updates easy and you don’t need to know huge amounts of code to add new content.

So it can be a great addition to add a CMS to your website and ultimately it will save you a large amount of time which you can use to promote your website. Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below, if you are thinking of implementing a CMS in your site or have already done so. In a future post I will be discussing the choice of CMS and which is the best to use.