What is a Content Management System (CMS)

Web Design Articles | (Thu Dec 3rd, 2009, by Vann Baker)

A content management systems, or CMS, is a great way to manage the content of your website, especially if you have a larger website and different people who are responsible for different parts of the website.

If you have a large website with many "static" website pages and you're tired of waiting for your IT staff or webmaster to make changes to the website, a content management system will put you in the driver's seat and make it easy for you

Advantages:

- Administration system for updating content without the need for HTML
- Easy to change look and feel using a few templates
- Database is used to manage text content
- Non-technical staff can create, edit, approve and approve website pages
- Control over approval of changes
- Ability to deliver different content to public and registered users

Three CMS examples

There are many different content management systems available, some of which are free, open-source applications such as Joomla! and many commercial systems such as Interspire's Website Publisher. Depending on your website requirements, Design-First will recommend the best CMS solution.

Joomla!

Joomla has emerged in the last few years as one the most popular open-source CMS applications. Joomla! uses PHP and mySQL and is extremely versatile. It is more than simply popular-it just works well and a volunteer community keeps making it better and better.

Because it is open source, there are thousands of "extensions" or small mini-components created by individual programmers and commercial software companies, which work within the Joomla! framework to give your website many different capabilities-from social networking to ecommerce and more.

Joomal features include:

- Search by keyword and advanced search capability
- Registration system for users with different menus for different groups
- Users can be assigned editing and publishing privileges
- Entirely web-based administration system
- Uses PHP and mySQL
- Open source code
- Over 3,000 extensions to provide many exciting website features

Interspire Website Publisher

While Website Publisher may not be considered as versatile as Joomla! in terms of available extensions, it is a robust, mature, well-supported CMS product with many great built-in features.

Website Publisher Features:

- Search by keyword and advanced search capability
- Users can be assigned editing and publishing privileges
- Entirely web-based administration system
- Uses PHP and mySQL
- Search engine optimized
- Article, news and blog sytem
- Many built-in templates

WordPress

WordPress is a content management system focused around blogging. Like Joomla!, it is open-source and it supports a "plugin" framework, allowing websites using WordPress to have different capabilities, based on different website requirements.

WordPress Features:

- Search by keyword and advanced search capability
- Easy to use web-based administration system
- Uses PHP and mySQL
- Search engine optimized
- Hundreds of available plugins
- Open source code
- Thousands of templates

What Content Management System is right for your website?

This depends on your business needs or website goals for the most part and how quickly you need your website up and running.

If you are building an informational website that you plan to expand into a portal or community website, Joomla! will be a better choice. Joomla! would be overkill for a simple blog website.

For many businesses, Interspire's Website Publisher is a great choice for managing hundreds or even thousands of pages, and has blogging capability built in.

Source: Free Articles from www.getmyarticles.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vann Baker, President of Design-First, has been creating websites since 1995, from small business websites to large ecommerce, social network and informational websites using content management systems. He has successfully managed hundreds of website projects. For more information on creating a website and more, go to Design-First.com