Posted: Apr 09, 2008
As our clients have upgraded to using a professional content management system, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing their productivity increase and their interest in their own website improve.
Old school web design is one in which a web designer is always present and needed every time a client wants to make a change. Sometimes, clients attempt to “go it alone” by using some kind of all-in-one web editing tool (like FrontPage). We’ve even seen clients attempt to maintain websites using Microsoft Publisher or Word!
The beauty and simplicity of a content management system is that a client can easily update the appropriate sections of their website without having to worry about messing up the design. They don’t need a special tool or special software. They don’t need to call their web designer (and pay a bill).
Instead, they simply login to an administrative interface via the internet with a User ID and a Password. They can update their website from anywhere they can get internet access: internet cafe, library, airplane, hotel, and of course, their own business and home. In other words, when a thought or idea occurs to them, they can just jump on a nearby computer, make a change (or post the new information), and then log off. Done.
Many of our clients run a business blog, but instead of calling it a blog (which might confuse some of their customers and prospects), they call it something like “News” or “Happenings”. Here at Brevard Web Hosting, we call it “Latest News”. Simple enough. No one has to know that, at its root, it’s really a blog. And those clients of ours who are net-savvy enough to recognize an RSS feed and want to subscribe will notice the orange icon in their URL bar of their web browser and click on it to subscribe.
Another great use of a content management system is for events. Many companies would like to keep people informed of events easily. But if you’ve visit some small business websites frequently, you’ll see that the owner has a tough time keeping it up to date. It seems like it is a lot of work. Not so with a content management system (CMS).
You simply login to your Events section, and add a new event. Old events automatically can be set to disappear after the event is over (or not, if you want to have an archive of old events displayed elsewhere on your website). Typically, a website owner might want to keep old events displayed somewhere that they are proud of (charity events, for instance), but remove events such as product sales, as they could cause confusion for their customers. With a CMS, this is as easy as pie. We simply set up the categories of some events to archive automatically to a designated archive area, while the categories of other events disappear after a set number of days after the event. No need for the owner to log back in and “manage” all those old events. We can even set up the CMS so that a designated employee or co-owner has the ability to update the events, but only that section, if the owner so chooses.
There are a lot of Content Management Systems out on the market. Some purport to be fairly easy to use but all of them have a fairly decent learning curve and assume that you are familiar with things like XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript (at the least). Many also benefit from an administrator who understands server-side languages like PHP, ASP, or Ruby on Rails. But once they are setup and integrated with your professional custom website design, they are a snap to use. As we are fond of saying, “If you can write an email, you can update your site with a CMS”.
Some of the more common CMS systems you may have heard about are these: Drupal, Expression Engine, Joomla, Mambo, MediaWiki, PHPNuke, TangoCMS, TextPattern, Typo3, Xaraya, Xoops. There are many others, both commercial and open-source. A lot of blog platforms (like WordPress and Moveable Type) can sometimes be manipulated to provide basic content management functionality. At Brevard Web Hosting, we primarily use TextPattern for new clients. However, we are skilled at working with many other Content Management Systems, so if you already have a website in a different system, we can work with you very easily.
If you are still trying to update and maintain your website the old-fashioned way, we encourage you to contact us so we can show you a far better way. A professional design is certainly important, but we feel that any web design firm that doesn’t give you an easy (and free) way to keep your website up to date is doing your company a disservice.
