Benefits of a Content Management System (CMS)

Published on May 24, 2008 Benefits of a Content Management System (CMS)

What is a Content Management System (CMS)? How does it work? How could it benefit you?

The system used in information based websites to let you manage your own news, image galleries, blogs, forum or written page content is called a Content Management System, or CMS. The CMS is usually a secure administration section of your website that you log into and from there create and edit menus, configure the titles on pages, decide whether content gets displayed or not, manage users and more.

CMS systems help ensure that your page content does not get out of date, and help you manage the navigation structure easily – as the CMS system keeps track of all the links in your site. This can save you time, reduce error and make you more flexible to change. Such flexibility makes CMS web design systems very popular with large corporate organisations who have a large amount of content. Small business can also benefit because the CMS gives your site a platform to grow and add in new features that would not be possible if you were managing the site yourself with static pages.

The key advantages of CMS systems are:

• Centralised management and content sharing – you can set up administration profiles to determine who edits your site and what they can edit. Multiple people can work on your site.
• Centralised backup – all of your content gets saved in a single database which can be backed up by you or your hosting provider
• Web Design and content separate– your site can have a design skin (or web design template) applied, which enables elements of the design to be updated and modified without affecting your content
• Create written content and multimedia content – insert videos, include photo galleries, add Flash, write content, the choices are varied and flexible with a content management system. Adding directories a forum or a blog is very easy with an information site and CMS system
• Independence – you don’t need to contact your web company and/or designers every time you want to make a change to a page on your website. You save yourself time and money programming things like blogs and forums.
• Save money on web developers and in house web skills – if you can use a word processor, you can learn to use a content management system. Most CMS systems are designed so even people with very basic computer skills can quickly learn to be skilled content managers.
• Update information quickly – for news and other written content, a CMS system is outstanding value for money. If implemented well, it can be quickly indexed by search engines as well, building your site’s credibility and in many cases rankings too.