Content Management Systems (CMS): A Buyers Guide

24 Nov' 15 | By Amanda Smith

Picture the scene, you need to launch a new promotion before the end of the day, requiring you to update your website immediately. The web team based in New York is stacked and won’t be able to complete your request until the end of the week. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just make the change yourself?

A Content Management System (CMS) is a tool used for personalising, publishing and editing content on your website. A CMS works behind the scenes to primarily display content on web pages.

Some CMS’ are made with average, less technically savvy users in mind and are relatively simple to use. Choosing the right CMS means any marketer can be empowered to make website content changes with minimal training.

There are many CMS’ available such as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. These can be quite difficult to use and would require a website developer to initially setup.

The CMS itself is just the start, now you’ve got a system, it will need designing to reflect your business. A poorly designed CMS can cause more problems for your website than any other factor. Which is why your choice of CMS is one of the most important decisions you can make.

Here at GWCM, we are firm advocates of WordPress. It is by far the most widely used CMS and originally started as a blogging platform. Compared with other CMS’ WordPress is one of the easiest to use and personalise. As well as a huge amount of themes and plugins available, WordPress is written using standard compliance high-quality code which looks attractive to search engines. There is also a multiple users feature, which enables users to update and access their website from anywhere in the world.

So, do you need a CMS?

• Do you update your websites content more than once a month?
• Are you planning to run a blog on your website?
• Will your marketing team need to update content on the website?
• Do you require the ability to manage the content from remote locations?
• Is it currently costing you every time you need an amendment made?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then a CMS would be a wise decision. It will mean you have full control of your website 24 hours a day, whenever you need it, without waiting for a third party provider to grant access or make changes on your behalf.

Holding the reins when it comes to your website is a powerful and invaluable business tool.

If you need more information on content management systems or to see a few of the websites we’ve designed and built in WordPress, click here or contact one of the accounts team today.