WHAT IS A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?
A content management system (CMS) facilitates the updating of content
on a website. The content of a website includes text, pictures, video and audio
and depending on the type of content management system the ability to add / edit
and update all or some of the above with be available.
There are plenty of CMS systems on the market and some are free and some will require
a payment. Joomla, WordPress and Drupal are some of the most common CMS systems
on the low end of the market. At the top end of the market there are systems such as Microsoft
SharePoint. Procuro is the content management system used by Breed Creative Solutions
and was developed in house to meet a variety of content management needs.
WHAT FEATURES DOES A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM INCLUDE?
The main feature that CMS systems provide is the ability to update the content within
a website, whether the content is text, images, product information for e-commerce
websites, video or audio will depend on the function of the website.
A good CMS system will include the following features:
- Add / Edit / Delete Content
- Content Publishing
- Versioning
- User Management
- Check In / Out
- Content Preview
- Image Handling
Add / Edit / Delete Content
Not only should a CMS provide the functionality of updating pre-created content
but the CMS should provide the ability to add new content and edit and delete the
content within a site.
Content Publishing
A good CMS system will not publish the content to the site without authorisation
from the user first. There are multiple benefits to this approach, the major benefit
is that it enables the user to add content to a page or a section of the website
and then save the changes without the changes automatically appearing in the website.
Writing useful and engaging content for a website can often be time consuming
and quite often the content changes will not be finished within the first sitting. For
larger organisations the content may need to go through approval procedures before
it can be released for general consumption, for example in a financial organisation
the compliance department will need to check that the copy meets FSA guidelines.
A CMS system must be flexible enough to meet the needs of the organisation and the
organisations web developer should not try to shoe horn a website solution into
an inadequate CMS system.
For tips on what makes an
effective website or
how to measure the return on investment of a website and web design company
please follow the links.
Versioning
Version control is an important aspect of any good CMS system. When content is changed
regularly, mistakes are often inevitable and with search engine optimisation being a
large part of most businesses marketing efforts content may change as the organisation
tries to increase conversions and engage the user. For either of these scenarios
version control is extremely beneficial, if business processes are bypassed when
updating content it is beneficial to a business to be able to revert to any previous
version of the content at the click of a button. If content is changed regularly
for SEO purposes a business should be performing analytics to ensure that the new
content engages the intended audience effectively. For instance if content is changed
and the bounce rate (the page that people leave the site on) increases then it can
benefit a business to be able to revert to previous successful content.
To read more about
search engine optimisation and the
search engine optimisation services that Breed Creative Solutions
offer please follow the links.
User Management (User Access Control)
For larger organisations that may have several employees updating the website user
management can be very important. User management provides the ability to define
roles and restricts users to specific parts of the CMS system. Going back to the
example of the financial organisation the compliance department could be granted
the content publisher role. The CMS system will only show the publish button to
users with access to the content publisher role. Similarly the compliance department
may only have/require read rights to the content and therefore they will be granted
the content reader role. A CMS system with this capability can be beneficial to
smaller organisations as well and as they grow in size the CMS system is flexible
enough
to adapt to the needs of the changing organisation.
Check In / Out
If an organisation has several content editors then the CMS system should provide
the ability to check in and check out the content. This stops 2 people editing the
same content at the same time preventing accidental overwrites of the content.
Content Preview
When adding or updating any substantial amount of content the CMS system should
provide the ability to preview the changes before publishing them. One of the reasons
that CMS systems have become popular is that it enables non-technical users to create
new content on a website without knowing the underlying building blocks of website
design. For this reason a preview function is required due to the fact that the
design may be broken from the updates, for example text flows outside of the content
boundaries, or text doesn't flow correctly around an image. Previewing content before
it is published will allow the content creator to fix any issues and ensure that
the page displays as expected.
If a website is developed to web standards then any issues with the layout will
be removed negating parts of the above statement
Image Handling
A CMS system should perform any image manipulation that is required to ensure that
the image is the correct size and that the image is a suitable size to ensure that
load times are kept to a minimum. Digital cameras are hugely popular but the digital
image is not optimised for the web and requires basic manipulation. The CMS system
should ensure that the image fits within the boundaries of the defined image location.
For more information regarding CMS systems and information on how Breed Creative
Solutions can develop the perfect solution for your organisations online presence
please
contact us via our electronic contact form or on 08456
43 92 43.
Alternatively complete our quote request form for a free no obligation
web design quote.