When a company creates a website, they have several options. They can have a company code the site and then take care of all updates or they can have their design company use what is called a content management system (CMS). Content management systems have built in administrative backend that allows users to log in and make updates as needs thus saving time and money to smaller companies.
Content Management systems are great because, one, they can save the design/developer a lot of time in getting a site up and running thus saving you money. They can be built, and with the use of plugins, be search engine friendly, meaning when you publish information, you can put more page into the search index, and more freedom in trying to get higher organic search engine rankings.
Types of Content Management Systems
There are many different content management systems out there, some are proprietary, and some open-source. Open-source meaning , the CMS is free and you can get free of pay for template designs. There is also a large development community that supports the system to constantly improve it. Propriety, on the other hand, means there is using not a lot of upfront cost, but you pay huge monthly fees for hosting. One would usually find these in specific industries. So for example, if you just opened a CPA firm, you could go with a provider for already has all the bells and whistles expected in a CPA site, such as calculators, forms, etc. This is a great way to get a polished web presence up and running quickly. The catch is that, it’s their software. You have little flexibility in changing the site, meaning access to the code if you were so included, and sometimes limited SEO capabilities. The biggest problem as stated above, is if you wanted to move to a new hosting provider, you can’t take the site with you, as it is propriety software.
Some of the more popular open source content management systems include
- drupal (full website cms)
- Joomla (full website cms)
- wordpress (blog cms)
- zencart (shopping cart cms)
- Blogger (blog CMS)
- phpBB (forum cms)
Benefits and Drawbacks of Open Source CMS
Sometimes they can be hard to set up, but all of the top hosting providers out there will automatically install it for you and the CMS walks you through the process of seeting up the site. Second, is the support factor, there are forums of users that will answers any questions you might have.
Some of the drawbacks of open-source systems are some out of the box have a bit of a learning curve but then they offer more customization.
