| How to Choose CMS |
How to Choose CMSSpecifying the requirements that a website content management system (aka CMS, WCMS, CM system) must comply with is the correct route to choosing the right one, and ensuring it is suitable for your organisation. You can list the functions and features needed, and this helps to point the way toward the software required.Website content management systems come in many types and variants, and it will usually be possible to find what you need in either open-source or commercial CMS - perhaps in both. If you need something that has never been attempted in CMS before, then a solution should be chosen that allows developers to create what you need - CM systems can usually be extended in new ways as that is part of their attraction. All web CMS are designed to publish content consisting of text and images. After that, they vary widely in their additional abilities and functions. When making a choice, decisions have to be made based on current and future online business plans. Open-source or commercial CMSThe first set of choices that presents is the question of whether to specify a commercial or open-source CMS. The only determinant here is normally budget, together with support options. There is no difference in quality, for example, and in some cases open-source is better. A commercial solution may allow you to opt for a single supplier, though, which some enterprises may prefer. However, the open-source CMS market has become much more efficient lately and there are many suppliers now who can act for you in all areas, for example installation - training - documentation - support - management.Cost-wise, at the lower end of the scale there will be a difference between open-source and commercial. As budgets rise, this distinction is less important as the software license cost is not normally the largest item except in smaller installs. Main CMS functionFirstly, you must of course define the precise use for the CMS. Will it exist in order to present your publicity materials on the web? Is it designed to create email or phone orders? Is it mainly there to give a public presence? Will it have items for sale? Will it have one or more private areas with enterprise documentation and information for distributed workers? Will it have community membership facilities or will logins be strictly for a small publishing team?WCMSThere are two distinct types of CMS - the website type and the private enterprise documentation holder type. We are only concerned with the website or WCMS class here.All CMS will work as web content publishing tools since that is the basic function. Other tasks will then define the type and the capability that you must look for. A WCMS can function in any way that you can describe or define a website, and of course must be chosen for a particular ability: as a magazine, a corporate website, a manufacturer's website plus dealer sections, a music website, a directory site, a video website, a news site, a portal website, an ecommerce CMS that incorporates an online store plus content delivery, a community website, a reviews website; and many other types. Normally there will be one main function plus one or more subsidiary functions. The class of CMS will be defined by the main functionality needed, and then subsidiary functions (or features) will help to show what is then needed. It is often a good idea to look at other solutions that have been successful in your market area. CMS hostingThere are two things that distinguish types of hosting required, and these are the class of CMS and traffic levels.Some types of CMS cannot be used on ordinary shared hosting and require a dedicated server, aka dedicated hosting. Normally these are large-scale enterprise class solutions, which in some cases must be installed on a local server - in other words they cannot be installed over the web. Due to the extended budget in this market, this is not seen as a handicap. With high traffic - normally reckoned at 10,000 visits per day and up - then a dedicated server must be used. Normally, with 5,000 visits per day upward then funds will be available to move to a dedicated server before this stage. Depending on the type of content and the hosting, load-balancing may then become necessary with very high traffic. This involves the provision of one or more server clones which each handle a proportion of the traffic. On the other hand a high-quality dedicated server at top-class hosting will handle 33,000 visits per day on a CMS (ie 1 million a month), and not many sites exceed this. Private areas in a CMSMost organisations will need at least one private area on their CMS now. Members (for example staff) will be able to login and access additional pages of information or other facilities. A members area of this type is used on many CMS. The provision of more than one facility of this type is part of the ACL* functionality (see foot of page) that an enterprise CMS needs. As soon as more than one private area or category of pages exists, that different groups of people will need access to, the CMS is said to need ACL functionality.A private forum can be installed for staff members and partners. This enables inter-staff communications and can be useful, especially with distributed staff. A wiki is a documentation resource that can be edited by all those with the correct rights. It is typically used for help docs that have no official version - or it can be used to build an official document that is then republished. Additional functionsA blog can be added to many CMS. However, for maximum search and visibility success, it should be run as a separate mechanism that has its own database. This is because nothing really compares with WordPress in this area since it has so many efficient functions, and when run as a discrete application it gets the best results.A shopping cart backend can be added, in order to provide some sales functionality. This works best if there are a limited number of items for sale - perhaps publicity materials or digital downloads such as ebooks. Ecommerce CMSWhen online sales are a major component, it works better if a specific type of application is chosen, called an ecommerce CMS. This has a capable ecommerce backend plus good content handling on the frontend. Such a system would be chosen when the number of products for sale exceeds 100, or if extended functionality in the checkout is required, such as multiple tax or shipping options.WebmasterAll websites need a webmaster and a CMS is no exception. The webmaster is the person who looks after the website - they perform all these functions and more:
In the case of enterprise-class sites, there may also be a sysadmin, who is the website general manager and who may also have other sites in the group to manage. Legal complianceA website normally has to comply with the law. This generally means the law of the region it is hosted in, though it may also need to respect the laws of other regions if it operates there.Website legal compliance normally hinges on accessibility and published documentation issues. A CMS must be chosen that complies fully with the laws of the area it will serve, and then site content must be installed so that the CMS is legally compliant from day one. It must then be managed so that it remains compliant. Some CMS implementations - including large commercial ones - have quality issues, and these can impact the legal compliance. For example the code quality of many large Java CMS livesites is notably poor, and this may impact the accessibility rating, which means legal compliance is at risk. The enterprise is then also open to action by third parties, as has occurred numerous times. CMS for icommerceThe term 'icommerce' simply means all online business. The principal use of a content management system for commercial use is to succeed in icommerce - to generate traffic and business, and to strengthen the enterprise brand. To do this successfully, a proposed CMS:
CMS SEOFinally, we should look at one of the most critical areas for commercial success: the search engine friendliness of a content management system and therefore the end results. Assuming that the site is a normal business one, of any of the various different types, it will probably need to be visible on the Net. An invisible site will not generate revenues efficiently - if at all.Search friendly CMS websites are built by choosing a high-quality CMS in the first place. We should note carefully - very carefully - that cost is no indicator of CMS quality, since some of the highest quality CMS applications are free, open-source ones. Some of the lowest quality is seen in expensive commercial software implementations. Quality is surprisingly easily measured, as the quality metrics are mainly visible - and this means that the quality of your CMS is on plain view to all. If you actually want your site to generate income then you would be wise to engage advisers with some experience in this area, before parting with any cash. Talk to us about why a high-quality CMS should be your target Notes CMS functions and featuresTypical main purpose:brochure site / teamwork site / ecommerce CMS /enterprise multi-section / services for sale / community site / Typical main functionality: content publishing to the web / multimedia capable / normal ACL* / granular ACL / private areas / news publishing / portal capability, for integral sections or other sites / directory section / download section / document section / Common features: image slideshows - rotators / multiple visual editors / search options / assorted preset modules eg 'Most Popular' / * ACL is access control levels, the allocation of different privileges to various persons or groups - typically, an ability to see or edit specific pages. |