What to look for in a content management system (CMS)

Behind every website is a content management system. Whether your site sells goods or services or you want to share your thoughts with the world , you will use a CMS to create content. You will also use this content management system to update your content, whether it is adding a new product page or correcting a typo.

Here is an introduction to CMS software and the world of web content management.

What is a content management system?

A content management system, poland email list or CMS, is a software application used to create, edit, publish, and generally manage digital content without having to write code. Essentially, it is the interface you use to publish content to a website. “Publishing content” can include blog posts, multimedia web pages, and product listings in an online store. A CMS also allows you to add or change elements on your pages.

A CMS can be part of an all-in-one website builder, legal news for entrepreneurs in 2024 where you design your site and upload content in a single application. This type of CMS allows you to create a website using a pre-made design and populate that design with text and media. In these solutions, the backend (where you enter content) and the frontend (what a visitor sees on the site) are managed by the same tool.

A CMS can also be ” headless ,” which means that the backend is separate from the frontend. A headless CMS integrates with other tools you may use to manage your site.

Features to look for in an all-in-one content management system (CMS)

1. user roles and permissions
2. editing and publishing tools
3. media management
4. Analytics
5. Responsive design and mobile optimization

There are CMS platforms for businesses of all sizes, philippines numbers budgets, and use cases. Any good all-in-one CMS should include these five components.

1. User roles and permissions. A content management system allows you to set specific roles for the people who create your company’s digital content. You can designate people as site administrators, editors, writers, and more. Each role has its own access rights.
2. Editing and publishing tools. All of today’s popular content management systems have user-friendly interfaces that make it easy to create new content and publish it to the web. For example, if you’re drafting a blog post, you’ll probably see an editing window that looks like a word processor. You don’t have to be a programmer to publish to a modern CMS.
3. Media management. A good content management system makes it easy to manage digital assets and creates a library of all the images and videos you have used on your site.
4. Analytics. Many of today’s CMS platforms have analytics tools that can help you understand how much time users spend on your website and what pages they’ve viewed. Note that analytics are typically not included in free CMS solutions.
5. Responsive design and mobile optimization. With more and more people shopping on their mobile phones and tablets, you need a website that displays correctly on these devices. Standard all-in-one CMS platforms do this automatically and ensure your site looks good on any device.

Note that a headless CMS may not offer all of these features. In a headless CMS architecture, you can choose other tools to realize some of these workflows.

Features to look for in an e-commerce content management system (CMS)

1. product and inventory management
2. order tracking
3. customer management

E-commerce businesses have specific requirements for their content management system. When looking for a CMS for your online store, make sure it offers these three features.

1. Product and inventory management . A good eCommerce CMS should help you manage inventory and product listings. If your CMS doesn’t offer inventory tracking, you can add a plugin that supports it. There are Shopify plugins that do just that for Shopify websites, WordPress plugins for WordPress websites, and so on.
2. Order tracking. You need to track an order once you ship it. A robust content management system can also handle this, or you can use an order tracking plugin for your CMS.
3. Customer management. Enterprise CMS software can typically store customer names, contact information, purchase history, customer service history, and more. If you want more in-depth analytics, you can use a related software called Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Four tips for choosing a content management system (CMS)

1. Identify your needs and goals
2. Compare features and prices
3. Weights user-friendliness against maximum flexibility
4. Determine your customer support needs

When you’re looking for a CMS, you’ll find that there are many providers vying for your favor. Here are four guidelines to help you choose the right one:

1. Identify your needs and goals. Determine your business’s goals to figure out what you need from a CMS. Will your website focus on an ecommerce store, a portfolio, a blog, or something else entirely? Your CMS should make it easy for you to maintain the right type of website for your business. Remember, you can have one CMS for your main website and another for your blog.
2. Compare features and pricing. Basic plans for all-in-one website builders like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, and Weebly range from $8 to $12 per month. WordPress, which powers some large sites, offers a wider range of features and pricing.
3. Trade off ease of use for maximum flexibility. An all-in-one CMS reduces the amount of technical effort you have to put into your website, giving it a huge advantage in terms of ease of use. The main disadvantage of an all-in-one CMS is that you may be limited by the pre-built design and features offered. A headless content management system allows for far more customization and complex functionality, but you will typically need technical resources to build and maintain a website with headless architecture.
4. Determine your customer support needs. Some all-in-one CMS platforms offer customer support as part of a paid subscription. Other platforms publish product guides and video tutorials but may not offer as much one-on-one support. If attentive user support is important to you, take the time to directly compare what kind of support each platform offers its subscribers.