CMS Websites
What's a content management system (CMS)?
A content management system (CMS) is critical to the success of almost every website and intranet, and yet many organisations are not familiar with this technology.
CMS: A working definition
A content management system (CMS) supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of information.
It covers the complete lifecycle of the pages on your site, from providing simple tools to create the content, through to publishing, and finally to archiving.
It also provides the ability to manage the structure of the site, the appearance of the published pages, and the navigation provided to the users.
Business benefits
There are a wide range of business benefits that can be obtained by implementing a CMS, including:
- streamlined authoring process
- faster turnaround time for new pages and changes
- greater consistency
- improved site navigation
- increased site flexibility
- support for decentralised authoring
- increased security
- reduced duplication of information
- greater capacity for growth
- reduced site maintenance costs
Beyond these, the greatest benefit the CMS can provide is to support your business goals and strategies.
For example, the CMS can help to improve sales, increase user satisfaction, or assist in communicating with the public.
Content creation
At the front of a content management system is an easy-to-use authoring environment, designed to work like Word. This provides a non-technical way of creating new pages or updating content, without having to know any HTML.
CMS also allows you to manage the structure of the site. That is, where the pages go, and how they are linked together.
Content management systems now provide a web-based authoring environment, which further simplifies implementation, and allows content updating to be done remotely.
It is this authoring tool that is the key to the success of the CMS. By providing a simple mechanism for maintaining the site, authoring can be devolved out into the business itself. For example, your marketing manager maintains the press release section, while your product manager keeps the catalogue up to date.
Content management
Once a page has been created, it is saved into a central repository in the CMS. This stores all the content of the site, along with the other supporting details.
This central repository allows a range of useful features to be provided by the CMS:
- Keeping track of all the versions of a page, and who changed what and when.
- Ensuring that each user can only change the section of the site they are responsible for.
- Integration with existing information sources and IT systems.
Most importantly, the CMS provides a range of workflow capabilities. These are best explained by giving an example:
When the page is created by an author, it is automatically sent to their manager for approval, and then to the central web team for their editorial review. It is finally sent to the legal team for their sign-off, before being automatically published to the site.
At each step, the CMS manages the status of the page, notifying the people involved, and escalating jobs where required.
In this way, the workflow capabilities allow more authors to be involved in the management of the site, while maintaining strict control over the quality, accuracy and consistency of the information.