The 5 Benefits of having your Website Developer use a Content Management System (CMS)

How do individuals, who want to work with a Website designer and Website Developer, determine if the project should be developed using XHTML and CSS or a Content Management System? Below are 5 benefits that might sway you to develop your Website using a CMS.  

Editing Content & Graphics

The ability to edit the Website (without knowing HTML code) is why most people initially choose to develop their Web Site using a CMS. Most CMS have a user-friendly interface, which allows content, text, photos, links, and videos to be edited.  The Website owner only needs to login to an Administration panel and make changes. This can be done from any computer anywhere in the world; all you will need is an Internet connection. 

During the initial build, the Web Site Designer designs the look and feel through flexible and adaptive layouts. This allows new pages to be added on the owner’s part without any further designing. The CMS only prompts to add, update or delete. If a person can use Microsoft word they can most likely edit their Website with little stress. The CMS will ensure that the overall look and feel is maintained.

Predefined Functionality

The benefit of building a site with complex functionality in a CMS is that most of the thinking has already been done for you.  Most CMS systems have done extensive research to establish the best way to achieve specific functions. For example if you were using a CMS to create an Ecommerce website design the shopping cart, checkout, invoicing system, payments, postage methods, etc. would already be established in places they work best. Additionally, most CMS have flexibility and options within their predefined functions.

To develop an editable e-commerce site from scratch would take a lot of research and a healthy budget.  Before choosing which CMS you would like to operate and drive your site, make sure its modules and functionality meet your expectations.

More for your money

It is more cost effective to use a CMS to create a Website because the functionality is usually already created. Your Web Site Designer just needs to create a prototype and design that matches your brief and works within the CMS. There is no cost for extra development work. Another advantage is that costs are kept down when the same CMS is used to drive multiple sites, as opposed to each site needing its own system development, making upgrades and modification to the CMS is easily accessible to all sites instantly.

With an on-going budget, consider whether you are you going to edit your site frequently. If you anticipate editing your website weekly or monthly, then a CMS will save you money. Web site developers can charge up to $150 an hour to make changes to content, which you could easily edit yourself in a CMS.

SEO Friendly

Content management systems are usually built in a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) friendly manner. What does this mean? Using the predefined area of the CMS, you are able to make your website SEO friendly, without a lot of extra effort. Making your Web Site SEO friendly can be achieved by using search engine friendly URLs, integration with Google Analytics, sitemaps that are both human friendly and search engine robot friendly, editable header tags, editable and individual page/meta titles, image alt tags, and easy internal linking. Ensure the CMS you choose has ongoing SEO audits of the content management system by SEO professionals.

Tracking

Most CMS’s have a site members’ area. The site members’ area can be very useful because it can be exported into an Excel spread sheet and easily imported into a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) tool. This can be a great way of tracking subscribers or members of specific groups.

Additionally, you can track users visiting your site through Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service Google suggests adding into your site. It allows you to see detailed statistics detailing who, where and when people are visiting your Website.