It can sometimes be a tricky subject when talking about CMS’s (Content Management Systems); i.e. which one is suitable for your company, what can it offer, do I even need one? Well for the most part, its’s subjective to your companys requirements.

Ask yourself: Will I be managing the content by myself? Am I going to actively market my site?

It’s often free* & flexible
Most common CMS platforms are free to use and open-source. A great trait to using one is how user-friendly and simple they truly are, well most are anyway (some do require training). Till this day, these platforms are consistently rising in popularity, with large social communities and great opportunities to expanding them beyond their core features. Putting it short, it’s the perfect tool for users who wish to make quick changes to their website.

These days, a CMS can be used to do pretty much anything if programmed correctly, below are a few examples of how a CMS can be enhanced:

• Estate Agency and Letting
• Events Management
• Forums
• eCommerce
• Directory listings.

Thanks to its community, these platforms continue to thrive with functionality, with the ability to enhance a website from any imaginable aspect. Plugins such as converting areas of your website into an eCommerce, to cleverly caching your website to speed up load time are freely available to all. If we were asked by a client to recommend an easy-to-use CMS, our recommendation would be to use the likes of WordPress as our choice of platform. The main reasons being; it is easy to set-up and use, simple to design and offers endless flexibility.

Should I build my own CMS?
With experience in coding or access to a small team of developers, we’d say yes. That way the website will be bespoke to your requirements as a company, but overhead costs such as maintenance, updates and security will be ongoing. Be aware that bespoke is expensive for the prime example of it being catered to your company. From a personal note, we wouldn’t recommend this to a user with little experience in coding, simply because it would require you to build a solid system with whichever language you write in. A bespoke CMS can’t be compared to the likes of an open-source CMS from a security and functionality perspective.

Off-the-shelf CMS
For users who are experienced with coding but don’t feel comfortable writing up their own CMS, Joomla and Drupal would fit you comfortably. Users who are unfamiliar with the likes of PHP or basic HTML, would find WordPress a suitable candidate. The main disadvantage from using a non-bespoke CMS in our opinion would be how power hungry they are with using server resources, but this can be overcome by upgrading the hosting your domain is stored on.

Final Notes
If you are interested on implementing a CMS, you should consider exploring different types platforms available. By doing so you can get a better idea as to which one is suitable for your company. If your website contains content which is often being changed or added to, such as a blog or press release, look no further than a CMS. Don’t regularly update your website more than once or twice a month? It may be more cost effective to pay a developer to make the changes.

Want to discover how MeeCreative can implement a CMS for your company? Call us on:
01639 897200, drop us an email or alternatively get in touch via our Contact Us form.

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