10 Things to Keep in Mind While Choosing CMS
CMS is one of the most potent developer’s tools on the Internet. It provides you with a platform to set up a site, to use a database, to standardize new web pages, by employing some prefabricated routines and tables.
Handling the content of any website becomes much more comfortable with the Content Management System. Ever since its introduction in 1985, it has evolved much and is now one of the most crucial aspects of web development.
The CMS market is forecasted to reach a staggering $123 Billion by 2026. Among various CMS options, WordPress remains a popular choice holding a significant 62% share of the web market.
Choosing the right CMS is tricky as there are thousands of them floating around the Web, and inefficient ones also appear appealing when you lack technical knowledge. So, it would be best if you research the crucial parameters before choosing the right one.
Without having clearly defined business objectives, you may feel tempted by fancy functionalities and complexities of CMS website development that is not going to help you in the long run.
Don’t worry! By the end of this blog, you will have a firm idea of what you should be looking for in the CMS to suit your business needs and demands. Let’s start with the different types of CMS available for you.
Types of CMS
Based on the source, there are three broad types of CMS available for your digital platform. Although all of them have their pros and cons, the open-source CMS remains a prime choice as it trims the overall cost of the investors.
Open-Source CMS
A CMS that has open-source code and anyone can modify it for personal needs is called an Open-Source CMS. The users highly prefer it as it reduces the ultimate cost and comes with a large community of developers. However, you are required to pay for technical support, customization, etc.
Famous Examples: WordPress, Drupal, Magento, etc. are some of the prominent examples of open-source CMS.
Proprietary CMS
A CMS that is a private property of any organization and needs purchasing for personal use is called a Proprietary CMS. Although you are required to pay for the license, it has the advantage of a more secure CMS as the number of users is comparatively less.
Famous Examples: Pulse, Sitecore, etc. are two noticeable examples of open-source CMS.
Software as a Service (SaaS) CMS
A CMS that can be availed on a subscription model and has whole or partial support on Cloud is known as SaaS CMS. Being on Cloud, it comes with the added advantage of accessibility from anywhere and any computer.
Famous Examples: Acrobat.com, Box.net, etc. are some of the prominent examples of open-source CMS.
Do you know: Google Docs also uses SaaS CMS. It’s the ultimate reason why you can easily open your documents from anywhere on the globe.
The pros and cons of the CMS are easy to understand in the comparison form. So have a look at the table discussing the pros and cons of these three types of CMS.
Points of Comparison | Open Source CMS | Proprietary CMS | Software as a Service (SaaS) CMS |
Pros: | · It is cost-effective. · It gets frequent updates. · Offers a big community of developers. | · Inclusion of support team. · Less prone to hacking owing to the small user base.
| · Comes with a subscription model. · Offers support to the users. · Greater Security and Cloud availability. |
Cons: | · Customization may prove dear at times. · Often targeted by hackers owing to a huge user base. | · High cost · Development is close to the actual owner, mainly. | · High cost · Understanding internal control may be time-consuming for users.
|
Having learned the types of CMS, you can now focus on the essential things that must be kept in mind while choosing the CMS for your project.
Top 10 tips for choosing the best CMS
Define the core features of your project
Each project is unique in some sense, and so is the CMS ‘needs. The needs of your project can be easily judged by looking at the core features offered by your website. At PixelCrayons, we focus on these critical features and then suggest multiple CMS technology that is consistent with your project.
For example, suppose you are managing a website that offers car rental service to the users. The core features that must get addressed in the CMS should focus on easy uploading of recent car photographs, vehicle model features, uploading the latest offers on different cars, etc.
Once the list of essential features is ready, the development team focuses on whether you need complete access to creating, editing, organizing, uploading, etc. or individual elements can get eliminated to reduce the total costs of your project.
Go for Easy to use Admin Features
A vital fact check is most of the ultimate users for whom the development team is working on aren’t much technically oriented. So, selecting a complex CMS won’t prove helpful unless your firm has technically advanced IT employees.
The chosen CMS must help you with the easy management of the site in the future. So, prefer a CMS that has a simple Admin interface no matter if it needs high customization to fulfill the ultimate needs.
While selecting the CMS, you need to confirm whether or not it allows you to efficiently perform the crucial Admin feature, including creation, uploading, deletion, etc.
Management of Web Assets
Management of images and files in some CMS is not proper. All those CMS which are illogical and imperfect can frustrate users with poor usability. Images and files play a crucial role in any web-based business, especially for eCommerce platforms.
Ensure that the CMS you select allows content providers to add attributes to the images. It should provide introductory text and simple image editing tools for making quick changes when needed in the last moments.
It would be helpful if you can find how the content management system deals with uploading and attaching PDFs, Word documents and other files.
Scope of Customization
It is simply not necessary now that all CMS have techniques to separate design and content. Some CMS developers have created systems that put excessive pressure on the design and seriously impact accessibility.
Instead, select a CMS which allows flexibility in content presentation and retrieval. For instance, ‘Is it possible to extract the most recent user comments and display them on the home page?’
If your website is for learning or education, you may need to display different content based on specific dates and times. However, having a calendar is helpful for any website to highlight any particular events of the business. Hence you may opt for it.
Support for Multiple Websites
The selected CMS must provide support for multiple websites. And with the growth of the mobile Web, you may want to create a separate website, especially for mobile devices.
You may not be managing more than one website, but it may happen in the future that you need to launch a new website targeting a particular segment. With the growing technology, you may feel like expanding your business and building a similar platform.
In such a case having a CMS that supports multiple websites proves beneficial and cost-saving. So, it is best to go for a CMS that supports various websites.
The Editor
The editor provides the interface through which content gets integrated, deleted, amended, etc. Initially, it allowed only the option of fonts and colors to the writers, but later the editor gave writers full access to design controls of the content.
Users often tend to lack the basic guidelines for mature and convincing designs and begin to experiment with the content. Often it leads to undesired customization and destroys the overall look of the content.
Having such customizations, the consistency of design and branding gets usually ignored. So, with new-generation editors, Content providers use it to mark up headings, lists, links and other elements which ensures zero discrepancies of page content.
Search Functionality
It is imperative to assess the search functionality of the CMS. You need to know answers to questions like how frequently your website gets indexed by a search engine, or does it index the entire content of each page? Etc.
Some of the critical aspects of search functionality include the following:
Search Engine Compatibility: The search engine must index your page whenever you make significant changes on the website. Making changes that don’t get indexed won’t prove helpful for your website. It must also ensure that every new item gets indexed including the documents as well.
- Specific Functions: The overall speed at which your page gets indexed and whether you can customize the search function to land on specific pages play a crucial role over your website.
- Search Engine Optimization: You must ensure that the Content Management System you are going for allows downloading of multiple plugins and tools that are necessary for the SEO purpose. With stiff competition in the market, SEO plays a vital role in the ranking of your website that you cannot compromise upon.
Social Interaction with Users
You need to check for the tools with which you communicate with the customers. It can be in the form of allowing users to comment on the post, or whether there’s a forum on the main website to ask questions or provision of hosting a community on your website.
Social interaction is vital for the growth of your business, and you must ensure tools or plugins that encourage users to ask queries or offer feedback conveniently.
Permissions
Your enterprise may have multiple employees that need the authorization to upload specific content over the website. Is it a good idea to give every employee the right to access all the modules! What if all he/she needs to do is to place an offer on a specific section?
It is not advisable to give the reign of the entire content for a simple job. It is furthermore undesirable when the employee lacks technical knowledge of how to handle it. Handling errors on a specific module is easy but giving over reigns and then correcting the entire page is best to be avoided.
The issue can be taken care of by specifying the roles and permission of different sections that must be handled by other content providers of your website. Like the senior provider can have full reign and define access for the junior providers based on their needs.
Thus, prefer a Content Management System that facilitates the creation of roles and specific permissions for different content providers of the firm.
Multiple Languages
You may be sure that you want the entire content in your vernacular language but isn’t it best to have multiple language support for your website? Please give it a thought whether your digital platform gets accessed by the locals only!
Chances are while the majority of the users may be local, you may be having multiple users that are well versed in some other languages. So, having multilingual support will only encourage the user base of your platform.
Even in small cities of the world, there’s hardly a single language that’s spoken by all. So why should your digital platform be limited to one! It is best to opt for multilingual support for your website.
Conclusion
Choosing the right CMS is crucial for any online business. You must keep in mind the above mentioned ten things to get the right CMS as per your business requirement. You should also remember one thing that quality content is also essential with the right CMS.
If you have any queries regarding CMS development, you can contact PixelCrayons: the leading CMS Development Company in India.
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