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Choosing the right CMS

by Robert Taylor

A website content management system is used to publish a wide range of content. These can be simple pages, complex pages dynamic information sourced from databases, training materials, online manuals, and general business documents. The websites can range from large ecommerce sites to personal blogs, from school lessons to corporate sites. There can be thousands of pages with extensive linking between pages.

To select a successful content management system, you must first determine the objectives for the site. There is no "magic bullet" that will cover everybody's wants or needs. All parties involved will have their own individual ideas and input and each must be addressed equally.

A website content management system goes through stages of development. It spans from the initial content creation to the final end user delivery. To simplify the process, stages of the life cycle can be categorized into groups: a) Content creation; b) Content management; c) Publishing; d) Presentation; and e) Contract & business.

The material present ion websites is written by authors who facilitate of content creation. A content management system's (CMS) success is measured by its ability to enable easy content creation and providing maintenance for content. The CMS' core functionality is content management which is facilitated by a central repository and is supported by a variety of tools for modifying and managing content. A CMS provides version control, archiving, workflow, and reporting. It must do this securely with integration support with external systems.

The publishing engine must be able to recall the contents in storage and generate the web page seen by the users. Imporant elements in the publishing engine includes page templates and stylesheets. The support of many formats such as HTML, PDF, WAP, etc. might necessary to ensure the success of the website. On larger sites, personalization and users' usage data should be implemented on the pages.

Presentation of the content is another important aspect which has to be looked into. This is going to determine the appearance and layout of the web pages. The presentation of the pages must meet certain standards if they are to be of value to your users. The major requirements are usability, accessibility, cross-browser support, speed, navigation and metadata.

The final requirements, contract and business, refer to project manangement and business procedures vendors must take into consideration when installing a website content management system. Certain requirements that must be dealt with include instruction in using the cms, proficiency in operation, documentation, neccessary resources concerning hardware/sotware or any perticular database, attached costs, flexibility, etc.

A website content management system is often crucial to the popularity of the website that it helps creates. Millions of dollars may depend on the website in the case of complex enterprise system. Therefore, it is imperative that the website content management system meets the neccessay needs of the website. Addressing the goals and necessities remains the most important task, and all persons involved should perform this job beforehand.

Published February 13th, 2007

Filed in Web Design, Web Hosting