As the saying goes on the web “Content is King.” There is no argument that
if you are going to have an effective Internet presence you must have
current, dynamic content that gives your visitors reasons to come back time
and again. While content may be king there seems to be little discussion
about the optimal way to manage this content for small to medium sized
businesses. Have you ever noticed that when your building the web site you
have plenty of helping hands but once the site is launched and the daily
grind of support kicks in it becomes harder and harder to find that help.
This is why it is so important to evaluate your Content Management System
(CMS) for you web site in the development stages. Every web site has some
form of content management system in place, except for those that never
change. The CMS can be as informal as an email to the web developer or a
multi-million dollar computer program that warehouses data from several
different databases. In focusing on small to medium sized businesses I have
decided to eliminate the big dollar systems and concentrate on the three
major types of CMS’s available.
The first type of CMS is the default traditional and most widely used method
I call the manual update system. This usually requires sending the
information to the web developer. The web developer then utilizes their FTP
program and HTML coding skills to make the requested changes. The changes
are then reviewed and approved by the requester. The problem with this
model is that the web developer is usually a high priced contractor and not
an in-house resource. This means that you end paying a hefty price for web
site changes. The cost of web site changes becomes a budget issue so you
end up reducing the number of changes you make to your site in turn reducing
its overall value.
The second type of CMS is the WYSIWYG system. This model allows the web
site owner to use one of the graphical web development tools on the market
today such as FrontPage or Net Objects Fusion. These are great programs
that allow you to make changes to the web site in a graphical look. The
changes are simple and if you configure the software correctly you can
update your web site with a few clicks of the mouse. The problem with this
model is that you become dependent on the WYSIWYG tool. If you can’t get to
FrontPage then you can’t make your change unless you resort back to our
first model. But now it gets a little trickier. These WYSIWYG tools create
very convoluted HTML code so manual changes can become very time consuming.
Another draw-back of the model is that if your company utilizes a tool like
this to create their site they are limited to the graphical templates that
come with the software. You end up getting a site that looks pretty much
like everybody else’s. Furthermore, I think it is important for any company
planning on building or revamping their web site to meet with a web
development company to at least review the best practices for web
development.
The final type of CMS is what I like to refer to as an integrated CMS. This
type of Content Management Systems is built directly into the site during
development. In order to make changes the web owner simply enters in a
secure URL, logins and makes changes to the site without having to know any
HTML or FTP commands. Changes are instant and all the user needs is a web
browser and access to the Internet. This has been a very successful model
for our company because it allows us to build web sites that empower the web
owners. Web owners can make changes to their sites as often as they like
without the need for a high priced web developer. Of course the cost of a
site with an integrated CMS will be a little higher but the overall cost of
ownership of the site will be dramatically reduced over time.
Regardless of the model you choose web site owners must acknowledge that
their web site does come with a Content Management System installed. An
educated web site owner will ensure that their site has a CMS that allows
them to get the most out their web site.
About the Author
Michael Park, MBA MCP
CEO/President
DelOtto Systems Inc.
Internet Development Solutions
http://www.delottoinc.com
mpark@delottoinc.com
(607) 733-9966
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