Content Management Tools
A content management system (CMS) is a tool used to manage the content of a website. Typically, a CMS consists of two elements: the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA). The CMA side allows the content manager, we call em the “admin”, to create, modify, and remove content from a site without needing the expertise of a coder. On the flip side, the CDA takes that data and published it on the website. The features of a CMS system vary, but most include web-based publishing, format management, revision control, and search functionality, among other things. We livke to keep things simple at SDG, so we scale down our admin interfaces so they are very extremely easy to learn and use.
The web-based publishing feature allows you to use a template or theme to present a uniform look and feel for your visitors. It also offers the ability to use other tools to create or modify content on your site. A CMS indexes all data on the website; you can then search for data using keywords, which the CMS retrieves.
A CMS may also provide tools for one-to-one marketing. One-to-one marketing is the ability of a website to tailor its content and advertising to specific characteristics of your business by using information provided by you. For example, if you visit a search engine and search for “digital camera”, the advertising banners will advertise businesses that sell digital cameras instead of businesses that sell garden products.
We use a large variety or content management systems, but our favorite is WordPress. I know you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, isn’t WordPress a blog?”. Well, it is a blog, but WordPress has a very strong CMS foundation. With some tweaks it can give you all the features available in uber expensive, off the shelf, content management solutions. Because WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the planet, a lot of people already know how to use it (don’t worry if you don’t have any experience, its really easy to learn). Some clients we build sites for are already familiar with the interface because they use it for personal blogs. What’s better than having something handed to you that you already know how to use?
