The Comprehensive Guide to Content Management Systems

Should you haven’t checked out the now-famous (or perhaps infamous) map of promoting technology and gasped on the hundreds upon hundreds of solutions at our fingertips today, you’re a greater marketer than I.

A whole bunch of those solutions fall into one very necessary category for businesses and the marketers who help make them successful: content management systems (CMSs).

Should you’re not yet working with a CMS, or haven’t found one which makes life easier and business higher, that is the guide for you.

Here, we’ll dive deep into:

• The ins and outs of content management systems
• Why businesses should put money into CMS
• The perfect CMS features to buy
• Top content management systems available on the market
• start with a CMS

Introduction to Content Management Systems

Content management system software typically gives business users an approachable interface where they’ll create, publish, manage, and store content — without having to the touch a line of code — based on their content marketing strategy.

For content creation, newest CMS platforms provide a WYSIWYG editor (pronounced wiz-ee-wig), which stands for “what you see is what you get.”

WYSIWYG editors enable folks who work with content to create and format posts and pages without using code. Additionally they display content very near how it would look once it’s continue to exist the web site. This can be a vast improvement over the pre-CMS days, when content was hosted via static HTML files that needed to be uploaded to the server each time a change was needed.

CMSs typically consist of two core elements:

• Content Management Application (CMA): The part content administrators interact with (just like the WYSIWYG editor) so as to add and manage content.
• Content Delivery Application (CDA): The back-end functionality that stores and displays content to website visitors.

Modern CMSs enable multiple people to work on the identical content project, at the identical time, with helpful collaboration settings and override preventions. As well as, content is kept secure and compliant due to built-in CMS attributes, and real-time content updating helps keep your team abreast of updates and enhancements.

One significant thing to notice is the several several types of CMS software. While they’re all similar of their general functionality, each has different features and goal audiences.

Web Content Management System (WCMS)

WCMSs are built to make it easy to create and maintain content and graphics on web sites — taking things like various browser capabilities, screen sizes, and website-specific compliance and regulation issues under consideration.

When someone mentions CMS, WCMS is what they’re most frequently referring to. In this text, unless otherwise specified, we’ll even be talking about web-focused CMS tools.

A WCMS is right for a brand that primarily focuses on its website as its primary marketing channel.

Component Content Management System (CCMS)

A CCMS is an answer that manages content in components similar to singular words, paragraphs, graphic elements (photos, video, etc.), and so forth. These components are labeled with unique metadata in order that they could be stored in an organized manner, present in a search, and simply reassembled and reused across different publications and web pages.

Since CCMS platforms make content recycling really easy, they’re most helpful for teams with high content creation needs but more limited resources — similar to inside small businesses.

Headless Content Management System

A Headless CMS disconnects how digital content is presented, often called the front-end or presentation layer, from how content is managed, often called the back-end or management layer. This makes it easy for content managers and marketers to format and deploy content to different digital channels.

Headless CMS is right for businesses with robust omnichannel content strategies.

Content Delivery Platform (CDP)

A CDP is definitely a content hub versus a CMS. Nonetheless, since they’re often used alongside CMSs, they’re absolutely price including here. A CDP gathers different sorts of content from various sources and stores all of it in a single location. Businesses can connect with CDPs via an application programming interface (API) to deliver content to custom or out-of-the-box CMS platforms.

CDPs are a fantastic fit for organizations with loads of different content from many alternative sources, which all have to be shared across several internal and external platforms. Big content distributors, similar to media corporations and enterprises, can get loads of use out of CDPs.

Key CMS Features

While a CMS platform is undoubtedly the core of an efficient marketing website, due to the ability and functionality of contemporary solutions, a CMS will also be core to your entire online presence. You should use it to construct every part from a private blog or portfolio to a fully-fledged online store, membership site, online course, and beyond.

To simplify things, think of making a web site like constructing a house. The CMS is akin to the essentials, similar to the muse, partitions, plumbing, and electric. It ensures that the fundamentals are in place so you may give attention to furnishing it, decorating the inside, and making it habitable. In other words, populating your site with content, changing its appearance, and making it easy to interact with.

While every CMS is different, listed below are some essential features and functionality we recommend prioritizing when selecting your website solution:

• Ease of Use: A giant selling point for CMS is its ease of use. As a marketer, you shouldn’t need to know coding to construct an enticing digital experience via a CMS platform.
• Extensibility and Flexibility: With the CMS providing the fundamentals, you need to give you the chance to construct on the flexible foundation through add-ons that deploy dynamic, unique functionality. Your CMS should enable you to increase core features by installing plugins or introducing your individual custom code.
• Powerful Content Handling: Today, content is greater than just the written word. You furthermore may need images, videos, forms, and document management to make your content engaging. Your CMS should support all of these kind of content.
• Content Management Workflows: Easy editing, fast styling, quick content updates, version control and backup, scheduling, searching, storage, and more — a practically unimaginable number of content management features and flows should live at the middle of your CMS.
• Drag-and-Drop Design: Most recent CMSs make it easy to make use of your mouse to pull design components into place for real-time content design.
• Permission Control: It’s crucial for security and consistency that you may assign user roles to make sure everybody can access the content and functionality obligatory to do their jobs (and no more).
• Support: Whether it’s in the shape of documentation or a real-life support team, it’s all the time ideal to work with a CMS that doesn’t leave you out on your individual if something goes mistaken.
• Scalability: Most sites grow over time, each in how much content they include and what number of visitors they receive. As such, you wish a CMS that’s built to be scalable along along with your site’s needs.
• Open API: An open API makes it possible to tug content out of your CMS to reuse it on external web sites, mobile apps, social media sites, etc., in addition to internal platforms like enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software, etc.
• Templates: Select a CMS platform with several premade templates that could be easily applied to alter the look and behavior of your site.
• Search Engine Optimization: An Website positioning-friendly CMS will feature customizable page titles, meta descriptions, smart URLs and navigation, alt text, redirects, and quick page load time to assist your rating on Google and other search engines like google and yahoo.

4 Top Content Management Systems for Creating Web sites

Let’s explore today’s go-to CMS solutions for creating a web site and managing content flawlessly.

WordPress

WordPress needs little or no introduction.

WordPress began as a continuation of the b2 platform, which was developed primarily with bloggers in mind. Nonetheless, over the past twenty years, the platform has completely evolved right into a full-fledged CMS.

WordPress is the preferred CMS option, holding the vast majority of CMS market share and powering web sites for brands like Facebook and Sony.

So, how and why has it develop into so popular? One significant reason is that WordPress has remained a community-run and open-source CMS. The truth is, being open, user-friendly for beginners, and extensible have stayed key aspects ever because the project launched in 2003.

In brief, WordPress requires next to no prior experience in creating web sites. Anyone can install it, construct a site, and add content and latest features inside minutes. The vast number of obtainable plugins and themes to simply change your WordPress site’s appearance also makes it a very enticing option. For an in depth list of reasons to go together with this solution, don’t miss our guide to why to make use of WordPress.

Despite the big popularity of WordPress, it naturally has a number of downsides.

For instance, while the core platform itself is secure, it’s a frequent goal for bots and attackers. Poorly coded plugins and themes may introduce security vulnerabilities if you happen to’re not careful.

All in all, WordPress is a solid selection, especially for less-technical, content-focused users. It’s a straightforward solution for marketers that also offers loads of power under the hood for developers wishing to become involved with the technical features and increase functionality.

WordPress is free to download. (Though if you happen to desire a custom domain name, you should have to pay up or consider the self-hosted WordPress.org — learn more concerning the differences here.)

For a quick and secure website experience in your team and customers alike, DreamHost’s WordPress hosting service is optimized specifically for businesses running on WordPress.

CMS Hub

From the prolific inbound marketing, sales, and customer support platform HubSpot comes CMS Hub.

CMS Hub boasts all of the features you’d expect from any fully-featured content management system: drag-and-drop content editing, staging, blogging and collaboration tools, file management, etc. While it’s easy to make use of for marketers, developers can reap the benefits of serverless functions and pre-built themes, and IT gets the advantage of HubSpot’s 24/7 security team.

As well as, CMS Hub users can integrate the remaining of HubSpot’s stable of features, from marketing automation, email marketing, CRM, lead forms, chat, reporting, and more— no integrations with third-party solutions required.

This HubSpot CMS is best for corporations already using the platform — or those that might make use of all of the accompanying marketing, content, sales, and support tools it provides.

Pricing ranges from free to $1,200 a month for enterprise solutions, and hosting and versatile themes are included.

Joomla!

The name Joomla! comes from the Swahili term for “all together,” which references the platform’s open-source community. In contrast to WordPress, Joomla! is a rather more developer-focused CMS, though it still incorporates a user-friendly interface.

Joomla! has cultivated an enormous user community that frequently creates extensions and themes to assist bolster the platform’s core functionality. This makes it a superb selection if you happen to think WordPress isn’t offering the extent of control you require.

The platform’s flexibility also makes Joomla! a wonderful selection for more complex web sites, similar to e-commerce sites, social media networks, and online communities. Naturally (and as we touched on), Joomla! also allows you to download themes and extensions to your site.

Considering the extra complexity of the CMS, it won’t be the very best option if you’ve gotten little experience or resources to handle website development.

The training curve could also be steeper with Joomla! if you happen to’ve primarily used a more end-user-focused CMS previously. Nonetheless, developers may find it affords them more freedom and suppleness than WordPress’ out of the box configuration.

Joomla! can also be completely free to download and use, with no paid plans. While fewer hosts support Joomla! out of the box than WordPress, there are still many who tweak their servers to support the CMS.

Drupal

If Joomla! is a step up by way of complexity from WordPress, Drupal represents one other leap.

Initially released in 2001, Drupal is probably the most technically advanced CMS on this list, which makes it a perfect selection for businesses with development resources that want complete control over their sites — and wish less technical guidance.

As you may probably imagine, Drupal is best suited to advanced and bold web sites. It’s a particularly versatile platform that lets web development pros create almost any variety of site. It’s also arguably probably the most powerful CMS available and practically guarantees each strong security and fast loading times out of the box.

For this reason, Drupal is a fantastic selection for enterprises with a development team available, a necessity for consistently high speeds and reliability, and the budget to match. It’s also commonly utilized by governments and universities. The platform also offers extensibility in the shape of modules and themes.

Just like the previous offerings, Drupal is entirely free to make use of and based on open-source technology. It can require some tinkering to put in and learn the ropes, but getting the extent of complexity and freedom the CMS offers could be price it.

Spin Up a CMS Website

The high-level means of creating your individual website using a content management system will look just a little something like this:

1. Select your CMS based on which best delivers in your needs, based on the above suggestions and have shopping list.2. Select a hosting provider to deliver your website’s content and files to the web. Cloud-based hosting is price considering if security, speed, performance, and uptime are priorities for what you are promoting.
2. Get your domain name and registrar arrange. You’ll want to check in case your hosting provider will help and even offer you a free domain name as a part of your package.
3. Install your Content Management System — most platforms provide instructions on tips on how to do that manually. Beware that manual installation would require working with code. Often, your hosting provider may help with installation.
4. Get the CMS set as much as your liking by adding fellow teammates, adjusting build-in settings, and adding plugins to increase functionality.
5. Start creating and publishing content!

It’s Time to Get Began With a CMS

The times of getting to work with code simply to update any little piece of content in your website or launch latest marketing campaigns are long gone, due to the rise of the CMS.

Today, these user-focused platforms enable marketing and business teams to create and publish content much easier while extending their website’s capabilities to suit their unique content requirements.

Select your DreamHost hosting plan today to reap the benefits of easy installation, reliable uptime, award-winning support, and a knowledgeable community when spinning up your modern content management system of selection.