Are you wondering what a Content Management System is and whether you need it for your business?
Content management systems (CMS) make it much easier to manage your website. Just as the name implies, a content management system is a set of intertwined programs or software applications that enables you to create and organise your website’s digital content.
Simply put, a CMS gives you the ability to upload, edit, or delete content from your website without having to understand CSS, HTML, or other coding languages.
Apart from saving you both money and time, investing in a CMS gives you numerous benefits. Undoubtedly, it can be one of the most beneficial investments in the online presence of your business.
So, why and how is CMS important for your business?
Here are some of the major reasons that should convince you why CMS is vital for the growth of your particular online business.
1. Effortless Customisation
Even if you are a newbie, one of the biggest reasons why you ought to consider a CMS is because of its easy customisation solutions that makes workflow and navigation easy to operate. What’s more, its flexibility is useful in determining the kind of functionalities and features to add.
Another important aspect is that your website doesn’t have to experience a full website overhaul every time you want to add a few new features since you can handle the web design, functionality, and content separately without affecting any other.
2. Ease of Access and Control
Content sharing has become much easier with CMS since it consolidates the content into one repository which then lowers content redundancy. It also comprises a workflow engine which speeds up the creation, editing, or approval of content, and so on, through a combined effort of many contributors before publishing.
What’s more, it minimises security threats by issuing unique IDs to enable access to approved users only. Therefore, removing the possibilities of any unauthorised access to your content.
To put it simply, a CMS makes it easy for anyone to build their own website or blog. Instead of having to build a website from scratch, a CMS handles all the infrastructures for you.
The most popular CMS by far is WordPress, due to its ease of use. According to Civic Web Media, “WordPress has 60.4% of the market share. This means WordPress is used by 33.5% of all websites online. That’s huge.”
3. Increase in Efficiency
If you decide to build your website from scratch without using a CMS, it’s not a surprise to find yourself lost in your device, working for many hours choosing the perfect layout or font, wasting your valuable time on a particular aspect. And probably after all this struggle, you feel unsatisfied in the end.
For ACT Shade’s Daniel Halse, having a CMS allows him to focus on the jobs at hand. “A CMS makes my life that much easier. I don’t lose sleep over trying to remember what my next job is or how I can contact everyone. It’s all in a database in front of my eyes, and knowing all the necessary details for each job is the best time-saving thing I could have ever done.”
With a CMS, however, you can easily create pages and sites in relatively much less time. You can also effectively and easily publish content since revisions and editing rarely need any coding or visual design knowledge. As a result, it will eventually result in efficient and faster updates compared to working on one without using a CMS.
4. Cost-Effectiveness
Choosing an open-source CMS will significantly assist in lowering the cost of developing and maintaining your website. You don’t have to stress out about developing it from scratch which usually costs even ten times higher and takes a longer time to complete.
For Queensland hypnosis expert Bob Lane, having a CMS allowed him to spend his money within his business on where he wanted to. “Building a website can be costly, and if I don’t really know how to do it, I’m wasting my time. I have a lot on my plate as a business owner, and I can’t afford to be spending time building a site when I can be investing my money elsewhere within my business. That’s why a CMS has been brilliant for me.”
Additionally, you’ll save money that would probably incur with the website developer fees, even for every minor change you’ll require to make every time. A CMS allows you to update all the content you want on your own.
5. Ensure Platform/ Device Compatibility
Nowadays, we use different types of mobile devices (with different screen sizes) when accessing web applications. Therefore, you cannot underestimate the significance of responsive web design.
Mobile Content Management with the assistance of different features such as ease of access, readability, and navigation plays a huge role in ensuring your website is responsive to allow a better user experience.
6. Improves SEO Ranking
You can use a CMS to come up with a content marketing plan by optimising title, keywords, meta-descriptions, etc. all from one source location depending on the data collection from traffic, leads, and sales.
Sydney’s SEO manager Matt Lawson of Search It Local, points out, “apart from all the above, CMS can also assist you in improving your SEO ranking by adding paragraph tags, making clickable links, and recommending a lot of other formatting practices.”
What’s more, it also provides you with smart suggestions for best practices.
Additionally, the external contribution in the form of forums, likes, comments, etc., also helps in keeping your website relevant.
As we have learned, the Content Management System comes with a lot of features, as well as ample customisation possibilities. You can use them effectively to develop and operate any type of website, regardless if it is a large multinational corporation or just a small enterprise.
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