Saturday, 25 February 2012

Content Management System (CMS) Selection






Making a selection of a good and effective web content management system seems to have become difficult. It has become so due to the incessant arrival of its multiple versions and types in the recent times. Still, the best-performing CMS has to be picked out from a lot of its variants. The right way to select an appropriate system is to start with specifying the requirements that a CMS must comply with. When properly specified, the process of making a choice becomes quite easier and that can also ensure that you have selected the most suitable one for your organization. For this, you have to start with listing the functions and features needed, and that may help point the way toward the solutions required.

These days, CMS comes in manifold versions and types. While open-source CMS can fulfill some requirements, customized CMS can be able to meet the rest or all the requirements. In a word, none of them can claim to be comprehensive. Still, most of their types are able to carry through the requirements of their users to a maximum level. Basically, all website content management system types are designed to publish content consisting of text and images. However, they differ from one another widely in terms of their additional features and functions. So, while attempting to select any one of them, selection of it needs to be made based on your current and future internet business plans.

In most cases, people tend to consider price to be the deciding factor when asked to select a content management application for using it on their Web server. Price is undoubtedly a factor that is to be taken into consideration, but it should never be the most prioritized factor. Here is a list that consists of some very essential CMS features that can enrich the functionality of web sites.

i) Dynamic and database driven
ii) Able to run on all Operating Systems
iii) Able to support multiple authors
iv) Allow authors to edit and should be easy-to-edit
v) Allow plugins and additional codes beyond what the base software supports
vi) Provide templates that are convenient to customize
vii) Supports CSS templates and XHTML

If you are searching for a CMS to develop a personal or a business website, make sure that you are giving most importance on your requirements. Follow these three steps that can help you immensely in your attempt to pick out a well-suited system.

Step One: Find out your requirements for the CMS first. Your focus, in this context, needs to be inclusive. Then, arrange the requirements in ascending order as per their priority and urgency.

Step Two: You have to evaluate various CMS tools. So, make sure you have collected as many CMS tools as you can. This will help you to evaluate. To evaluate them properly, you require going through different website references, documentation about the tools, support boards, and forums, among others. Perform research-work as many times as you can.

Step Three: With critical evaluation, try to narrow down the numbers of CMS types, so that you can afford to assess the few on your own system. For customization purpose, evaluation copies of other CMS users may be compared with those of yours. On the other hand, you can test the functions of CMS by installing it on some location on your server.

Key to selecting a good CMS is dependent on how you prepare the list of your requirements and how you evaluate the pros and cons of the system. But, whatever the new features or more brilliant features a system may have, make sure that you have found out these following functions embedded into it, so that webmasters can:

i) Maintain the functioning of the site in the right way
ii) Monitor and maintain the security of the site well
iii) Perform technical changes on their own
iv) Manage email accounts & private messaging
v) Manage the Web Analytic

Since, websites play crucial role in branding a company, and also an individual, they should look professional, and should have the facility to modify their contents as per the needs and as many times as their owners may wish. With juxtaposing these features, a website can achieve great success. A good website content management system can fulfill all these parameters.



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