Whatever your market niche, a content management system, more commonly referred to as a CMS, is an essential tool for your online business. While there are seemingly infinite choices when it comes to selecting a CMS, each offers the ability to simplify the task of managing the daily operations surrounding your website. The top five industry and user favorite CMS systems include: eZPublish, Joomla!, Drupal, WordPress.org and Movable Type.
Understanding CMS Software
The overall concept of a CMS is to provide for a system which separates design from content, yet function cohesively to publish both creations together. A reputable CMS should bring four core functions to your online venture: Content creation, content management, publishing and presentation. Within each of these four categories is the ability for storage, organization, creation, publication and development. Although typically used for blogs, a CMS proves to be just as useful for developing and maintaining websites, e-commerce, as well as marketing a product or service. Most CMSs are an Open Source software system that’s based on PHP and requires a MySQL database.
Many online business owners opt for a CMS because of the ease and convenience it offers when developing or updating a website or blog. In fact, users aren’t necessarily required to be proficient, or even understand, HTML coding or other advanced programming languages. CMS content may be viewed as online news and entertainment articles, instruction manuals, how-to guides, and informative brochures in a wide array of formats including web content, e-documents, as well as data, media, audio and video files.
Benefits of a CMS
Besides making the task of managing a website much less complicated, a CMS also offer other valuable benefits. One such perk is offering built-in applications such as blogs, contact management, databases, forums, calendars, mail forms, newsletters, search engine, product management and a site map for easier navigation.
Security is another benefit of utilizing a CMS. The basic security features include: login history, content approval, e-mail verification, SSL compatibility and session management just to name a few. Commerce capabilities are another huge CMS advantage. Those seeking an e-commerce venture appreciate features such as affiliate tracking, shopping carts, wish lists, inventory management and pluggable sales’ transaction data information. Finally, support is yet another benefit of using a CMS. The power players in the CMS industry understand with the fluidity of code being updated, users must have quick access to dependable support options. As a user, you can expect to find readily available online manuals, commercial support and training, online assistance, professional hosting, and the developer community.
While the complete list of benefits far out cedes our scope here, regardless of the CMS you opt to use to make life simpler, you can be confident that a CMS is essential for doing business in the 21st century!