Manage Your Content

If you are trying to make your website into a tool to grow your business, you need to keep your website content interesting. That means updating the content often. A content management system help you easily update your website text and images without knowing any code. However, what exactly is a content management system and why do you need a content management system?

What is a content management system?
A content management system is an application on your website that let's you easily add, edit and remove pages on your website. A content management system can also be used to let you add, edit and delete posts to your blog, photos in your gallery or manage other elements of your website, such as prices for the products that you sell through the website. With some systems, you can manage all parts of your website plus easily optimize all pages for search engines, sort your navigation and backup your website in just one click.

What are the benefits of using a content management system?
A content management system makes your life easier when updating your content because it separates the content from the website design and from the website code. As a result, when you update the content you won't risk deleting your navigation or making the title on one page ten pixels taller than the title on another page.

How does a content management system work?
A content management system let's you login to an administrative interface, usually located somewhere on your website. You then have a form that you fill out that relates to your website page. For instance, if your design allows for a title, a picture and a lengthy content area, you would have (at least) three fields in your administrative interface that let you easily input a title, a picture and a large block of text for the lengthy content area.

Technically speaking, how does a content management system work?
Technically speaking, the administrative interfaces has you fill out a form that collects information about the page (or blog post of photo in your gallery), stores the form results in a database and then, when a visitor comes to your website, the code extracts the necessary data from the database and puts that data into your website's design.

I have heard about Dreamweaver/Contribute/Kompozer/etc. Don't they do the same thing?
Yes and no. Like with a content management system, these HTML editor applications let you update your content. Unlike a content management system, these applications have you updating content that is integrated with your website design and, depending on the website setup, integrated at least partly with your website code. As a result, the chance of altering your design or causing an error with your code while making a simple copy change is more likely. Also, unlike a content management system, you have to update the content then upload it to the server. A content management system happens directly on the server and minimizes the workflow process, at least a little bit.

Which is better: an HTML editor or a content management system?
In general, content management systems are easier to use because you don't need to access your HTML editing application, download the file you want to update from your server, make the changes to the file, hope you didn't screw up the design or code and then upload the changed file to your server. Instead with a content management system, you login, make your changes and click save. Additionally, with an online content management system you can make your changes from anywhere you have an internet connection. With an HTML editor, you have to use an offline application that you may or may not have access to from anywhere.

When should I use an HTML editor and when should I use a content management system?
My recommendation is usually to use a content management system because of the reasons explained in the last answer. Mainly I recommend this because that way it is really easy for my clients to update their own content, instead of paying me every time you want to change the text on your website (or paying me when you make changes through the HTML editor and break parts of the code or design).

That being said, QW Consulting does not recommend a content management system if your website will only be up for a short period of time (for example, a brief promotional website) or if you are truly never going to update the content (for example, you have one product to sell and that product will never, ever change).

What should I look for in a content management system?
First, the content management system should be easy for non-technical users to update. A lot of content management systems are overly complex. Updating your content should not be an involved process.

Second, and equally important, the content management system needs great search engine marketing support.  Some content management systems make you add in search engine marketing items and do not include these search engine tools by default. This is just wrong; every website needs top notch search engine marketing support and needs it by default. Ideally, the cotent management system should automatically create an XML sitemap for search engines to use, automatically give you a way to add title and meta tags to each page, automatically creates links that are search engine friendly and more.

The third criteria when selecting a content management system is that it must be easy to customize. A cotnent management tool that comes with a lot of features by default — from blogs to photo galleries to product catalogs — is great. But, you also want a system that has the ability to be easily customized for your needs. QW Consulting has built a number of custom areas for clients over the years, including: custom built areas to manage project displays, custom admin to control the display of vendor logos, a custom way to manage student lessons for a music teacher and even a way to manage and display something as unique as car shows.

If you have questions, please contact QW Consulting today.