Choosing a Web Content Management System
Keeping a website current should be high on the list of priorities for any forward thinking company. Many organisations get so bogged down in the process of site creation that they forget to give consideration to how that same site will look and feel in one month's or even one year's time.
It is possible, however, to have a dynamic website that creates real competitive advantage without spending vast sums of money on IT resource.
Websites that include a substantial amount of published content will benefit from a web content management system. A good quality web content management system will quickly reduce the time and cost associated with website updates. It will allow control and management of site content and will remove the need to use a web designer every time a change or addition is required.
In the past making changes to a website required significant technical skills and knowledge of HTML programming. A good web content management system makes it easy for non-technical staff to create, edit and publish website content, whilst maintaining overall control of the site's look and feel through the use of standard templates.
It's not only big businesses that need to consider how the content of their websites is handled. With the right web content management system in place, organisations of all sizes can benefit from an economically viable method of managing their publishing processes for both Websites and Intranets. A web content management system gives the website administrator control over who is allowed to create, edit and publish content. Users are typically allocated a role which determines their publishing rights and allows checking systems to be put in place.
There are many benefits to be gained from introducing a good quality web content management system. By providing instant publishing capability to non-technical staff, the burden placed on the IT department is dramatically reduced, saving both resources and costs. This in turn will reduce the time taken to publish, allowing content to arrive on the website faster,creating competitive advantage.
Many web content management systems include an audit trail, which allows the website administrator to easily track who has made changes, and provides a level of control and security. Some systems even give full version control, allowing "rollback" to earlier versions.
Without a web content management system in place to control web publishing, the result is often a complete "free for all" where the quality of the content is poor and the formatting of pages becomes inconsistent. It is vital, therefore, to select a web content management system that uses templates and style-sheets that will control the "look and feel" of the site.
When selecting a web content management system it is also important to consider business requirements, and answer such questions as: How often will the site need to be updated and how many editors will there be? Some web content management systems can be very complex and difficult to understand. For a web content management system to be valuable and effective, it must be intuitive, as this will ensure it quickly becomes an asset for the business.
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