Digital platforms have transformed businesses on multiple levels, where they’re having a great physical product store or a company was enough for a successful business, now, no business, small or big, can survive without its online presence. Websites have become an absolute must and without this valuable asset, a business can only dream of success. Websites are built on content and the efficiency of modifying this content accordingly is vital for a thriving and fully functional website. Because the corporate world has gone digital, every business regardless of its size and industry needs a fully optimized website to reach out and connect with their customers. However, designing and building a website from scratch is no less than an epic task, which calls for significant time, efforts and finance. Small businesses, start-ups, and personal website owners usually lack in all the three said departments and require something that is cost-effective, efficient and easy to manage and this is where Content Management System (CMS) enters the scene.
A Content Management System (CMS) is a software application that aid in the writing, publishing, revising and archiving of digital content and all this without a webmaster. It is a prebuilt web development platform with templates and pages that facilitate multiple user interfaces. Before the advent and rise of CMSs, anyone, be it an enterprise or an individual, who wants to have a functional and optimal website also needed someone to build and operate it. Among many others, this was also the reason that businesses and entrepreneurs having a limited budget, did not have their websites for a long time. However, things have changed now and ever since the introduction of the first CMS, in early 2000, internet space has boomed with hundreds and thousands of websites. Now, people with little to no experience can also build and manage their own website without much assistance.
No matter you are a company owner or an artist or entrepreneur, a CMS website has a lot to offer and here we will discuss 10 benefits and reasons a Content Management System has in a bag for everyone.
INCREASED AND IMPROVED SITE CONTROL
No one knows your business better than you; you’ve perceived and built it with a vision and mission and, believe us, no one can look at your corporate website the way you will. One of the crucial benefits of having a CMS website is that it allows greater accessibility to you; it as an easy to use interface since you can work with the web developer and assist him in designing the site just the way you want it; with a CMS you ca;
- Edit, revise and publish content yourself
- Change the site and pages layout yourself
- Add and subtract as many pages as you want
- Connect with your audience at a deeper level
- Make available or restrict the content for a specific audience
A respective feature is especially a great option for solopreneurs, or small business owners since they can do the entire site and content management themselves and without little assistance.
USEFUL FOR TECHNICAL AND NON-TECHNICAL USERS
Web development is tough, you need to learn various programming languages for it and even then, it will be of no significant use if it is not paired with good experience and practice, for many of us managing a website is no less than a nightmare. With a CMS website, you can actually accomplish this ‘nightmare’ without having to learn any coding, as you will get a pre-programmed and coded platform that you can work on accordingly. It is equally useful for both technical and non-technical users as it does not require changing and working on the entire infrastructure as it does if you build a website from scratch. The web developers, professionals, and non-technical users can benefit from it in a number of ways including;
- Building the websites in the fraction of time
- Changing the layout with little coding
- Optimizing and publishing visual and written content easily
- Revising and updating the design, template and content easily
- Monitoring and managing comments, content and preferences with ease
HIGHLY COLLABORATIVE INTERFACE
The importance of effective communication is beyond the B2C scenario as it is necessary for successful ‘in-business’ collaboration among the team members. A CMS website allows multiple members that are involved in a certain project, to make the required changes throughout the website without anyone’s permission. The teammates can assist each other and monitor the site development from anywhere and without the restrictions of the desktop system. The CMS platform acts as a joint workstation where the members can assist each other in building and maintaining an effective website or blog. Given how significant communication is, such a collaborative and easily accessible platform is quite helpful in keeping the flow of work constant and hurdle free.
ECONOMICAL AND EFFORTS FRIENDLY OPTION
Building a website from scratch can be a huge task; the graphics and web designing, content planning and writing and, above all, backend and frontend coding, all require significant time, efforts and, of course, finance. Using a CMS accelerates the whole process as it comes with pre-made templates and themes that can be customized according to individual business and personal needs. CMS platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Drupal etc. comes with a good number of templates and themes that are classified into professional, corporate, artistic and personal websites and blogs. Web developers, usually, customize these CMS based websites as per the company’s needs; these options are way more cost effective than the usual ‘from scratch’ site building as you do not have to hire a graphics designers, web developer and website manager separately. All of them offer affordable yearly hosting plans for all sizes of companies and for the management and for the management, you can do it yourself or, for big companies, your content manager can do it easily.
UNIVERSALITY
CMS is universal, be it a small, medium or big sized organization or an artist or writer looking to display his art pieces and create a portfolio, CMS is for everyone and anyone can benefit from it. The solo artists and writers can build their portfolio and blog to market and promote their work, without paying any big pennies for the service. Small and medium-sized companies usually lack a workforce and many of them have actually employed freelancers and contractors to build their website. In such a scenario, having something that could be managed and operated without much technicality and guidance is nothing less than a blessing. Big corporations have multiple industries and services and, therefore, something that requires less amount of time to update is equally useful for them. These CMSs are built on smart technologies that are expandable and customizable; users can add and remove unlimited pages and can toggle with built-in features.
BETTER B2C COMMUNICATION
Consumer communication is no less than a lifeline of a business; it is through communication that businesses know about the needs, likes, dislikes, and preferences of their clients and customers. CMSs have built-in comments management section that allows the users to reply, delete and block certain users, especially spammers, from the page. The feature is especially useful for small business owners and industries having limited services and solo business personnel who do not have a dedicated team to monitor and manage all the communications and content related to the website. You can manage all the comments and reply to them yourself, which is really helpful for building and more personal and deeper relationship with your consumers. Companies that add a human touch in their corporate communications are more successful than the one who doesn’t. By replying to the comments and holding the conversation with your consumers will help you get to know your audience well and update your services accordingly.
BETTER CONTENT OPTIMIZATION
Optimization is key to succeeding with the search engines, especially Google, which keeps on changing its algorithm and keeping the corporate world on its toes. Incorporating relevant keywords into the content is one of the ways of content optimization but, when it comes to running a user-friendly website, things are ahead of it. For a neat, attractive and user-friendly website, it is necessary that the website loads quickly and the content including graphics, videos, and written content displays properly, which can be only achieved if the written and visual content is of high quality as well as of a reasonable weight. Heavy files, programming codes and images stress a website and affect its speed. CMS like WordPress offers a number of useful plug-ins like;
- WP Smush
- CW Image Optimizer
- SEO Friendly Images
- Media File Renamer
- WP Rocket
- Better WordPress Minify
- CloudFlare
- Wordfence
- All in One WordPress Security and Firewall
These plug-ins optimize your site’s images and files by resizing and compressing them in a more reasonable size that doesn’t interfere with the site’s working. Just do your research and see which the best are for you. Moreover, a CMS makes your website automatically mobile friendly that fits in all mobile devices and tablets.
IMPROVED CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Content is king and to keep the search engines happy, you need to keep your website updated with fresh, unique and relevant content. With a traditional website, if you want to update the website’s content or revise it, you will need to work on the entire code again, which is scary. With a CMS, all you have to do is to change the data once and it will update throughout the whole site. Publishing and managing the website’s content is a game of just a few clocks and before you know, your content will be live. Managing content is much easier and you will not have to code every new page that you add to the website. Furthermore, CMS like WordPress has many plug-ins that can augment your content’s performance by enhancing the content’s optimization and we are not talking about written content only, these plug-ins automatically enhance the images and files by optimizing their meta information.
THRIVING AND ACTIVE COMMUNITY
CMS offers loads of benefits and feasibility but you will be happy to know that in case you stuck somewhere and need help, on the internet has a lot to offer. Since now, every other website is CMS based, the community is large and always ready to help you with your problem. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, SharePoint etc. have largely extensive libraries and resources that help the new and professional users with the understanding of the features and installing process. Google, Quora, YouTube, and Yahoo are amongst the many platforms that offer unlimited tutorials and help with the usage and management of these CMS. Besides, these CMSs official websites also have a good amount of tutorials, guides and discussion boards that offer practical and useful help for everyone.
SECURITY AND FLEXIBILITY
The CMS ecosystem is highly flexible and secure; though inbuilt, but each feature can be removed or added easily and the number of pages, indexes, and sub-indexes are unlimited and can be updated easily. To the safety side, though the security is based on how diligent the user is, still, the CMSs security system is quite developed. You can restrict specific audience or users from accessing your website and content through permission based system. CMSs platforms come in two types; Open Source and Proprietary, based on the nature and requirements of your industry, you can choose which to have. Every CMS has vulnerabilities and responsible users are aware of it, just like any other thing, CMS websites need maintenance to work properly. Updating the software and plug-ins, doing regular website quality and performance check and taking care that the website is working properly can save you from many issues.
A CMS is an all compact website building and managing platforms that allow businesses to have total control over their corporate identity asset and keep in updated with little assistance and without the necessary technicalities.
NEED A CMS WEBSITE FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
Boundless Technologies is a first-class website designing and development company that is dedicated to providing the best and developed CMS website solutions for businesses of various sizes.
Give us a call today for a free consultation!