Internet and Businesses Articles

A CMS -- or Content Management System -- is a system to setup and maintain content. And this articles focuses on systems to support the content of your website. The system provides you with standard functionality to setup a site, to use a database, to standardize new web pages, al by means of some prefabricated routines, modules and tables. As any other standardized system, a CMS delivers some standard functions which can be parameterized; you are flexible up to the space left from these parameters.

But when should you use such a system? There are some advantages and disadvantages to consider.

Standardized systems get build because many users face familiar (design) issues. We all need a Web Site, like most companies need some kind of a ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. First these systems are designed in house, like people build their own web applications. Then, specialized companies dedicate their time and focus on building a standard solution for common problems.

The solution a CMS provides is a default design and easy maintenance of a common Web Site. As many people require a space on the virtual world, a CMS could help them.

But first you need to know whether your case really requires a CMS. Although such a decision is not that hard, there are many advantages and disadvantages. If you take these into account your step to implement a Web Site with (if the advantages match your situation) or without a CMS is just one further down the road.

A good example of the environment where the CMS is used is the news agency. The journalist writes either content on a PC (workstation) at the office or off side on a PDA and through an interface this content is transferred to the CMS and merged with the rest of the content flow; some content takes only the webroad, other only the printed version and yet other takes both...

© 2006 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management tools. Have a look at some of our free management tools. http://www.astorwhite.com/

Introduction

The growth of Internet has placed before the surfer or an online shopper the problem of plenty -usually referred to as ‘information overload’. Website owners are faced with the challenge of website visibility, be it the surfer (including customers) or the search engines – online information must be continually reviewed and updated so that both of them have access to an up-to-date version. Hence out of this necessity, was born a need for online Content Management Systems (CMS). A CMS includes the system and processes whereby information is created, managed, published, and archived by one or more persons.

So what exactly is a CMS ?

CMS is generally used to publish new and frequently updated information. Examples of frequently published information include:

• Press releases

• Newsletters

• Events Schedule

• Specials

• Product updates

An online Content Management System can be as simple as an online HTML editor (like TinyMCE), or as complex as an enterprise solution like Documentum or Reddot. It’s important to choose an online content management system that suits the business needs of an organization. CMS today are scripts or software modules that usually perform the following functions:

• Creation of a structured website

• Facilitate online content management which includes adding / deleting / editing of content by business users

• Facilitate access rights for online content management

• Using content templates render consistent output

What are the advantages of an online Content Management System ?

Online content management has following advantages over conventional methods:

• Decrease Costs

- Content Creation : Content creation is less costly as business users can directly contribute information online without going through an IT specialist for authoring process.
- Online Content Management: Managing information is less costly as content is maintained by the company personnel and standard processes are automated. Common tasks like checking for dead links and archiving old pages are done transparently by the CMS.

• Reduced time overheads

- Reduced time for development: Just upload the CMS software to your web server and install and you are ready to go.
- Time Sensitive Operations: An online content management system improves the speed of publishing the content online. E.g. Publishing news ahead of the competition brings a first-mover advantage, attracting additional visits to the site.

• Empower the user: Empowering the business user involves making better use of information and putting control in the hands of content owners, thus facilitating online content management from anywhere, anyplace.

• Content Accessibility: Since most online content management systems follow the laid down standards, content accessibility is in multiple formats. Content is generated automatically to various outputs like standard HTML, printer friendly HTML, PDF, and XML.

• Updated content gets back customers: A frequently updated site using online content management system will have fresher content thus encouraging customers to return, resulting in increased revenue opportunities.

• Audit Trail: The audit trail, available at both the user and content level, provides a history of content changes. And thus ensures full accountability among the business users.

• Presentation Consistency: CMS present the content using well defined templates. These templates provide a mechanism for maintaining a consistent look and feel.

• Improved Search Engine Visibility: When content is updated frequently, search engines index your website pages as often.

Amod Puranik is an IT Consultant and Web Developer, with over 9 years of experience in Web Development. He can be contacted for more info / consultation on the subject.

Site-wide Content Management

Site-wide content management systems allow you to adjust any page on your web site, as well as the sites navigation. Typically, you are able to view an online file manager-like interface as well as an in-depth page editor that allows you to set colors, fonts types, sizes and content. This form of content management provides the most flexibility with regards to the content on your site.

Typically the developer will setup your content management system and then design your site to fit the requirements and constraints (if any) of the system. You can then add content to the site and the content will be integrated into the system. Some of the drawbacks of this form of content management is that you are giving too much control of the content to a number of different users, therefore you are leaving the opportunity open for someone to break the design consistencies of your site, making the web site look unorganized, and reflect a poor image for your company. As well, having this type of system can require a large part of training for your staff, as the editor can sometimes be quite complicated.

Design-Oriented Content Management

Design-oriented content management systems are built around the design of the site. While the web site is being designed, the developer will develop a consistent style for the content and navigation pages within your web site and the content management system will then use simple forms to plug the information/content you enter into the page. This typically does not provide you with an editor-like interface as with the site-wide content management, so you lose some flexibility, but with a properly and professionally designed web site you shouldn't run into any of these problems. The interface for a design-oriented content management system will typically include simple forms with a number of textboxes, listboxes, or other form elements and a submit button. Once you hit the submit button the information is logged in the database and the page is written to the server. This keeps the design and layout of the site consistent as you are only entering the information and the content management system will place the information within your web site as intended by the designer. Because of the simple interface for these systems, the system will style all content internally, leaving no chance for inconsistency errors.

When you have a large number of users updating different areas of the website, this is the single most significant benefit of a design-oriented content management system, as you won’t have different styles for the content from different users updating the web site, as you may with a site-wide content management system. One drawback of a design-oriented content management system is cost. Essentially every system is customized for the company as it is built around the custom design of the web site, rather than based off an original platform which makes for more setup work.

Component-based Content Management

Often clients do not require the need to update every area on their website. In this case component-based content management is the most efficient, and most cost-effective method. This form of content management allows you to modify various componentsof your web site only, for example, a news releases or articles area of your web site. This is common if you have a web site that requires you to update quite often, but only 1 or 2 areas of your web site. If you have an area of your web site that requires you to update on a regular basis, but the rest of the site is left on its own, then this situation is right for you.

Essentially, a component-based system is just like the design-oriented system but on a smaller scale. Rather than maintaining the entire website, users can only maintain one area, which may be all they require for their web site, making a component-based content management system perfect for their needs.
Potential Issues with any form of Content Management
Statistical Errors and Inconsistencies

Often companies will develop content management systems to work solely through a database, and use ID numbers to display content on your site. For example, if every page on your web site is http://www.domain.com/page.php?pid=12345 or some other ID number, then your web site really only consists of only 1 page. That one page grabs content from the database and displays it, while each link throughout the site just sends a different ID number for the page to display.

This is usually ok with smaller component-based content management systems because it only affects one URL, however when an entire site is built this way, every entry in your web server log files will be for that one page. Then when you look at your log files, you’ll see that you’ve received all your visits to page.php and that’s it! This makes the information totally unusable, so you’ll need some other form of stats tracking to view your web site’s traffic and any other visitor focused information such as navigation paths, bounce rates, and entry and exit points.

You should always have more than the basic log file analysis when it comes to your web stats, but often nothing more than the basics is provided by your web host. In this case, we recommend free stats services like Google Analytics or ClickTracks Appetizer.

Search Engine Compatibility

Having URLs that are ID-based does not tell search engines anything about the page, and makes it more difficult for search engines toanalyze your content. Having an address such as http://www.domain.com/page.php?id=234234 does not tell search engines anything about what your page is about, and Google even says not to use ID in your URLs. If you can name your page http://www.domain.com/services.html then that makes it a little more obvious to search engines what your trying to say on that page.

A fix for both of these two problem is to ensure that your content management system does not use the ID-based form of URLs, and actually writes the static HTML page to your server. Technically, it is not much more work, and isn't complicated, however, a lot of content management systems do not write each page to the server.

Database Failure/Lag Time

If all of your content is being stored in a database, and not written to the server, then what happens if your database server fails? On smaller sites this may not be an issue as the database will be on the same computer as the web server, however when you store your database on a separate machine, that adds 1 more point of failure that can bring down your entire web site. It is best to ensure that your pages are actually written to the web site so that in the event of a database crash your web site will still be operational.

Also, the time to display a page is drastically slowed down when all the content is retrieved from a database, as the server has to make a request to the database each time it is displayed. The site may also need to request the navigation from the database, and product information...With the files being written to the server, there is no need to constantly make requests for the content from a database, making the time to display the page much faster.

Conclusion

Based on your web site needs, you may fall into any of the above-mentioned categories. Commonly, we find that smaller businesses with a limited budget only need component-based content management systems as they are only updating a couple sections of their web site frequently. Larger web sites with a limited number of people maintaining the site work best with site-wide content management as there won’t be any consistency problems with only a single user updating the web site. Design-oriented content management works best for large organizationswith multiple users making updates to the web site. This allows for users to enter their content, while the system handles the design andlayout of the content, so their won’t be any inconsistency in thedisplay of the content on the web site.

I hope it was also made clear that if you are using a design-based or site-wide content management system it is imperative that your files are written directly to the web server. Be absolutely sure to check for this when evaluating any content management system you may be implementing on your web site.

Jarrod Goddard is the President and Founder of Net Shift Media Inc. a full service Internet marketing and web site development firm. Our award-winning design firm offers web-based application development, web hosting, web site design, and Internet marketing including search engine optimization (SEO), and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) management.

Perhaps the first consideration when choosing a content management solution (CMS) is to determine exactly what it is. Well, imagine your website is like the house you live in. A web design agency has built this house for you, a web host has fitted the gas and electricity and ensured that the house is large enough for your needs, and graphic designers and copywriters have made the place look good. But what if you want to chuck out some of your old furniture, move things around or update your ageing entertainment system? Doing this on a website is not as easy as it is in reality, which is why you need a CMS to enable you to do a little spring cleaning and ensure everything is up-to-date and working to the required standard.

In other words, a bespoke CMS can facilitate your control of nearly every aspect of your website so that simple changes can be undertaken quickly and cost effectively. It should also enable you to make the following modifications without bringing in a consultant or specialist:
# Add unlimited new pages and images from your desktop, change font styles, sizes and decorations and upload audio and video clips, PDFs and Word documents for your users to download.

# Edit existing pages using an HTML or Microsoft Word type editor and manage the formats and dates of all new articles.

# Send e-newsletters to your client database and tailor them to send information according to consumer preference.

A good CMS should also mean that you can receive enquiries through an online feedback form, manage your product database, view an online sales chart, download customer details into Microsoft Excel, maintain a secure area for payment details and create administrator accounts with different levels of security access. In addition to this, an advanced CMS gives you detailed user statistics allowing you to see how many people have viewed your website, when they viewed it, what pages they looked at, which search engine they came from and what they typed into the search engine to get to you. Such data can be shown in both graphical and tabular formats that can be used in company presentations and reports to identify areas of strength on the site and areas where there's room for improvement.

As should be clear by now, the great benefit of employing the right CMS is that it enables the manager of your webpage to conduct routine content updates, which keeps the site dynamic and attractive to new and existing users and allows content authors to publish material without having to learn new skills. This removes the need for having to hire an expensive contractor, so you can implement changes when they are required without having to think about the expense. Effectively, a good, integrated CMS allows you to take control of your site. Integrated CMS systems can be expensive, but the overall cost of ownership of the site will be dramatically reduced over time.

Here are a couple of things to look out for in reviewing any prospective CMS package:
# Assess what kind of system the CMS runs on and look at the advantages and disadvantages of this system. A WYSIWYG system, for example, allows the web site owner to use a graphical web development tool, such as FrontPage or Net Objects Fusion, to make changes to the way the web site looks. The problem with this system, however, is that it uses quite rigid and convoluted code and can produce generic results so that your site doesnt stand out from the crowd. Look out for systems that are more adaptable and ask competitors and the managers of web sites you like what CMS they use and whether it truly makes their site more efficient and easier to use. Another place to look might be The Approved Index the UKs leading business to business referral service, which lists up to eight CMS providers in your area.

# Seek assurances from your CMS provider that you wont need to call them every time you get stuck for advice and assistance as to how to use the programme. They should provide all the necessary training as part of the cost of the programme and include user manuals and faqs in case you get stuck. And if you get into real trouble there should be a 24 hour service desk to call. The level of support available to you from your provider and range of services they are able to offer should be a deciding factor in your choice of where to take your business. On a similar note, check that they are solvent. Its no good buying an CMS from a company, only for the company to go bust a year later.

# Establish how readily and easily your CMS can be upgraded to accommodate new technology, and how much any upgrade will cost. Can it be done by you or will an expert be required to come in to implement the upgrade? On a similar note, are there any assurances and guarantees with regard to CMS performance and reliability? Just as you want a CMS that can address all your IT needs, you also want one that is reliable.

# Decide whether you want a partial or a total CMS programme. It may be that it is only the news area of your site that you want to manage. Naturally you want a CMS that approximates as closely as possible your needs in terms of what you want to control and what you are happy leaving to others.

This article provides a comprehensive outline of the benefits of employing a CMS for your web site and the particular areas you should look at to ensure that you have the right CMS working for you. The best of luck in hiring a provider who can build a CMS that fits your company like a fine Saville Row suit!

This article has been provided by the Approved Index. They have created a directory of Approved CMS Companies that are based in the UK. Use their free site to compare and request free quotes for your Content Management System requirements. http://www.approvedindex.co.uk/

Troy got his website up by some college friends who, just like him, pursued the green bucks by way of putting up small-scale business enterprises. Troy wants his website as his communications portal to the rest of the world, and his friends got it for him splendidly. Until he needed to change his phone numbers. Then his business tagline. And more recently, his business address.

His website still looks good, his friends’ collaborative efforts on the design proved effective in drawing traffic to his site, but the necessary changes that came and went, though necessary, had proven expensive.

Troy wonders if there is a way he can “tinker” with his own site, adding news clips here and there, without necessitating a visit to his friends’ place, and get billed with few bottles of extra beer.

Troy’s predicament is shared by many website owners who, having successfully navigated the internet for a few years, forgot that their site needs a facelift from time to time, in order to remain competitive. Change can be simultaneous with demand, and in order to cope and maintain the high traffic beating the path to their site, it should be updated regularly, and re-invented periodically. This is one of the few most effective approaches to surviving on the internet arena.

Finding a superior web designing company is easy, but in Troy’s case, it was not the design which bothered him but the small details he needed to change on his site. As he gets billed each time, in the overall, he is losing money. He wondered how much will it cost if he introduces a new product review next month? As this will require bigger updates, he almost sensed his friends asking for sushi to go with the beers, too!

This is where Content Management System (CMS) makes a curtsy.

For one, it’s not expensive. Sometimes, it can pass on as a complimentary service, however, it depends upon your site’s requirements. A larger site may require a larger CMS, and so goes the cost, but what is it compared to having a system in place which can make your site adapt easily to the needs that your growing business necessitates?

Two, Content Management System empowers you of no technical knowhow to manage your site, making updates on it regularly – CMS has all the technical details you need, you only have to focus attention on the written word that will optimize your site.

Changes can be introduced at anytime, and it can be done by just anyone. CMS allows you to fully manage your site - no longer highly dependent on web designers, you save in the long haul.

In a nutshell, Content Management System is a software package loaded with benefits: you can add pages to your site, and replace old ones; reinvent your site with latest trends that suit the present business climate on the internet, and simplify repetitive tasks by automating them!

For Troy, CMS is like having his web designer-friends, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on his beck and call, at the comfort of his home – minus the sushi, the pay and the bottles of beer.

Steve Arun is an Internet Marketing, Client Account Specialist (http://www.va4business.com/) for I-wayinfocom Inc., an SE Friendly Web Development company provides easy to use online CMS (Content Management System) to small business. Go now to I-wayinfocom's affordable web development services (http://www.i-wayinfocom.com/), the .net development specialists, to access their affordable “CMS (Content Management System)” and to find efficient web design solution that fits your business needs.

A web based content management system (CMS) is used for webdesign so that the php, asp or jsp scripts call in the data from the mysql or sql database to create the content on a page. You would enter the content of a website in a database using a user friendly Admin Panel and this would update itself on the actual website. CMS is critical to the success of almost every website and intranet.

The need

Static websites are easy to design but hard to maintain. You have created a static website with desired content and you put in efforts to promote that site. As a result, the website grows organically over time, and while it is very useful, it is far from perfect. The search engines give more importance to the websites which are updated regularly.
To update the site content on regular basis, you would require the web professional company to give you continuous support. Now this dependency leads to either continuous expenses or poorly update site.
Thankfully, this dependency is what a content management system is specifically designed to solve.

What is Web Based CMS ?

A web based content management system (CMS) helps you manage the content data on the website. The management includes creation, updating, distribution, publishing, and discovery of content.
And it is not the only thing that the CMS can do for you. The CMS now helps to generate new pages, categorize the content, manage the layout and presentation of the site, manage users and permissions for the site, manage other dynamic modules on the site and many other things using a very user-friendly Admin Panel which requires minimal or no technical expertise.

Features and Benefits

There are a wide range of features and benefits that can be achieved by implementing a CMS, including:

· Create and Manage New Pages

· Manage site navigation and meta content

· Assign users to manage the content in decentralized way.

· Manage site layout and presentation by editing the HTML.

· Manage other modules on the site. Like if you have forum installed on the site, you can manage the forum preferences, settings, categories, forums, users from the Admin panel.

· Better consistency

· Increased security

· Reduced duplication of information

· Reduced site maintenance costs

Out of all the features, content management remains the mainstay of the CMS sites.

Content management

The CMS based sites have a front end which the site for public, a database which stores the vital data of your site and a Admin Panel to manage the site. Through the Admin Panel, you can create content pages like you are creating a document in MS Word. This is a completely non-technical interface to create new pages or update existing pages without any knowledge of HMTL, javascript or programming language.
You can simply click create pages and a page opens which asks you to define the attributes of the page like Title of the page, Link Title for the frontend navigation menu and page content. The page content box uses a WYSIWYG editor which helps you to improve the presentation of the page like making any text bold, colored or creating hyperlinks. You can also upload images with your content.
You can also define the meta tags for the page, publish and expiry date, author information etc to make the page more meaningful.
Once a page has been created, it is saved into the database on the server. This stores all the content of the site, along with the other supporting details.
The CMS also helps you to make the content management an interactive process between you and your users. A similar page can be accessible to your users who can post the content like articles, news or event. The added content pages can be accessed through the Admin Panel and approved to be published on the site.

CMS Availability

There are various CMS options with different capabilities and strengths in the market to choose from. Depending on your business requirements, you can have a customized CMS based website or you can choose any open source CMS available like Drupal, Xoops, mambo, Joomla, Typo3 etc.
Every organisation has a unique set of requirements for a content management system, and there is no solution that can fit your needs. By allocating sufficient time and resources, you can achieve the best possible solution. Out of customized and open source CMS, I would advice to evaluate the open source CMS available and get it customized to your needs by any company specializing in the Open Source solutions like Dyanmic Intel.
Now the common question is Won't my CMS site look like all the rest if I use Open Source solution?
It doesn't have to! Most quality content management systems will allow you to apply templates and plug-ins to your site, which can set the design of your site apart from others using the same engine by nearly anything that HTML and CSS can do. Typically, you can find templates on the main web site for the content management system you've chosen - and in the rare event that this is not the case, templates are typically no more than a Google search away. Most systems which let you install a custom skin will even let you design your own; allowing you to make your new site virtually as personalized as any site on the web can be.

Conclusion

Content management systems are now no more new to the market and have been established as the most important part of your presence on the internet. Now CMS based websites can create SEO friendly pages and be managed by various users across the world.
I have provided the basics of Content Management System in this article. If you want to read more on CMS like evaluating CMS etc, use our article directory Pacific Articles(http://www.pacificarticles.com/).

Shakir Husein is the CEO of Dynamic Intel(http://www.dynamicintel.com/), an Application Development Company based in US. Dynamic Intel is recognized as experts in building customized eBusiness Infrastructures. Dynamic Intel also designs web-based solutions for small to mid sized companies including cost effective Content Management Systems and Ecommerce solutions. Shakir can be contacted at info@dynamicintel.com

Through my years of Web Consulting, the leading complaint that I hear all the time from small business owners is that they cannot find good, reliable and affordable local Web help for their business. This issue has caused most small business websites to be old, out-of-date, and not reflect the branding and true image of their company.

Because of this troubling issue, the past five years has brought on the new idea of Content Management for websites, which has become a more widely used term in the Web Industry. Content Management, also known as CM, it is the process of creating, editing and storing information on the Web in a structured and orderly manner. For this article, I’m only going to discuss the importance of Content Management, in relation to the management of websites, and the need for the small business to effectively manage the content of their site for the future success of their business.

As with any new technology, Content Management first started with larger organizations and over the past five years has become more readily available to mid-sized businesses. Most of these companies used their existing in-house development resources to create Content Management Systems to manage the data on their website. This change in the way companies are able to manage their site(s) has allowed for mid and larger companies to reduce their website management costs and allows their sites to grow in a greater capacity than can be accomplished through hard-coding of text, images, and other website data, as was done in the past. This is one of the main reasons why these larger companies are able to grow their business online at such a tremendous and increasing rate.

As this is great for the mid to larger corporations, unfortunately, the problem still lies in the fact that small business owners continue to struggle to manage their data in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Most small business owners are still using local Web shops to help them maintain their websites, at a hefty cost and in a unreliable manner. As more and more small businesses need to manage their business online, there is a great need for Content Management solution providers that target the small business. The issue, however, is that small businesses cannot generally afford the standard Content Management conversion fees that apply to converting their website into a Content Management System, without using overseas development resources.

Over the past few years, many websites have popped-up that allow small business owners to register online and create a template-driven website to manage the data of their website. The problems with these sites is the fact that they cannot truly be customized and lack the ability for the business to provide an image and branding of their company because the designs and layouts of these sites are what’s referred to as “template-driven” and look like every other site out there. Also, when a business needs to add a custom component, form or tool to their website these template-driven sites most likely lack the ability to provide the business with this ability.

If a small business can find the resources to convert their website into a Content Management System, in a cost-effect and efficient manner, then they are 10 steps ahead of the game. With the ability to login to their own website to manage content, images, graphics, customer data, employee information, and much more, they are able to provide a return on their investment greater than when they had to hire a Web designer or developer to hard code their website data for them.

The next five years will cause some smaller Web development companies to transition and begin to offer Content Management for their clients, instead of providing static websites by hard-coding the data. This transition will allow small businesses to keep up with their competition, while reducing their overhead and in most cases provide a return on investment for their business. The importance for small businesses is to realize the importance of Content Management for the website today, begin to analyze their business, and locate the resources to help them convert their site into a Content Management System. The time is now and the importance is for them to stay ahead of their competition, while growing their website in conjunction with their business.

At Hudson Horizons, we provide website Content Management conversion for the small to mid-sized business to easily allow our clients the ability to manage the data of their website on a day-to-day basis.

Hudson Horizons is an e-business product, solution and marketing company specializing in creating highly sophisticated customized websites, web-based software applications and providing e-marketing services for small and mid-sized businesses.

Our vision and ultimate ambition as a company is to always strive to be "The New Light for e-Business."

By offering new, innovative and extremely competitive products and solutions to our customers, we provide better ways to run and operate their business online. http://www.hudsonhorizons.com/

The downfall of many websites is that their content is allowed to become out-of-date. This disappoints visitors, who are looking for more than the old information they find. It is also frustrating for the website owner, who may not have the resources to enable more regular updates.

The facility to update a website’s content directly, without any reliance on a web development partner, is an essential tool for many business owners. Good use of a Content Management System (CMS) brings clear business benefits by improving a website’s effectiveness. How would you benefit by using a CMS to update your website?

What Is A Content Management System?

Unlike much IT terminology, the definition of "content management system" is fairly intuitive: it is a system that enables you, the website owner, to update your website’s content. Most importantly, a CMS makes it possible to change the content on your website without the involvement of your web designer.

How Could I Use A Content Management System On My Website?

The ability to manage the content on your website gives you the freedom to publish a variety of information. Typical uses for a CMS include publishing:

* News, announcements and press releases
* Articles and newsletters
* Product details
* Special offers
* Testimonials and case studies
* Vacancies and personnel profiles
* Useful links
* Online resources and downloads


How Will I Know Whether A Content Management System Will Benefit Me?

Various "symptoms" suggest that you will benefit from using a CMS:

* Do you regularly ask your web designer to update text / images on your website?
* Are you reliant on your web designer to keep your website in sync with activities elsewhere in your business, such as new product launches, price changes or marketing campaigns?
* Do you find that the cost of paying your website designer to maintain your website is getting too high?
* Are you frustrated that some of the content on your website is out-of-date or inaccurate?
* Do you ever miss business opportunities by not being able to add timely or topical content in response to changes in your market?


If you answer "Yes" to one or more of these questions, you should use a CMS to update your website.

What Are The Business Benefits Of A Content Management System?

You will benefit by implementing a CMS for a number of reasons:

Lower website maintenance costs

The immediate benefit is financial. Updating your own website, rather than paying a website designer to make changes on your behalf, will save you money.

Using a CMS usually incurs a fixed charge which does not vary with the number of changes you make. Therefore, the more you use your CMS, the lower the "per change" cost. When a website designer makes changes on your behalf, they will charge for each change and so the "per change" cost is never reduced.

Using a Content Management System can reduce on on-going website costs.

Timely and topical content

A CMS enables you to make immediate changes to your website. Furthermore, many CMS’s provide you with the option of specifying a start and an end date for content, which means you can control exactly when something appears on your website.

You might want to show certain content at a particular time of year, such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day, or at a time that coincides with a particular event (the World Cup or a general election, for instance).

Perhaps you have a series of events that run regularly throughout the year: a CMS could automatically remove the details of each event from your website as soon as it becomes out-of-date. This means you would not need to remember to update your website a specific times as the CMS would look after this for you.

Using a Content Management System enables you to add timely and topical content to your website.

Greater flexibility

Once content is added to your CMS, it can be used in a number of places on your website. This means you can be more inventive with your website and present relevant content to your visitors in various ways.

For example, you may have a News page, which includes all the news stories you have published, but also wish to show the three most recent news stories in a side panel on your Home page. Each time you add a fresh story to your website, the list of three most recent stories and the full list on the News page is updated automatically.

Using a Content Management System means you can display content on your website more creatively, which will engage visitors and make your website more rewarding.

Search engine success

Regularly adding fresh content to your website will attract search engines. New content, which includes keywords and phrases relevant to your market, you will improve your chances of search engine exposure and this will produce a higher number of website visitors.

Using a Content Management System to add topical content to your website will raise your site’s profile in search engines, which will encourage a higher number of visits to your website.

Ignorance is bliss

A CMS removes the need for you to understand the technicalities of creating web pages, while still enabling you to add rich content to your website such as formatted text, tables, images and links. By hiding this complexity, a CMS lets you focus on the content without needing to worry about its layout or appearance.

If you were to update your website without using a CMS, you would need to purchase some suitable web editing software for your computer and develop specific web design skills.

Using a Content Management System means you can update your website without needing to install specialist software on your computer or learn new technical skills.

How up-to-date is your website? Are you missing out on the benefits of using a CMS to add fresh, innovative content to your site? Are you paying your website designer to make updates on your behalf and you would prefer to be self-sufficient?

A Content Management System is an essential tool for many business owners and it can improve a website’s effectiveness by offering visitors timely, engaging content. Perhaps a Content Management System will help you transform your website... so your customers regard it as a valuable and vibrant source of information and you can depend on it as a regular source of business enquiries.

Iceberg Internet provides content management systems for various clients. Contact us on at http://www.iceberginternet.co.uk for more information or to discuss your content management requirements.

Jeremy Flight runs Iceberg Internet, a web development business in Derby, and he works with business owners in the East Midlands who want their website to contribute effectively to their business. Jeremy regularly writes articles relevant to running a successful business website and has undertaken various speaking engagements about website design and search engine optimisation. He graduated from Brunel University with a first-class honours degree and is a qualified Search Engine Marketer.

In recent years, website development has massively increased in popularity. With new concepts, standards and technology, comes the demand for more independent and functional solutions – increasingly, this demand has been targeted towards the Content Management System (CMS).

A typical example of a website owner is an entrepreneur who doesn’t have the time (or possibly money) to chase web designers to make minor site adjustments, or the technical know-how to make the necessary changes themselves. Up to date and regularly refreshed content is now a must to ensure visitor loyalty – no-one will read the same articles or news items every day. The solution? A Content Management System.

With content management becoming more and more affordable, the more in demand it will become, hence any web design companies who cannot offer this service may find themselves missing out on potential clients. Of course there will always be the need for web designers, but the introduction of the content management system actually decreases the amount of work required per project, allowing increased time spent on generating further business.

So what does a typical CMS allow?

- Add/remove/edit pages.

- Update content within each page.

- Add images or documents where needed.

- Update contact information.

- Show updated listings (e.g. News Items, Articles, Catalogues).

+ Many extra features not listed here.

In conclusion - If you offer web design services and do not have Content Management Systems available to your visitors, this might be the time to consider this ever growing popular service for your company; there is a shifting demand for this ever-popular freedom online.

http://www.fooshy.com

RB
http://www.fooshy.com

When if comes to founding a new website, many companies are unhappy with the choices that they have to make. There are traditionally two choices, between paying a web designer to come in and construct your website – and then pay them again each time you need an update; and building your own site: dull, two-dimensional and more likely to drive custom away than bring it in. Obviously this is not a choice at all, but a pick between two equally unpleasant options.

Even more obviously, there has to be a better way. That way is the Content Management System. Using CMS puts the capability back into your own hands. The site is at beginning designed by a professional, then you have a package that you can use to amend and update you website without having to wait or risk losing business, as well as being able to update your site according to your marketing needs.

CMS allows you to alter your website directly, so that any mistakes, typos, for example, can be altered straight away. It works on a What You See Is What You Get system, so you know exactly what you are putting onto your site. A good CMS is secure, is built in layers, to ensure flexibility, is operating system platform independent, and is easy to extend with new features that maybe your website will require as your company will grow.

When you are considering the CMS which will help you build your business web site, there is a system which can give you the benefits, and that has a full support of developers all around the world that are ready to help you.

This software is called Typo3 Content Management System. TYPO3 is a free Open Source content management system for enterprise purposes on the web and in intranets. One of the main benefits of using the TYPO3 CMS solution is that it is ideal to use for small and large businesses alike, offering a professional and stylish format that is adaptable and flexible.

What makes the Typo3 Content Management Software system so popular is how easy it is to use: anyone who has typed words onto a screen can use it comfortably. Its stylish and businesslike format means that it keeps the look of a professional web design. TYPO3 CMS can be configured in way to achieve high search engine visibility so search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN will easily index your page, leading to more relevant traffic going to your site. No other form of online advertising can match the return on investment that search engine optimisation offers. The system also automatically updates links, so there is no more wasted time searching for ‘not available’ sites.

TYPO3 CMS produces a standards compliant XHTML code, and it fulfils other standards such as the WCAG 1.0 standard of creating accessible web sites for wide audience visitors even for people with disabilities. This system also guards against mistakes by preserving the integrity of the web design, and all changes can be simply reversed. The owner of the system can also set different limits for different members of staff, so that you can control who is allowed to access your administration part of CMS web site.

Daniel Brudgins is a CMS consultant and http://www.typo3-consultancy.co.uk/ at Atto New Media LTD - who provide http://www.attonewmedia.co.uk/ where he works both directly and indirectly in helping customers to get new companies’ TYPO3 websites online.

This potential advantages of an online market has created a drive for small businesses to create an online presence. Many, however, simply have a website designed, and stop there, without realising the true potential and maximising the real value their site has to offer. If you have a website, you either have a content management system at the heart of it, or you have a fairly static site. If you don`t yet have a content management system driving your site, you may wonder why you need it.

This article will help clarify a few reasons why a content management core is almost essential for keeping your online investment paying for itself on an ongoing basis.

1) Non-technical people can update content We all like to think of ourselves as super-capable people, but the reality is that there are very few people who are all round brilliant programmers, designers and content creators, in fact most people are none-of-the-above. Some try, but most fall short in at least one or two areas compared to a professional who only focuses on one of these competencies.

What this means is that your website designer or programmer is probably not your best marketing person, and therefore not the best person to maintain your website`s contents. A content management system allows anyone who can use a word processor and has some basic computer literacy, to update their website, as often as they want.

2) It costs less This may sound strange when you consider that it will always cost more to have a content management system built into your website. Of course the cost benefit isn`t the up-front development cost, its value is in not having to pay a developer to manually make changes to the site, which of course is very costly, and time consuming.

3) Separation of content from code Let`s say you design a great site, populate it with three years of material, by which time the technology used to build the site is outdated. If your content is interwoven with the site itself you`ll be throwing out the baby with the bathwater if you upgrade your website. A good content management system will allow you to completely overhaul the presentation and application logic of your site, while maintaining your content in perfect separation from the mechanics of the rest of the site.

4) Uniformity of design When you have a content management system built for you, every page it displays is always done the exact same way. In fact, in many cases, you are simply seeing the exact same "page" every time you view it, the system just displays different content in it according to your requests. This creates a consistent presentation of your content across your site. There`s nothing worse for a site visitor to have to do than have to figure out where everything is for every page they visit. A confusing and disorientating site will seldom get repeat visitors.

5) Upgradeability and maintainability Because a well-developed content management system is designed to play nicely with the rest of the site, you can upgrade the content management system, or make changes to it, without affecting the rest of the site. In fact, as long as the API (application programming interface, or protocol for communication with the site) remains the same, you can completely replace your content management system with a new one.

6) Currency of content This is probably your best benefit. By removing the technical and process barriers to creating new content, you are limited only by your desire to create content, and your motivation to do so. It should be no more or less difficult than opening a Word or OpenOffice document and getting started, just with this solution, the world gets to see your work once you have previewed and published it.

In short, if you don`t have a content management solution in place for your business website at the moment, you effectively have an online marketing brochure, possibly with some application functionality. That may be sufficient for your purposes, but a good CMS will make a huge difference to the relevance and value of your site to your customers and potential customers.

David Malan is an internet and e-commerce expert with over ten years experience in designing and developing enterprise grade online solutions for business.

He owns and runs RealmSurfer Consulting, based in Perth, Western Australia.

Website: http://www.realmsurfer.com.au/
About: http://www.realmsurfer.com.au/about_realmsurfer

Introduction

SantaCruzLive.com is a youth and entertainment portal for one of the liveliest towns on the west coast. An extension of the Santa Cruz Sentinel (the local newspaper), SantaCruzLive.com endeavors to reach beyond the typical newspaper demographic, to attract a younger readership in the online environment. Newspapers have struggled with this problem for the past five years, and SantaCruzLive.com is one of the most effective solutions to hit the Internet.

Newspapers are notorious for under-investing in their websites, making the development of a completely new site – focused on non-newspaper readers – a difficult sell. What do you do when you can't get funding?

The answer: "open source".

Open source software is free technology that is widely available on the Internet, offering sophisticated tools with no price tag. SantaCruzLive.com’s deployment of open source technology serves as a model to small businesses that seek dynamic websites without the accompanying costs.

An Ambitious Agenda

The Santa Cruz Sentinel recognized early that they needed a way to reach younger readers. While the previous generation grew up understanding the importance of the local newspaper, today’s youth turn to the web instead. Movie listings, local events, and even restaurants used to see the newspaper as the easiest way to reach new customers. That dynamic has changed, and SantaCruzLive.com wanted to take advantage of the emerging trend.

In attempting to appeal to a younger audience, though, the Santa Cruz Sentinel faced a daunting challenge. Newspaper investment in online efforts has always been thin, and SantaCruzLive.com would be a fundamentally new product; it would not simply mirror the newspaper. Knowing that they would not be able to fund an ambitious new product heavily, the team at the Santa Cruz Sentinel turned to the open source community for innovative software solutions without having to pay thousands of dollars in software fees.

Why Open Source?

Open source technology seems like the domain of geeks who continually try to build a better web mousetrap. For small businesses, though, open source technology has emerged into a viable alternative for establishing a web presence. The premise of the open source movement is that the technology is free. One simply can download the software they desire from one of many websites, and the technology can be modified to meet a company’s specific business needs.

The proliferation of open source technology has led to the development of a substantial pool of talent across the country. It is easy to find talent; you do not need to worry about being stuck with difficult or clumsy technology if you lose your web developer. Expertise is widely available; the cost of this expertise has come down substantially as a result. In fact, the wide adoption of open source technology has led to the development of sophisticated open source software that can be used "out of the box".

SantaCruzLive.com used Zope and Plone – yes, the names are bizarre – to power its new online product. Zope and Plone are unique open source products. Zope is a back-end tool used to make websites dynamic. Instead of paying a web programmer to build sophisticated functionality, Zope has the features built for you. Similar products would cost tens of thousands of dollars, but Zope doesn’t cost a dime.

Plone works with Zope. Also open source (and free), Plone helps you manage the content on your website. Many small businesses labor under the belief that every page is separate, and that even small changes must be made by an eccentric and expensive technology guru. Plone proves that even small businesses can build and manage their websites like the Fortune 500. Instead of building and managing your website from scratch, Plone lets business users make and publish website changes quickly and easily.

With only limited funding, SantaCruzLive.com realized that it could cut its development time, develop a better website, and go live more quickly by using open source web development and content management tools. Zope and Plone obviated the need for extensive programming and made the website easier to manage. The team in Santa Cruz has new information to publish every day, requiring that non-programmers be able to publish content quickly. Open source technology made this possible.

Small Business Lessons

SantaCruzLive.com is a unique example of how a newspaper can serve as an example to the business community. Like most entrepreneurs, the “intrapreneurs” at the Santa Cruz Sentinel did not have a large budget, and the team already had full-time jobs managing the newspaper’s website (SantaCruzSentinel.com). They decided not to let the lack of funding and time is a barrier to their success. Using open source technology, the Santa Cruz team was able to reduce the cost of this project drastically, and they simply put in extra hours to develop SantaCruzLive.com.

Entrepreneurs know the same feeling. We spend long hours to develop our business. The work you do during the day is focused on marketing your products, developing new relationships, and servicing existing customers. Growth efforts often have to occur after hours. Money is always tight. We know all too well that an investment in new web technology comes out of the same pocket as the mortgage payment and car bill. Every dollar spent is spent judiciously.

With tools like Zope and Plone, the decision to invest in online growth becomes a lot easier. Instead of having to invest in software and programmers to launch a new website, you can cut the tab in half. The software is free, and there is plenty of talent available to work with you. Open source software helps you keep your website current – and your online presence fresh. Your online project will cost much less, as the software is free and offers functionality that you normally would have to hire a developer to build from scratch.

Conclusion

SantaCruzLive.com was launched under the same conditions as most online entrepreneurial efforts. The budget was tight, and nobody had ample time. Distractions abounded, as everybody on the team had "real" jobs. But, open source technology made this innovative endeavor possible. With no software costs, the Santa Cruz Sentinel was able to make the cost of the project manageable, and the effectiveness of open source technology reduced development time substantially.

Small businesses face many of the same problems as the Santa Cruz Sentinel. We earn every new customer, and any investment in growth must be compelling. Open source software makes new online solutions less expensive, and it becomes much easier to get started – and finished. The case for investing in growth consequently becomes more effective, since the cost of growth is reduced.

Open source technology is still technology. You will have to engage the appropriate expertise; programmers are unavoidable. With tools like Zope and Plone, you can reduce the amount of programming needed. As a result, you both eliminate your software costs and reduce your spend on programmers. Expanding on the web may not be cheap, but at least it can be cheaper.

Copyright 2006 Daniel Scheff

Dan Scheff owns and operates a http://www.backstagedevelopment.com/ in Massachusetts.

Each website is built for a different purpose, which could be to sell a business’ products online, or simply as a brochure to show potential customers what a business does, and then to attract them to contacting the business for more information.

This article aims to describe the differences between a static website and a content managed website using a content management system by describing the benefits and disadvantages to SME’s (small and medium sized enterprises.)

We hope that this article helps both business users, and other website design firms to understand more the difference between these two types of website.

A STATIC WEBSITE

A static website is a website that is designed, created and then hosted by a website designer and is usually programmed using a static language like HTML or XHTML. Once the website is online, any changes that are needed require a website designer, or someone that knows how to edit, create or delete web pages.

Typically, static websites are much simpler to create a content managed website, due to the fact that no database needs to be created.

ADVANTAGES OF A STATIC WEBSITE

There are a number of advantages of static websites over a dynamic, content managed website for SME’s, dependent on their business:

* Less cost involved
* Simpler to create and host
* Quick to download on lower bandwidths


DISADVANTAGES OF A STATIC WEBSITE

* Could cost you more in the long run depending on the frequency of the updates
* Long change process as you have to wait for a website designer to have the time to make your changes
* Not as much functionality, so you website could be lacking against your competitors


A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR A WEBSITE

If a business decides that they want to sell their products online, update their website content when they need to and capture customer details, then a content management system is more than likely to be the best solution.

A content management system is a system that allows users to add, edit, update and delete their website content quickly and easily through the use of an administration section on their website and a database (usually MySQL, MSSQL or Access.) Content management systems use server side scripting languages such as PHP, ASP or ASP.net.

The database is used to store information that the user enters via the administration section, and data is retrieved from it each time a user accesses the content managed website.

A content management system is suitable for all types and sizes of businesses, and it can be used to drive all types of content, including text, documents, sound, video and much more.

ADVANTAGES OF A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

* Content can be changed on the website as frequently as is needed, without having to use a website designer or know HTML code.
* Changes can be made immediately due to a much shorter change process
* Can be cheaper than a static website in the longer term
* Easier to budget for ongoing costs than a static website


DISADVANTAGES OF A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

* Initial cost is normally higher than a static website
* May be slightly slower for users on low bandwidths than a static website
* Training may be needed depending on the complexity of a content management system


CONCLUSION

This article has aimed to describe the advantages and disadvantages of both a content managed website using a content management system (CMS) and a static website.

Both of these types of website offer various benefits over each other, however it is becoming increasingly evident to Strawberrysoup, that SME’s want to be able to look after their own website, without having to ask a website designer to make changes to their website.

New technologies are being implemented on an almost weekly basis which is allowing web designers and web agencies to create and install content management systems quickly and therefore with less of a cost implication to their clients.

Strawberrysoup has their own proprietary content management system called StrawberrySite which is a modular based content management system allowing SME’s to choose which aspects of the system they need, such as bulk email, e-commerce, news stories or job postings.

ARTICLE AUTHOR: Neil Dennis
WEBSITE: www.strawberrysoup.co.uk

Neil Dennis is a partner at Strawberrysoup, a web design agency with offices in Chichester and Bournemouth.

Strawberrysoup specialises in creative website design, content management systems, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and graphic design.

http://www.strawberrysoup.co.uk

Content management systems are everywhere on the web these days, helping thousands of web contributors pump out robust sites loaded with content with easy and constant fresh updates. Whether you're looking to build a deeply functional community-based web site overnight, or just too lazy to learn how to code a professional and good-looking network of pages yourself; chances are there's a content management system (CMS) out there for you.

The way it works is simple. The new webmaster to be simply follows a few simple instructions to install someone else’s code onto a web hosting account. They can then login to the admin interface, and start running a site or an entire community almost immediately, loaded with all the features desired.

Which one should I choose?

Almost everyone who’s spent enough time on the internet has heard of the big content management systems such as phpNuke and Drupal, but did you know that there are literally hundreds upon hundreds more great options out there for a webmaster to choose from? Each one is slightly different, designed to run on a different platform, and to support a different library of features, plug-ins, and templates. Each one has not only a slightly different feel on the front end, but a totally different interface for your site contributors to utilize on the back end.

The first decision you need to make about your content management system is where you plan to run it. The most popular option nowadays seems to be a combination of PHP and MySQL, which can be support by any modern Linux host. While this option is the easiest to support and install, you should remember that it’s not the only option, and might not be the best. If you’re running from a Linux platform, there are other options that tend to require a bit more effort in setting up, but may be well worth your while, such as PERL, Cold Fusion, Java, JSP, or Ruby on Rails. All of these languages are just as effective, however may be less likely to be supported by your host. There are also a number of options which run from a Windows environment, demanding technology such as ASP. In the end, choose what you feel comfortable with, and know for sure that your web host will support.

After you know what kind of site you can run, you can start thinking about features. There is a content management system out there that will do literally anything you can think of. Period. Start thinking about how you want your web site to function, and the greater purpose it will serve. Will you have a lot of authors to your pages that don’t know HTML? Get a CMS system with a built-in HTML editor. Would you like visitor statistics beyond what your web host keeps? Get a CMS system that tracks that too. Do you want polls, email, or photo galleries? Is the potential for search optimization of this site important to you? These are just a few examples of things that are very important to consider, and are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Now, granted, that’s a lot of information to gather. Here we find ourselves halfway through this article, and I haven’t even told you where to look. By the glory of the internet, most of the work is of course already done for you. My personal recommendation for comparing the various options a website known as CMS Matrix, which for the record, I have no affiliation with; it’s simply a great site for this purpose. From this interface you can browse through virtually every viable option for a content management system out there, designed to work on anything from a fun personal site to an enterprise-level corporate intranet, and get a full breakdown of pricing, compatibility, security, features, and even ratings from others who’ve already given the system a try.

Won't my CMS site look like all the rest?

It doesn't have to! Most quality content management systems will allow you to apply templates and plug-ins to your site, which can set the design of your site apart from others using the same engine by nearly anything that HTML and CSS can do. Typically, you can find templates on the main web site for the content management system you've chosen - and in the rare event that this is not the case, templates are typically no more than a Google search away. Most systems which let you install a custom skin will even let you design your own; allowing you to make your new site virtually as personalized as any site on the web can be.

Corey is a webmaster and community leader with Ubiquity Hosting Solutions, LLP, an http://www.ubiquityhosting.com/, where he works both directly and indirectly in helping other webmasters to get on their way in weaving web sites of their own.

I have previously written on the various options for content management systems (CMS's). However, content management systems are not right for every situation. So how can you tell if your website needs a content management system?

The number one factor is whether or not being able to frequently update your site yourself is more important than 100% control over how it looks.

The majority of the CMS's out there allow you to insert them into a template and/or apply one of a set of "themes" to their CMS. However, you generally do not have absolute control over how the CMS displays the page. Someone who knows how to program can modify them to a certain extent, but at a certain point, they would be better off creating a custom CMS from scratch for you, and that can get expensive.

Given that, if it is very important to you that you have the ability to update your site yourself, a CMS should still be employed. You just have to decide which is more important.

Now I am probably overstating the fact. Very likely, your CMS can be customized to a point you are completely happy with. As an example, check out Mission Nicaragua. The majority of the site is not being run by a CMS. However, the Newsletter (ie blog) and Gallery are. As is obvious once visiting the site, the Newsletter is much more customizable than the Gallery is. However, both are imbedded in the design of the site.

Both the Newsletter and the Gallery are updated on a fairly regular basis. The slight compromise in customizability was overshadowed by the ability to make frequent updates to the site.

So now it is up to you to decide for yourself. If you will be updating your site frequently, a CMS may be right for you. If not, you may prefer to have complete control over the look of your site.

Tim is the author of Webifiable.com - Plan, create and maintain your web site the right way and is owner and senior web designer at http://www.tandswebdesign.com/. He also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.

CMS, a newest and hottest technology in Web Hosting World

Content management is the organizing, categorizing, and structuring of information resources (text, images, documents etc.) so that they can be stored, published, and edited with ease and flexibility. A content management system (CMS) is used to collect, manage, and publish content, storing the content either as components or whole documents, while maintaining dynamic links between components.

Content management is the organizing, categorizing, and structuring of information resources (text, images, documents etc.) so that they can be stored, published, and edited with ease and flexibility. A content management system (CMS) is used to collect, manage, and publish content, storing the content either as components or whole documents, while maintaining dynamic links between components.

CMSs allow end-users (typically authors of some sort) to provide new content in the form of articles. The articles are typically entered as plain text, perhaps with markup to indicate where other resources (such as pictures) should be placed. The system then uses rules to style the article, which separates the display from the content, which has a number of advantages when trying to get many articles to conform to a consistent "look and feel". The system then adds the articles to a larger collection for publishing.

The systems also often include some sort of concept of the workflow for the target users, which defines how the new content is to be routed around the system.

A good example of a CMS would be a system for managing a newspaper. In such a system the reporters type articles into the system, which stores them in a database. Along with the article the system stores attributes, including keywords, the date and time of filing, the reporter's name, etc. The system then uses these attributes to find out, given its workflow rules, who should proofread the article, approve it for publication, edit it, etc. Later the editors can choose which articles to include (or ignore) in an edition of the newspaper, which is then laid out and printed automatically.

How Content Management System Work

1. A professional web developer designs a web page format - typically with a logo at the top, and standard navigation options across the top, down the left hand side, and/or at the foot of the page.
2. This new format is used to create a master template.
3. All the web developers in the organization get to use special software that lets them add text and images to web pages, automatically using the master template.
4. A professional web developer designs a web page format - typically with a logo at the top, and standard navigation options across the top, down the left hand side, and/or at the foot of the page.
5. This new format is used to create a master template.
6. All the web developers in the organization get to use special software that lets them add text and images to web pages, automatically using the master template.
7. Each completed page is submitted to an editor, who might make changes or send it back to the writer for revision. When the page is OK, the editor clicks an on-screen PUBLISH button and uploads the page to the web server, so that the world can read it.
8. Each page is usually saved on a text database. Most web pages have file names that end in .htm or .html, but sometimes you will see pages ending in other file extensions, such as .php. These are often generated by content management systems. However, some CMSs will generate plain .html pages, which are more easily found by search engines.
9. The CMS also generates indexes, showing what files have been changed when, who updated which file, and so on.
10. The more elaborate CMS perform a lot more functions (such as archives, built-in search engines, permission control, and workflow management), but the above ones are basic.
11. Giving control back to content owners, allowing them to user their web browser to add and edit content on the site with no special knowledge required.
12. Separating page content from format and design, creating a more consistent look and feel across the site.
13. Faster publication of content and updates as well as immediate site-wide changes.
14. Automation of all navigation, internal links, and other site sections where rules can be imposed on content, eliminating internal broken links or orphaned pages.
15. The ability to schedule the publication or expiration of a page and all links to that page.
16. Development of workflow and approval processes; turning management of your website into a business process.
17. The ability to customize the level of design and formatting control given to site authors.
18. Development of user templates for content delivery using existing site design or in conjunction with a site redesign.
19. Development of customized approval workflow.
20. Creation of user accounts and roles to fit your desired level of control and access.
21. Integration with existing applications and databases.
22. User training to assist content authors in becoming familiar with the system

Benefits of Content Management System • Content Authoring: This allows your content contributors to create content and store it in the repository. There are many tools and styles. • Workflow Management: This allows you to monitor, adjust, and maintain the process through which the creation and publishing tasks are done in your organization. Systems range from highly complex to quite simple, but all give you a set of tools to manage the activities of authors and the progress of content. • Content Storage: This feature keeps the content sensibly organized and accessible. Most CMS use a relational database; the point is to store the content in one place and in a consistent fashion.

Content Authoring: This allows your content contributors to create content and store it in the repository. There are many tools and styles.
Workflow Management: This allows you to monitor, adjust, and maintain the process through which the creation and publishing tasks are done in your organization. Systems range from highly complex to quite simple, but all give you a set of tools to manage the activities of authors and the progress of content.

Content Storage: This feature keeps the content sensibly organized and accessible. Most CMS use a relational database; the point is to store the content in one place and in a consistent fashion.
Publication Management: This allows you to organize your content with metadata and formatting. CMS have different ways of approaching this, but the better ones allow you to define and manage your metadata and your templates.

Publishing: Publishing allows you to merge the content data and the content formatting and move it from the repository to your publication. Different methods exist, but they all allow you to push the content out to some publicly accessible place without the help of your tech team.
Content portability: Since the CMS stores content as data, that data can be inserted into any appropriate output format or template. If you want your article to appear with a blue background in your Members section, but with a yellow background in your General Information section, you don't need to write your article twice. Instead, you write it once and assign it to the blue template and the yellow template.

Design flexibility: Similarly, since the CMS stores the templates separate from the content data, if you want to make a design change, however small (such as changing the font color on a particular type of page) or sweeping (such as changing the font color, type, and size throughout your site), you only need to change the template; the CMS handles the rest.
Single Storage in a Single Place: In a CMS, all the content data is stored in one place, in a consistent way and perhaps most importantly, only once.
If you've ever suffered because you have nine different versions of an article and you can't figure out which one to use, you'll be happier with a CMS. The system maintains one copy of the content, regardless of how you plan to use it.

If, for example, you have a press release that's displayed in your Press Release section, your News Section, and your Archives section, and a mistake is discovered, the process for fixing it will be easier. Without a CMS, you would probably have to fix the mistake in three files; with a CMS, you would fix it in one file (because there's only one data file anyway), and the change appears in all three locations.
Because your content is stored consistently in one system, it's much easier to create relationships (usually hyperlinks) between content pieces and maintain them. For example, if you have several pieces that link to each other, and you move one, the CMS will make the necessary changes to keep the links working.

It's also simpler to create a new piece of content by aggregating other pieces. For example, let's say you have a collection of Internet tips, each stored as a separate Piece of content, but all united by the same metadata. A CMS makes it easy to present all those pieces together by creating a template that shows all content that had the metadata, in this case, "type: tip" and "subject: internet". It's also much easier to survey what you have
Finally, should you decide to take all your content and migrate it to some new format, the process should be much easier.

This entire means more time and money saved: you don't duplicate work, you don't lose content, and you spend less time managing content.
Workflow Management: Any good CMS will have some sort of workflow management scheme. This usually involves defining certain roles -- such as author, editor, and publisher -- and giving each of those roles some abilities and responsibilities.

Likewise, content can exist in a number of states, such as draft, final, published, or archive, and each state has certain characteristics.
Combine the roles and the states, wrap some logic around it, and you have a workflow system. The author is assigned to create the draft, the editor is notified that the draft is ready to be edited, etc.

Workflow management facilitates better communication, progress tracking, and more efficient content transitions. Even a basic system will notify the appropriate role that a piece of content has reached a state where it needs attention. More advanced systems allow all sorts of triggers and controls to be put into place. None of these features are going to do the work of managing your processes; rather, they give you better visibility into the process and better tools to do the work.

The major gain here is control, which saves time and money by speeding communication and preventing mistakes. The workflow system handles much of the communication, tracking, and measuring so your authors, editors, and publishers can concentrate on writing, reviewing, and publishing, instead of walking around checking on things, looking for lost drafts, and trying to figure out where all the time has gone.

Automated Publishing: When it comes to freeing technical resources from publishing tasks, almost any CMS shines. The CMS allows non-technical people to schedule, trigger, and otherwise manage the process of moving the content to the production environment.

If your valuable technical people are constantly distracted by pushing out small text changes, regularly releasing new articles, or fixing layout issues, the CMS will change their worlds. With a CMS in place, these tasks become things that publishers and editors can do, usually with a powerful set of tools available within the CMS. The technical people maintain the CMS, but it's at much higher level, and their time is greatly freed to handle more technical issues throughout your organization.

Usually, the actual time required to publish your content is reduced. More importantly, the time it does take is spent by the most appropriate people (authors, editors, publishers), and not by people who are probably supposed to be working on a new Web site feature or tuning up the network.
Hopefully, you have a more specific idea of what a CMS does, and how a CMS might save your organization time, effort, and therefore money. On top of that, a CMS will enable you to better manage your content, therefore making it more usable for you and your constituency

Webmaster
Mahesh Ugale

Content management systems (CMS) store and manage an organization’s electronic document and Web content so that even the non-technical authors and employee of the company can reuse the information across different applications which is otherwise done by technical programmers. The web published content can also be distributed to customers and business partners outside the organization. The core application of the CMS is to manage content during its entire lifecycle i.e. from creation through publishing. The content of the CMS can also be shared by e-commerce and customer relationship management systems (CRM).

It also reduces the daily stream of calls to the IT department for changes to the website. Content management system enables you to establish a consistent look and feel throughout your site, but gives your non-technical content authors the power to publish and update their own content using simple, but powerful, browser-based tools. Some of the CMS systems integrate with content delivery applications to deliver the content via a web site.

Mambo is a full-featured content management system that can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Continue reading for a detailed feature list. Mambo is a feature-rich dynamic portal engine/content management tool capable of building sites from several pages to several thousand. Mambo uses PHP/MySQL and features a very comprehensive admin manager. Mambo uses a modular framework for component/class extensibility. With Mambo there is no need for HTML, XML, DHTML skills. Just enter your content, add a picture and then through the easy to use administrator web-interface click Publish. Mambo can be hosted on Linux, Unix, Windows and Macintosh OS X servers - in fact as long as it runs PHP and MySQL, it can run Mambo. Mambo is the perfect solution for developers and novice users alike who demand a simple yet elegant way to deploy professional websites rapidly.

http://www.templatemuseum.com/ is the successful company’s best choice! Already over 50 Mambo-ready templates! Adobe Photoshop layered PSD and Macromedia FLA source files available for nearly all templates! A new unique template added to the file base each day! Get access for a very nominal price! They charge for the value they add and not for the hard work that Miro, the Mambo Development Team and the Mambo community have put into it. They have a large and healthy user and developer community and provide a basic level of content approval for registered users. They provide online help. Their templates are Search engine friendly and are simple but powerful template system written mostly in HTML, no complex templating syntax to learn.

Author and Administrator R.Bhavani,M.C.A,M.B.A., explains Content Management System concepts and thus helps readers to resolve specific problem,rather than simply providing templates for readers to use.Template Museum can be viewed as a destination place for retrival of information regarding Open source Templates and its true identity is linked with her best work.

A site content should be editable by authorized users.

That is what it is all about when thinking about editing your site from anywhere in the world via a web browser.

A CMS (content managment system) should be easy to use and many users should be able
to add / delete or edit content on the site.

This is the main purpose of CMS system (You can call it Content management, Web Editor or content editor system as well).


You would be surprised to see how much you can save just by choosing the right CMS system.

A good CMS is not the most heavy in features. It actually very similar to a mobile phone

which has many features but we mainly use saving numbers and sending SMS, all the trendy features are hardly use

So when you choose a CMS don't be tempted to choose the most fancy one.

When choosing a content management system it is important to ask how much do I pay?

Well, this is not always very clear since most of the CMS's companies are using site license based system.

It means that if you have only one site than you pay a low sum of money, but any additional site will

result in extra money. If you have more then two then it might get very expensive.....be aware.

Conclusion: You should look for a CMS that you can install many times with no extra fee or that the extra

fee if very low. Note, make sure in addition that you have no annual yearly expenses.

Now, this is important to know!!!

The chipset Content Management system have the same abilities as the expensive one.

Surprised?

Why is that. Most of us use an WYSIWYG API (what you see is what you get) both in
mozila and explorer.
This features are built in the browser.

sooooooo, All the different cms's are using the same API.....It means that no need to pay extra since the mechanism is the same.

Now, the last point which is very important to site owners, is the restriction!!!

Although some of you have only one site, the number will grow...believe me, once you opened a site you will add more in the future.

There for you will want that different users will be able to edit different part of a site or sites.

This feature is common in most CMS's.
However,
all CMS's are using a word like edit panel (the WYSIWYG feature) which gives a great

ability to edit and change the site in an easy and clean way just like you are editing a word document.

But, this gives sometime extra freedom for users that change the site to look ugly...........

The CMS system must have the ability to give a user limitation for only text editing and not graphical view.

If this ability exists in a CMS you probably are looking at a good one.

Now.......make sure you choose wisely and with care

Since changing a CMS is not always an easy task and it usually takes time to do so.

My personal view is not choosing a CMS that uses database since replacing a content management system can be a nightmare.

E.Msk Content Editor Specialist http://toko-contenteditor.pageil.net

If you have ever used a website builder software off the Internet you have soon realized that this will NOT help you with the search engine ranks. The reason why is that many website builders are not built around what the search engines are looking for. If a website builder is invented around the criteria of the search engines then this allows the user to properly code their keywords, title tags, META descriptions properly.

The purpose a content management system should be to eliminate the common challenges of traditional websites while giving full control to Affiliate Marketers, Small and Medium size Companies so they can compete with the large websites that rank high and dominate their marketplace online. The key is a complete CMS which is designed for "non-techies", extremely advanced and very easy to use.

Imagine being able to utilize a Highly Advanced website builder and easy to use this content management system that allows non-technical users to easily create/edit/remove pages, content, images, banners, links, menus, skins, or simply customize a website.

A content management software built around the search engines should be developed and tested to eliminate the common challenges of traditional websites while giving full control to Affiliates and companies so they can compete with the large websites that rank well and dominate their marketplace online. As long as it constructs a solid foundation and performs critical backend work to dramatically improve your rankings on search engines.

http://www.broadwavestudios.com/

Gregg Makarowski - Is a successful Internet Search Engine Specialist. He believes that a website was created to market your business NOT your business market your website.

Ever see an interior decorator at work? They come into a home and move things around, get rid of old things, bring in new things, and maybe even add new rooms. They do it all with ease and delight. They’re masters at changing things and making them look just so.

That’s what a Content Management System is like (except it doesn’t work on your house, it works on your website).

With a Content Management System (CMS), you can change the content on your website whenever and however you want:

·Change text

·Add/change photos/logos etc.

·Add/remove webpages

And a Content Management System that’s good will be WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzywig). WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get,” which means you just drag and drop things where you want, and all the coding required to make things look like that on your website is done for you automatically without you having to know about it or understand it.

If it sounds great, that’s because it is.

So why don’t most people have a Content Management System for their website?

Because up until recently, they were too expensive for the average website owner to have. But now there are lots of companies offering Content Management System services, and they fall into two types:

·Hosted solutions: the company has their own software installed on their own servers. You log in to their website and use their software to change your website.

·Software solutions: you buy software to install on your computer. The software lets you open your online webpages and change them instantly. A great example of this is a product made by MacroMedia called Contribute –- it’s easy to use and very affordable!

Whether you go with a Hosted or Software solution, you’ll love having the ability to make your website exactly the way you want it to be, quickly and easily.

And that’s why a Content Management System is like an interior decorator.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may forward this article in its entirety (including author bio/links) to anyone you wish.

Grant Pasay is a professional website copywriter, advertising copywriter, and SEO copywriter serving clients in Vancouver, BC and everywhere. Grant is also the author of the FREE e-book, "The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator."

For copy that captures your business message without any of the hassle, go to http://grantpasay.com/

Check out Grant's FREE e-book at http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/