Choosing a CMS

A content management system (CMS) is a system for storing all of your web pages, templates, images, and other assets in one place and displaying it on the web. It allows people with little or no knowledge of coding to edit content for your website.

Choosing a CMS is tricky. There are many systems available, and several factors you should consider in the selection process.

Value for money is the most obvious consideration. How much do you have to spend, and will the content management system that you choose be the best fit for your organization?

Other considerations are:

• How many people will be editing your site?
• How many editing roles do you need? (Administrator, Editor, Contributor, for example)
• Do you need an approvals workflow for publishing content to your site? What about the ability to schedule your posts in advance?
• Will your staff require training in how to use the system? How will you onboard them to the system?
• Do you want rich text editing directly onto the page?
• Do you want a set of customizable page templates to get you started?
• Do you need to be able to translate your website into multiple languages, and write content for different countries?
• Do you need your website to be hosted in the same country as your head office? In other words, should the physical server be in that country?
• How integrated with your customer relationship management (CRM) system should your website be?
• Do you need an e-commerce component, and how well-integrated do you need it to be with your website?
• Do you have a team of developers who can customize the system, providing new ways of presenting your content?
• If you have existing content, can you easily migrate it to the new system?
• If you’re anticipating millions of visitors to your site, is it scalable?
• Do you have a lot of digital assets to manage (images and PDF files)?
• Does the system have an active community of users? (This is important because you can get help with it, and because you can hire people who know how to use it.)

Once you have answers to this list of questions, the next step is to look at online reviews of content management systems and see which ones meet your needs. Most systems will have a free trial or a sandbox where you can play around with their system, and see if it is easy to use and suitable for your requirements.

At that stage, you will likely want to involve a larger group of stakeholders and get their feedback on the systems you have shortlisted.

Once you have selected your system, you will need to train your staff to use it to produce responsive web pages, or hire editors and developers with experience in using that system.

The benefit of using a CMS instead of a hand-coded website is that it is easier for people with no knowledge of coding to update, while ensuring that the look and feel of the website remains consistent.