What is a Content Management System (CMS)?

A content management system is used to design, manage, and improve your customers’ online experiences.

More specifically, it can be difficult to keep track of all the acronyms used in the business world. Some of the ones that are significant include SEO, CRM, SERP, CDN, and CMS.

A CMS is particularly important, considering that more than 68 million websites are built with one. So what is it?

An application that is used to manage content, allowing multiple contributors to create, edit, and publish, is known as a content management system (CMS). 

Typically, content in a CMS is kept in a database and presented using a presentation layer based on a set of templates, much like a website. Web content management (WCM) and enterprise content management (ECM) are two common uses for CMSes.

What are the different types of content management systems (CMS)?

  1. Component Content Management System (CCMS): Compared to a traditional content management system, a CCMS is a distinct and special type of CMS. CCMS stores the content at a deeper level (component) as opposed to a document level. The CCMS organizes content by components rather than by pages. Images, phrases, or even a single word can be included in these elements.
  1. Enterprise Content Management System (ECM): ECM system is a kind of CMS system that enables an organization to create, manage, and distribute various kinds of content. Additionally, it guarantees that the right audience receives the information and documents. This audience could consist of a client, partner company, executive, or employee.
  1. Document Management System (DMS): An eco-friendly solution for managing, tracking, and storing documents in the cloud is provided by document management systems (DMS). It is essentially a fully automated CMS solution that allows users to upload, process, and distribute documents without having to worry about printing or scanning them.
  1. Web Content Management System (WCMS): It offers authoring, teamwork, and administration tools for managing web content. WCMS only handles web content, unlike other CMSes, which also deal with other types of content. Without prior coding experience, you can manage a website’s digital elements using WCMS.

  2. Digital Asset Management System (DAMS): A centralized system for organizing and accessing media assets is created by DAMS, which is both a business process and an information management technology. The ability for teams to store, arrange, share, search, and expand their digital library is combined with improved information security.

Which is a CMS Platform Example?

Let’s examine eight well-known CMS platform examples to see which might be the best choice for your website’s requirements:

  1. CMS Hub: 
    Ideal for: Businesses of all sizes.
    Why Use CMS Hub: You can create robust, secure, and search engine-optimized websites with CMS Hub.
  1. WordPress: 
    Ideal for: Freelancers and small businesses
    Why Use WordPress: Millions of websites are powered by the self-hosted platform known as WordPress. The Gutenberg editor makes it simple and quick to create a WordPress site, which can then be customized with any of the thousands of plugins and themes offered in the official WordPress directory or on other third-party websites.
  1. Joomla: 
    Ideal for: Global businesses
    Why Use Joomla: Website owners looking for a platform with more functionality may want to consider Joomla as a WordPress substitute.
  1. Drupal: 
    Ideal for: Corporations and governmental organizations
    Why Use Drupal: Large corporations and governmental organizations like NASA prefer the highly flexible CMS Drupal. Even though you won’t have to start from scratch, web development experience is required to fully utilize the power of this platform.
  1. Magento:
    Ideal for: Ecommerce businesses
    Why Use Magento: In terms of e-commerce platforms, Drupal and Magento OpenSource, the platform’s self-hosted variant, are comparable. It’s highly flexible and secure, but it’s difficult to learn and take advantage of all its built-in functionality and extensions.
  1. Webflow: 
    Ideal for: Web designers and agencies
    Why Use Webflow: With Webflow, web designers can concentrate on building and customizing websites without having to worry about hosting, security, or performance. Webflow is a “visual” content management system.
  1. Ghost:
    Ideal for: Bloggers
    Why Use Ghost: Ghost is a fantastic choice if you’re looking for a more straightforward and lightweight CMS specifically designed for blogging. Ghost is a headless CMS, meaning that its body (the content repository) and head (the presentation layer) are separate entities.
  1. Sitecore:
    Ideal for: Enterprise companies
    Why Use Sitecore: Sitecore is a high-end headless CMS that lets you design and deliver individualized websites, emails, social media posts, and mobile experiences.

Which is the best example of a popular content management system (CMS)?

The most well-known example of a content management system is WordPress, which we previously demonstrated to you. While there are undoubtedly other content management systems available, WordPress continues to hold a market share of over 65.1% of websites using a well-known CMS. At a glance:

  • It’s packed with built-in SEO boosts
  • It’s easy to customize (even if you’re not a developer)
  • Mobile optimization is super simple
  • You don’t have to become an expert in security.
  • It’s easy to integrate with other software tools
  • The WordPress community keeps growing

What are the key features of a CMS solution?

The following features are crucial in a content management solution:

  1. Content management: How can web content (including text, images, video, and audio) be created, edited, posted, and managed?
  2. Presentation: Customers switch between devices frequently, and no marketing company has the staff to devote to optimizing each blog post or catalog page for laptop, tablet, and leading smartphone formats. It should only be created once, with the CMS automating the presentation to fit the device.
  3. Integration: Is the solution all-encompassing, like Sitecore’s Experience Platform, or does it rely on APIs to connect your content to other programs, like CRM and ERP tools, and to important external platforms, like Facebook.
  4. Commerce: The ability to link a customized marketing presentation to your digital commerce systems is a crucial integration. If this place isn’t on your map, you can’t talk about the “customer journey.”
  5. Personalization: Can it target specific visitors with relevant content based on their persona, location, or even past interactions with your brand?
  6. Analytics: Do people actually read the content you’re providing? Then what do they do? To maximize your efforts and determine ROI, demand performance visibility.
  7. Governance: If you post something, can you still find it? Can you strictly regulate who has the authority to review, edit, publish, and remove content? Can you identify content that has lost its usefulness?
  8. Multilingual support: Do you publish globally and translate into other languages? Can the answer accommodate that?
  9. Scalability/Performance/Stability: In terms of basic technology, is the solution trustworthy? Will it develop to meet the needs of your organization? Consider researching cloud content management.
  10. Training/vendor support: WCM solutions are becoming more complex and offer greater promises, but the majority of teams require assistance to function beyond the most fundamental level.

What are the benefits of using a CMS?

The following are some advantages of using a content management system:

  • Ease of use. Searching for information is simple.
  • Easy to search for information. Similar to a Google search engine, an integrated search function allows users to enter their search terms and receive a list of results.
  • Easy to manage content. Content can be removed just as easily as it can be added. To keep websites current, content can be easily unpublished using a CMS.
  • Accessible from anywhere. Users who have a device with an internet connection can access content from a CMS whether it is on-site or in the cloud.
  • Allows multiple users. The management of publishing permissions is simple with a CMS.
  • Instant content updates. A CMS enables users to manage and update content immediately without having to wait for a developer.
  • Easy to scale. With a CMS, adding new web pages is simple and doesn’t require hiring a developer as a company expands.
  • Easy to update. Updates can be released by development teams in a matter of clicks.

Does the platform support SEO?

It is crucial to consider how visitors will access your website. If your company places a high value on being listed favorably on search engines (SEO), you should look for a content management system (CMS) with automation for fundamental on-page optimization tasks like title tags, urls, alt tags on images, and a strong internal linking structure. Often, CMS software has plugins to help manage these requirements. Search engine optimization techniques typically also benefit your website’s visibility on other media, such as social media and when users share links to it.

Looking to install a content management system like WordPress on your web server? We’ll do it for you.