What is CMS and why should you pay extra for it?
CMS stands for Content Management System and you should pay more for it upfront because it will save money in the long run. It's a concept known as total cost of ownership - like how a cartridge for a laser printer costs a bit more than an inkjet cartridge but you get so many more prints from the laser, it more than offsets the cost.
The deal with CMS is that it gives you the ability to update the content on a particular page using plain English and graphical editing tools like a word processor. The reason this saves you money is it negates the requirement of hiring a web professional for $50 - $120 per hour to change the name of your favorite cookie from peanut butter chunk to chocolate-chocolate-double-chocolate mint chip with chocolate chunks. It's a simple exercise and, by all rights, you should be able to do it yourself.
Shameless product plug
Since this is my site and I'm the one writing this, I'm gonna feel free to use the Bayt & Takl CMS as a good example of how this whole thing works. (Keep in mind that there are many out-of-the-box solutions available for not much money - but we're talking about custom solutions here.) Keith Link, co-owner of Bayt & Takl, was nice enough to invent mPower1, our custom CMS. This is what I always tell people about it: You can log in to a custom, password-protected control panel we call Site Tools, 24/7, from anywhere in the world, with just a browser and Internet connection.
You took some pics of grandma wiping out on a mondo wave and wanna upload them to your site from your hotel room? Just pop open the laptop and show the world what it looks like when a 73 year old woman is hangin' 10 - no HTML required.
What it's really great for is things like product listings, an online calendar, and trading links with other sites, etc. Take your average price list for instance. Many items, such as electronic components, fluctuate in price from day to day. For a small business that doesn't employ a full time Webmaster or IT guy, being able to update this information wherever and whenever can save a huge amount of time and money over the course of a year. By the same token, if you're running a nightclub and need to keep your event listings current, a CMS is a great way to save the money you'd spend to have the calendar constantly maintained by a pro.
Keep it fresh
CMS isn't just about saving money. Sometimes it's about making money - at least in a roundabout way. For those who make a living through their site, viewership is the lifeblood of the operation. If you don't have a constant influx of visitors, you're going down the tubes no matter how pretty your home page is. How do you keep people coming back and attract new viewers at the same time? Fresh content helps quite a bit.
But, without a CMS, updating your content on a daily or even weekly basis is an expensive proposition. With mPower, our clients get full access to content on their site and can update it every 5 minutes if thatÃs what they want. It doesn't cost a dime. New articles, events, banners, pictures and info give your viewer a reason to come back and see what's been updated. Once you've got them looking for the latest installment of your blog, all you need is one well placed banner to catch their attention, let them know about a new product and link right to the shopping cart. Bang! One more sale. That's how you do that.
But isn't it ugly?
Well, it depends on who's doing the installing. We here at Bayt & Takl take great pride in making sure the viewer has no idea how the content got on the page. This means working the CMS in such a way that the content flows into a beautifully designed page that looks just like the rest of the site.
The web is full of DIY content management solutions that you can pop in if you have an ounce or two of programming expertise. The problem is that, if you just slam it in there and call it done, it craps up the whole viewing experience. Consider that web viewers are very fickle. They want what they want, when they want it and how they want it. And why not? With as many options as the web offers, they could easily just Google the same thing you've got and find it in a million other places. What makes the difference then, is a fluid experience. Without some major surgery, the DIY stuff makes for a jarring experience that looks cheap. If you're up against some major competition, the last thing you want to do is foster a lack of confidence in your potential customer.
So, make sure you do it right the first time. Pay a bit extra for production now and reap the benefits for the rest of your website's existence.
