The business problem
You have a website, (or if your a large business, maybe an
intranet). It has grown organically over time, and while it is very
useful, it is far from
perfect.
Much of the content is out-of-date or inaccurate, it's hard to find
things, updating the site is complex and time consuming, and the
appearance is becoming dated.
Worse yet, you've lost track of all the pages on the site, and by having all the changes made by your skilled
webmaster, the updates are piling up in their in-tray.
What was on the site last week, or last year? You couldn't say. In the back of your mind, you know that this could
leave you in a difficult position if a customer sues, but there is little that you can do.
If this sounds grim, you are not alone. In fact, it's the natural by-product of maintaining a site using manual
tools such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage.
Thankfully, these problems are what a content management system is specifically designed to solve.
CMS: A working definition
A content management system (CMS) supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of
corporate and business information.
It covers the complete lifecycle of the pages on your website, from providing simple tools to create the content,
through to publishing, and finally to archiving.
Once set up for a domain name, it also provides the web-site owner with the ability to manage the structure of the site, the appearance of the published pages, and the
navigation provided to the users, without specialist web design skills or knowledge of HTML coding.
Business benefits
There are a wide range of business benefits that can be obtained by implementing a CMS, including:
- streamlined authoring process
- faster turnaround time for new pages and changes
- greater consistency
- improved site navigation
- increased site flexibility
- support for decentralised authoring - simple training to delegate sections of your site updating
- increased security
- reduced duplication of information
- greater capacity for growth
- reduced site maintenance costs
Beyond these, the greatest benefit the CMS can provide is to support your business goals and strategies.
For example, the CMS can help to improve sales, increase user satisfaction, or assist in communicating with the public. GuideToByron.com itself is a great example of a huge complex web-site made easy to handle, navigate & maintain with a CMS.
Conclusion
Content management systems are relatively new in the web-design
market, and while many businesses are still not familiar with them,
they have the potential to dramatically simplify the creation &
maintenance of websites.
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