content management systems



Content Management Systems (CMS) have evolved to the point where they make a lot of sense for most sites, allowing the site owner or someone the owner designates to update and maintain most items on the site. We rarely construct a website outside of a CMS any longer, as most site owners desire it plus, even if we maintain the site for the site owner, it's much easier and faster to make changes even for us, saving the site owner money.

A big advantage of a CMS is the availability of many "extensions", additional add-ons that can add a great deal of functionality to a website. These extensions are generally simple to install—the average user can usually install and use them and add new features to his or her site with little to no intervention of the web design firm. We see this as a huge advantage in both cost savings and convenience for the web site owner.

We can help train you to use a CMS, which really requires little training, for those clients less computer-savvy. If you know the basics of a word processor such as MS Word, you can learn how to use a CMS with little effort. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much nicer it is to be able to update your own site whenever you choose.

We mainly use either of two different CMS's, depending on the website being designed, the hosting platform, and the future growth plans for the website. Both of these CMS's have extensive online documentation, allowing you to find instruction on how to use them without needing our help. They also have large and active forums for help when you need it, in case you want to handle things on your own.

One more advantage of using a CMS is in site redesign... when you wnat to give your site a facelift, you don't have to redo every single page... instead it becomes a task of replacing the site template only—all the content is automatically imported into the new template, and the cost of a redesign becomes considerably less as a result.