When building a website for your business, one of the things you must consider is the right content management system (CMS).
A CMS is a software application that can create, publish, and manage content on the web. It is typically used for web content management and enterprise content management. CMS enables users to index and edit their content without having to overhaul a whole page code. Without CMS, your website has the possibility to tank no matter how great your content is.
Things to Consider When Choosing a Content Management System (CMS)
Before you pick a content management system for your business website, consider the following factors:
Who gets to decide which content management system (CMS) to use?
This might look like a simple question, but figuring out who should choose the CMS for your business website is actually not an easy task. As your business grows, so do your stakeholders. Their wants and needs for the right CMS might not be similar, so it’s important to pinpoint who gets to have a say in the decision-making process.
In most companies, these are the people involved in choosing a CMS:
- IT – Your IT team is vital in the decision-making process because they’ll be ultimately responsible for the technology, as well as the modification and maintenance of the CMS.
- Marketing – Since CMS is essentially a marketing tool, it’s only fitting that your marketing team gets to have a word on this matter. If your business is focused on content marketing, it’s necessary to hear their wants and needs for a CMS before choosing one.
- Sales – Your sales team also has a say in the decision-making process, since close integration between the content management system and the customer relationship management (CRM) can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of sales.
It’s also crucial to prioritize the stakeholders’ different requirements when choosing the right CMS. You can use the “MoSCoW method” to determine their exact wants and needs in terms of features and integrations:
- Must-have – Important features the department can’t work without
- Should-have – Features that are as vital as must-have’s but are not as immediately needed
- Could-have – Desirable features but not that important for the department
- Would-have – Least important features that the department can live without for the meantime
What to look for in a content management system (CMS) platform
Now that you’ve identified the right people to decide which CMS to use for your business website, here are 14 things to look for in a content management system platform:
- Business impact
- Real CMS costs
- Ongoing requirements
- Compatibility on existing tech
- Skillset requirements
- Level of security
- Ease of use in blogging
- Enables customization
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Ease of use in content creation
- Flexibility to business needs
- Training/technical support
Top 5 Content Management System (CMS) Options for Your Business
Now that you’ve narrowed your list of stakeholders down, identified their requirements, and thoroughly looked into the important things your content management system should have, here are our top five picks for CMS platforms:
1. WordPress
WordPress is, without a doubt, the most popular content management system in the world. Originally created as a blogging platform, WordPress is now the crowd favorite when it comes to CMS, boasting the largest market share among its many competitors. With its ease of use, extensive directory of themes and plugins, customization options, and top-notch content creation and management, it’s easy to see why WordPress is a big hit among individuals and businesses alike.
To learn more about WordPress’ features, click here.
2. Joomla!
Born from the Mambo CMS, Joomla! is now the second biggest open-source content management system in the market. With over 2.5 million installations, this CMS is most favored by businesses that aren’t big on text content and are more interested in custom post types. It’s not as beginner-friendly as WordPress, but it boasts more comprehensive features, including multilingual support out of the box, advanced user management options, and multiple templates/themes for each page/content type.
For more information about Joomla!, click here.
3. Drupal
Drupal may lag behind WordPress and Joomla! in terms of market share, but it’s still included in the top three content management system results. Unlike its top two competitors, Drupal is easier to use if you have web development experience and are comfortable with coding. However, with its flexible custom post creation and management system, detailed taxonomy system, over 36,000 extension modules, and top-notch scalability and security, Drupal proves itself to be worthy of its competitors.
See what Drupal can do for your business here.
4. Serendipity
If your business is just starting out and you need a simple, easy to use content management system especially for your website’s blog, Serendipity can be a great choice for you. It’s one of the most lightweight CMS in the market, it’s user-friendly, and it provides access to a large array of themes and plugins. Serendipity might sound tame compared to WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, but it also packs a punch in terms of content creation and management. In fact, it offers excellent performance for most websites— thanks to its built-in dynamic caching setting.
To know more about Serendipity, click here.
5. Alfresco
Alfresco is an open-source content management system for businesses that prefer to manage, store, and publish their own online content and business processes. It supports open standards, open APIs (application program interface), and a wide range of deployment options, such as on-premise, cloud, and hybrid variants. What makes Alfresco stand out is its emphasis on security and collaboration, as well as its API-driven environment that makes it highly scalable and integration-friendly. However, do note that if you want to customize your Alfresco website, you need access to people with Java skills, as well as full-time developers.
Learn more about Alfresco and its features by clicking here.
