Should you be using a CMS?

When it comes to creating a website, Content Management Systems seem to be taking over. Why? It's simple, the internet is all about content. Fresh content. Search Engine algorithms are designed to crawl the web searching for the newest, most relevant content. So it makes sense that as part of your online strategy, you should be feeding these search engines the most relevant, up-to-date content as often as possible.Of course if your website is built using static HTML pages or Flash, this could be a bit of a challenge. Enter the Content Management System (CMS).

These nifty tools enable you to easily add fresh content to your website and organise your existing content through a user friendly interface. Gone are the days of having a static site and then linking a blog and having to upload HTML files and and and...

So how do I find a good CMS? Well, there are many Open Source CMS systems out there that are powering some of the internet's biggest websites. Joomla, Drupal and WordPress are the largest and best supported systems out there. These Open Source systems are revolutionising the way the web designers and developers build and maintain websites.

They allow designers to create 'templates' or 'skins' which are placed over the basic structure of the CMS, adapting it to suit your corporate identity or branding. The real fun comes through their 'plugin' systems. On their own, these CMSs are powerful but through the the myriad of plugins available, they can be used for so much more than organising content. We've used Content Management Systems to power e-commerce websites, social networks, blogs, project management suits and many more.

So the question really is, 'Which CMS should you be using?'

In our next post, we'll be comparing the three largest Open Source CMS systems: Joomla, Drupal and WordPress.