Content Management Systems

When Does It Make Sense to Invest in a System for Maintaining a Website?

When people talk about a content management system for their website, they can be referring to very different kinds of systems, which begs the question, what is a content management system? For the purpose of this article, it makes sense to adopt a rather broad definition, as long as it pertains to website construction and maintenance. In short, a content management system, or CMS, is any system used to create or maintain the content of a website.

Benefits of a CMS

So, we've defined what a CMS is. Anyone not already familiar with content management systems should now be asking why they're useful and, ultimately, how they can contribute to the bottom line of a business. Different content management systems are designed to address different problems. Nearly all separate the meat of a page (the content that is unique to that page) from the window dressing (navigation, graphical elements, legal and copyright statements, etc.). That separation allows a CMS to achieve consistency across pages, or in other words, to enforce policy, such as making sure the copyright statement appears at the bottom of every page or that the company logo always appears in the upper right corner.

Such a separation also allows a CMS to address the error prone nature of making website updates. Take, for example, the case of sending out a press release. At the same time a company sends the release to the wire service, let's suppose they want to add the press release to their website. Adding the press release actually requires several modifications. In addition to creating the page with the text of the release, the new page must be linked in to the site, probably by adding a link to the Press Releases page. Depending on the navigation setup on the site, other pages might also require the new link to be added. In many instances, the home page might list the most recent press releases. In that case, it must be updated too, and if the site provides an RSS feed of its press releases, the feed also must be updated. With so many modifications, it's easy for a human user to overlook one. A good CMS addresses this problem by allowing users to enter new content, such as a press release, in one place and automatically propagating the various changes when the new content is published.

An additional feature provided by many content management systems is allowing non-technical users to make site updates. The goal is to place editing capabilities directly in the hands of the stakeholders. So, if a company has just released its quarterly financial information and the CFO would like to add the SEC filings to the Investors section of the company's website, he no longer has to call up someone in IT to get that done. He, or a member of his team, can do that directly. Likewise, if there should be a problem with the posting just made to the site, the accounting team can act directly and immediately, instead of scrambling to get a hold of support. While content management systems in the past might have required users to be HTML savvy or, worse, might have expected users to learn a proprietary tagging language, it's now fairly commonplace for a CMS to provide a browser-based WYSIWYG editor, allowing anyone who can use a word processor to make updates to the website. That's potentially good news for smaller firms lacking dedicated IT staff. If a firm typically contracts out minor site changes to another organization, such as a hosting provider or the original designers of the site, a CMS can allow these minor changes to be brought in house, possibly resulting in cost savings.

At the far end of the spectrum lie custom and specialized content management systems. The possibility of what such systems could be used for is fairly open ended. Certainly some obvious uses include automation and additional policy enforcement. Style guide enforcement is a fairly simple example. Suppose a company lists the members of its executive team along with a short bio paragraph on one of the pages of its site. The company's style guide says each person's name should appear in bold face followed by the bio paragraph, and at left should be a photo of the person with certain dimensions. By having users enter each data point (the person's name, their bio, and their photo) instead of generic HTML content, the CMS can enforce the style guide, potentially even resizing photos automatically to fit the required dimensions.

More advanced policy enforcement may deal with specific business requirements. A good example might be a law firm specializing in securities class actions. When they file a brief, they may want to make that brief available on their website for their class members. To comply with local rules in California, they may also need to send the brief to Stanford's Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. A customized system could automatically email the brief to Stanford at the same time it goes live on the firm's own site. Later on in the case, the firm may want to post a notice about the progress of the case on its site. Because securities class actions typically involve multiple firms, the firm may need to forward the notice to co-counsel for review before publishing it on the site. Workflow, a feature present in some larger content management systems, could be used to manage the review process, automatically notifying co-counsel when they have content to review and allowing all parties to track a document's progress through the review process.

Of course, after starting down that path, the natural tendency is to try to integrate as much of the management of that case as possible into a single system. Eventually the law firm could find itself building a large business system where a CMS is an integrated piece of a larger whole. That is well beyond the kind of thing we want to talk about here, but it is an example of just how far customization can go. The reality, of course, is that a large, highly customized system is not cost-effective for most average-sized businesses. The question, then, remains. Is there a content management system that it makes sense to adopt for your own business? The answer to that question, of course, depends on your own business. While a comprehensive review of available content management systems is beyond the scope of this article, I will break down some basic categories of existing systems, talk about who can benefit from that type of CMS, and present some criteria to consider when evaluating different systems.

Types of CMS

The simplest types of content management systems are blog tools. In fact many well-known content management systems had their roots as systems designed to run a web log. Of course, the perfect application for these tools is running a blog. Many such content management systems now include features applicable to more general types of websites. Simple sites can take great advantage of these systems. The best fit for this type of CMS is a small business setting up a website who has already decided to run the site themselves, or a site for special functions, such as a company intranet, where functionality and a quick setup are more important than customization. These types of users should probably focus on open source systems. As there are currently so many different ones available, it's hard to imagine paying for the CMS itself, unless it comes as part of a larger package, for example, included with site hosting or with excellent technical support. An advantage for users looking to get their site running quickly is that many content management systems now come with a number of well-designed templates included. This allows users to focus on getting their content into the system instead of focusing on the details of the site aesthetic.

Small businesses thinking about using a CMS to set up a site should evaluate the costs carefully, however. Even an open source system is not completely free. The CMS has to be installed and configured, and some may require a lot of learning before you can really put them to use. For many business owners who only need a few pages set up that aren't likely to change often, their time may be better spent running the business. It may turn out to be more cost effective to hire out the handful of pages that need to be created. If you're sure a CMS is for you, be mindful of the technical requirements. Most content management systems at a minimum require a specific scripting language and a database. Image handling and other special functionality may add requirements for specific libraries. The place where the site is hosted must meet the requirements of the CMS. Fortunately, if you're unsure about the technical side, the website for a CMS and its support forums are usually a good resource for finding hosting providers that meet their requirements, possibly for providers that specialize in setting up a specific CMS. In some cases it may make sense to hire someone to set the CMS up initially.

Of course, perhaps the biggest hurdle is actually picking out the right CMS. When evaluating different systems, pay attention to the admin interface. A system that promises a lot of advanced features is nice, but less useful if you can't figure out how to turn those features on. You want an interface that seems intuitive. Most content management systems have demo sites that allow you to try them out before you set it up for yourself. You should try the demo and make sure you can easily accomplish the kinds of tasks you envision performing on your own site. Also make sure the CMS will be able to build the kind of site you want. Have some idea in mind of how you want your site to look, and make sure the CMS is capable of that. Generally, you will have more success and less pain if you're willing to adapt your ideas to the content management system's preferred way of doing things, so make sure its way isn't too different from your own. Another aspect to look at is available add-ons. Many systems are meant to be extended, and the more established ones may offer a large selection of add-on components. Add-ons may prove useful in the future as you grow the site and add new features. Lastly, look at the templates available. If you plan on using a template that comes with the CMS, make sure it has one you like. Even if you'll be creating your own templates, the built-in ones will give you an idea of what's possible with the system.

Sorting through the different systems available can be challenging given the number of possibilities, but there are some with a more established history. Drupal and Mambo/Joomla have been around a while and have good admin interfaces and an established following, as well as a large selection of add-on components. You should definitely include them in your list of systems to evaluate. A good resource for finding and evaluating content management systems is OpenSourceCMS, with convenient access to reviews and demos of a large number of systems.

Small businesses looking for an entry level system are not the only ones who can stand to benefit from a CMS. At the other end entirely of the group are very large enterprises with considerable resources they are willing to contribute to their site, as well as companies whose website is a core part of the business itself. Blog tools, even more evolved ones, are generally not adequate for this group. For extremely large sites with thousands of pages, some kind of CMS is most likely a requirement. The first time a site undergoes a global change (anything from a logo change to a complete redesign), the CMS is likely to pay for itself, since you can now update just the layout and automatically apply it across all of the content.

The first step any large organization should take when looking at a CMS is to define their requirements. For large sites, link management is probably a necessity, as is a good built-in search capability. For smaller sites with special needs, specific features can be most important. A workflow component might be important. Versioning may also be an important feature both for the ability to undo an edit and to keep a complete change history for a page. Depending on just how the system will be used, ease of developing extensions may also be an important consideration.

There are certainly systems, both commercial and open source, designed with some of these advanced requirements in mind. Perhaps one of the most established open source systems aimed at this crowd is Plone. Even if it is not a good fit for your organization, it's worth taking a look at Plone's feature set. One thing to bear in mind when looking at larger content management systems is that even open source systems typically require a much larger investment. System setup, training, and customization need to be accounted for. In fact, customization can be so important, that some organizations may explore building their own systems. Building a custom system has the advantage of absolutely meeting all of your needs, and in some cases may be merited; however, developing such a system can also be very costly. Even if considerable customization is required, it is generally more efficient to begin with an existing open source system and extend it to meet your needs.

Well, we've covered the needs of both small organizations and very large enterprises, which might leave you wondering about everyone else in between. And there's the rub indeed. Some of the first, and now most established, content management systems were clearly aimed at these two groups. Recently, a considerable number of systems with features aimed at other businesses have begun to emerge. Not all of these systems are mature enough to consider using in a production environment, and it's unclear which, if any, of them will prove useful or are likely to be widely adopted in the long run.

Here again organizations should evaluate their needs carefully. While the potential for a CMS may seem very appealing, if you have a relatively small site that typically has only a few minor changes every few months or so, it may well be less expensive to continue maintaining your pages as they are. The reason is that nearly any CMS is likely to require customization if it's to meet the needs of an organization with more than a handful of people. While built-in templates can be a great convenience for small organizations and special uses, they're not particularly useful for bigger firms. That means custom templates need to be created, extensive configuration might be required, and all that can entail time just to learn about the CMS. One disadvantage in having so many new content management systems available is that not enough developers have learned how to use and customize them. That means whether you handle your website in house or hire an outside firm, the people building your site would need time to come up to speed on the system.

One possible solution is to take a "middle of the road" approach. While some of the established blog tools may not be a great fit for the enterprise, they do have a much larger number of developers already familiar with them. Developing a customization on top of an older tool may be less costly if you can find developers already familiar with the tool. In that case, rather than trying to run an entire site under the CMS, it may make sense to build customizations and place only the "problem areas" that require frequent updates in the system. Such a targeted approach is generally easier than trying to modify a simple blog-style CMS to handle an entire custom site.

Businesses which already have a high level of maintenance required on their sites may find a better, more extensive solution is required. In that case, it makes sense to evaluate some of the newer content management systems and pick one that can be used without incurring a great deal of customization cost. Eventually, some CMS leaders are likely to emerge with features aimed at the enterprise, but which can be adopted with relative ease and offer sufficient customization capabilities. For the moment, however, it's a bit difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to picking a CMS for your average corporate website.