What Is a Content Management System (CMS)? Definition, Key functions, Best Practices with Examples
Jan 21 2020 | 06:00 PM | 12 Mins Read | Level - Basic | Read ModeIndrajeet Deshpande Contributor, Ziff Davis B2B
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Indrajeet is a Marketing professional with 6+ years of experience in managing different facets of Digital Marketing. After working with SpiderG - a Pune based SaaS startup, he is now ready to work as a freelance marketer with different SaaS startups helping them with marketing strategy, plan and execution. His love for old-school hard rock and metal music culminated in taking up guitar and starting www.guitargabble.com.
He’s studying Stoic philosophy, experimenting with productive habits and documenting the progress. Get in touch if you’re keen to know how you can implement pro-wrestling tactics in your marketing, community building and storytelling.
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A content management system (CMS) is defined as a software application that enables users to create, edit, publish, and organize website content with little to no programming.
In this article, we’ll look at what a content management system (CMS) is, its components, key functions, best practices to follow, and five most-widely used CMS. Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
- What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?
- What Is the Difference Between a CMS and a DXP?
- 7 Key Functions of a Content Management System
- Top 5 Content Management Systems
- Top 6 Best Practices to Employ for Your CMS
What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?
A content management system (CMS) allows users to manage their websites without requiring them to write thousands of lines of code. A CMS provides a WYSISYG (what you see is what you get) editor that allows users to create website content seamlessly.
Generally, websites are built using hypertext markup language (HTML) and cascading style sheets (CSS). You need to have in-depth knowledge of these languages to be able to build a basic website, and for advanced features, you need to know scripting languages such as JavaScript. A CMS, on the other hand, contains built-in templates developed using these languages that you can use to create content. With a basic understanding of HTML/CSS, you can tweak these templates and customize them as per your requirements.
Over time, content management systems have evolved in their capabilities, and you can use them to develop the following types of websites:
- Static website
- Blogging platform
- News/publication
- Forums
- Online store
- Social networking
- Online learning website, etc.
Along with a CMS, you also need a domain name and web hosting to set up your website. A domain name acts as the address, whereas the web hosting acts as the home/storage place for the website content.
A content management system consists of the following two elements:
1. Content Management Application (CMA): It’s the graphical user interface (GUI) that you use to manage website content
2. Content Delivery Application (CDA): The CDA is the back-end of the CMS that updates the website
Learn More:
What Is the Difference Between a CMS and a DXP?
Digital experience platforms are the latest buzz in the martech space. But what are they? And how are they different from a CMS?
Digital experience platforms (DXPs) enable organizations to deliver personalized experiences to their audiences across different touchpoints. The convergence of omnichannel marketing and customer experience makes DXP a potent solution to deliver both.
So, while CMS remains central to content management, a DXP can act as an expansion to help organizations deliver better content experiences to their audience.
7 Key Functions of a Content Management System
Whether you choose an existing CMS application such as WordPress, Squarespace, or develop a CMS as per your requirements, ensure that it offers the following seven features:
1. Intuitive User Interface and Experience (UI/UX)
It’s unlikely that end-users of the CMS will be proficient at technology or programming. An intuitive UI/UX ensures that any layperson can understand and use the CMS. The user should be able to find out key functionalities based on visual cues (such as text or icons) rather than remembering how to find them. A user-friendly experience also makes it easy for users to troubleshoot basic errors and seek support whenever necessary.
2. Flexible Site Structure
There are three aspects to the site structure:
- As your content production increases, the CMS should be able to keep up with it without impacting performance.
- Initially, the user should be able to customize the permalink to structure the website content according to their needs. The CMS should also offer features to segregate content based on categories, tags, etc.
- The CMS should keep it easy to make changes in the appearance or content templates with buttons or basic HTML skills.
3. Powerful Editor
A CMS editor can work in both - WYSIWYG and HTML editing modes. The editor should support various content formats such as simple text, images, video, gif, image gallery, and so on. It should also allow users to add third-party content such as YouTube videos, Twitter tweets, or podcasts by inserting the embed code through the HTML editor, although newer editors are capable of achieving the same by adding the direct link.
The scheduling feature should allow users to schedule posts in the future or backdate them.
4. On-page SEO Tools
You can optimize individual web pages and blog posts using on-page SEO tools. These tools allow users to edit the URL, title tag, meta description, etc. When it comes to image optimization, you should be able to add a caption and alt text to the image.
To make the website easily crawlable for search engine bots/spiders, users should be able to add it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and add their code snippets to the CMS.
5. Content Management
While uploading images and other files in a CMS is a walk in the park, accessing them later can be a nightmare, especially when looking for older files. A robust content management feature will enable users to search, sort or filter files by their name, date, format. The draft feature lets users keep a content piece offline without having them to delete it.
Basic image editing features like crop and resize will make it easy for users to make changes to files within the CMS.
6. Third-party Integrations
The ever-expanding martech stack calls for sophisticated workflows to manage process redundancies. While it’s impossible for a CMS to offer every single feature, it should provide functionalities to integrate third-party applications to automate various processes. For instance, you can use plugins in WordPress to extend its capabilities. Here’s a partial list of integrations that would simplify the CMS workflow:
- Security: If the CMS doesn’t provide robust security features, you should be able to integrate security plugins to prevent site attacks and data breaches.
- Data backup: The data backup solution allows you to save the most recent backup of your website. You can do it either manually or automate the process at scheduled intervals.
- Email marketing: By integrating email marketing platform with the CMS, you can automate list building efforts and set up workflows that can send an email to your subscribers every time you publish new content.
- E-commerce: You can set up an online store using an e-commerce integration such as Shopify.
- Social media: Plan your social media activities around your blog’s editorial calendar. Similar to email marketing, you can schedule social media posts for newly published content.
- Analytics: While many CMS offer a built-in basic analytics feature, you can analyze your website at a much more sophisticated level by integrating it with an analytics tool such as Google Analytics.
7. Multiple User Roles
Assigning user roles hierarchically ensures that content management is a breeze, and the publishing workflow isn’t disrupted. For instance, the super admin will have all the rights, including making aesthetic changes to the website to publishing content. Whereas a contributor can add content, but can’t publish it unless the editor approves it.
Depending on your team structure, you should be able to assign the roles of editor, author, contributor, etc. to respective team members so that content publishing goes through the standard process.
Learn More: 10 Best Content Management Systems (CMS) Software in 2020
Top 5 Content Management Systems
There’s an overwhelming number of options when it comes to CMS solutions. In this section, we’ll look at the five most commonly used CMS:
1. WordPress
This is the CMS perhaps no one is a stranger to. Launched in 2003 as a blogging platform, WordPress has now evolved into much more than that. One of the biggest strengths of WordPress is the endless customization possibilities. The availability of third-party themes and plugins allows you to design your website as per your specific requirements. Speaking of customizations, while WordPress offers domain and hosting services, you are free to use third-party services to set up your website.
2. Squarespace
Squarespace is known for its drag-and-drop website builder that enables non-coders to design websites. The difference between Squarespace and WordPress is that with Squarespace, you can’t go for a third-party domain name and hosting services.
Squarespace offers monthly and annual subscription plans to suit your requirements. The platform enables you to set up right from a simple one-page website to a full-blown e-commerce store.
3. Wix
Wix offers similar functionalities to that of Squarespace. The platform offers over 500 mobile-optimized website templates to choose from, with over 100 built-in fonts. While you can set up a blog for free, you need to upgrade to the premium plan to get a custom domain name and an ad-free experience.
Wix also lets users set up an e-commerce store, accept online payments, and send customized email campaigns.
4. Magento
Magento is one of the most powerful open-source e-commerce platforms and not a CMS per se. The platform offers e-commerce solutions for small businesses, mid-market, and enterprise-level organizations.
The built-in customer service, order management, and business intelligence/analytics features offered by Magento allow store owners to manage everything from a single place. Magento’s marketplace consists of third-party extensions to expand the store’s capabilities.
5. HubSpot
HubSpot’s CMS comes with plenty of personalization features due to its end-to-end marketing automation offerings. You can source in CRM data into the CMS to optimize the website experience for each user.
With HubSpot, you can manage blog posts, landing pages, emails, site pages, etc. all in a single place. The HubSpot CMS also offers a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure that your content is served across the world in a relatively short time.
Learn More: What Is Content Marketing? Definition, Types, Best Practices, Benefits, and Examples
Top 6 Best Practices to Employ for Your CMS
A CMS ensures that your content machine functions seamlessly. Make sure to implement these six best practices for your CMS.
1. Define the Purpose
Before shortlisting a CMS, it is imperative to involve multiple stakeholders to pick the right solution. Consider the end-users first because they’re the ones who’ll use it the most. For instance, if the webmaster is the only user at a firm, then a CMS with some technicalities won’t be a problem. On the other hand, an organization with a full-fledged content team must have a straightforward CMS.
Also, consider scalability while evaluating various options. Scalability should include the ease of use and cost of content management as you grow. For instance, although Squarespace is a great CMS for SMBs, it may not be feasible for publication websites.
2. Choose a Good Web Host
While giant corporations have their own servers, that may not be the case for every business. Since the web host partially determines your website’s load speed, ensure that you choose a fast one. Here are some other considerations you need to keep in mind:
- Choose the host with maximum uptime. Uptime is the amount of time the server was active. Many web hosts these days promise an uptime of 99.9%.
- You’ll be charged based on the monthly traffic you get, which includes storage and bandwidth. Measure your current website traffic, and estimate a ballpark figure to help you pick the right plan. If you run a high-traffic website, pick a high-bandwidth plan.
- Evaluate customer support based on the average turnaround time and means of communication. This is especially important if you have an in-house team managing the back-end of the CMS.
- There are various types of servers – shared, dedicated, and cloud. A shared server can host multiple websites, whereas a dedicated server hosts a single website. Choose the server type depending on your traffic, required storage space, and budget.
3. Implement the Right Security Measures
We keep getting news of hackers exploiting security vulnerabilities to leak confidential data. Often, companies have to pay a hefty amount to regain access to their website. Brute-force login attempts, redirects, and backdoors are some of the common hacking techniques.
Choosing a reputed host, customizing the CMS login URL, limiting login attempts, and regularly updating to the latest CMS version can definitely make your website secure.
Besides this, automating the website backup process will keep a copy of your website files on a secure server, which you can retrieve in case the website data is compromised.
4. Pick Extensions Wisely
Extensions integrate additional functionalities to your CMS. For instance, although you can’t build an online store using WordPress alone, installing the WooCommerce extension/plugin can help you develop a full-fledged e-commerce website.
Some extensions boost the website’s performance, some improve the UI, and some let you integrate third-party services. Therefore, depending on their functionality, they can run in the back-end, front-end, or simultaneously at both ends. Relying on too many extensions that run in the front-end can reduce the website’s load speed.
The key is to choose plugins that are reputed for their efficient coding practices. You can read ratings and reviews in the extension/plugin directory to get a better idea.
5. Define Team Roles and Workflows
Publishing content in a CMS goes through three steps: creating, editing (approval/rejection), and releasing content. These duties can be handled by a single person or by an entire team.
You need to define clear roles and establish a workflow to ensure that your content machine runs smoothly. This requires you to take into account your current process, refine it wherever necessary, and re-assign roles to the team personnel. This will enable you to do two things:
- Arrange necessary training sessions depending on the user role. For instance, an author only needs to know how to add content into the system, whereas the super admin has to know the ins and outs of the system.
- Since every team member has a clearly defined role, they can simultaneously manage different projects and content pieces without getting overwhelmed.
6. Create Content Templates
Templates provide guidelines on how the content should be structured. This consistency brings in efficiency and reduces errors. Content templates should consist of an outline of how a content piece should be structured. The content piece could be a listicle, blog post, long-form article, press release, and so on.
The template should also have provisions to add on-page SEO properties such as alt text, image caption, and meta description. You may have to use an SEO extension to add these properties.
Learn More: Top 10 Digital Asset Management (DAM) Software Solutions for 2020
The Bottom Line
A CMS allows you to set up and run websites without using any programming skills. Before selecting a CMS, evaluate them on the budget, security, and scalability criteria. While some of the biggest websites use a CMS such as WordPress and Drupal, if you have specific requirements or prefer owning a proprietary software, you can customize an open-source CMS or build your own.
Do you have any questions related to CMS? Feel free to ask us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.