Web CMS For Website Development: Basics To Know

17
Jun 2014

Posted by: Category:Web Design & Development

 



There was a time when having a website was nothing less than a dream for common-man. An average fellow like you and me couldn’t even think of having his own website. You needed knowledge of coding, sophisticated technology and lots of time to create a simple, rugged website that was nothing more than a collection of texts and images.

Thankfully, the time has changed.

Introduction of CMS has revolutionized the Internet & now anybody can have his own website at minimal waste of time and money. You can now launch a stylish, multifaceted & multipurpose website in just matter of hours, or in minutes.

So what is a web CMS? and why it has taken the world of web by storm?

I know it is too late to introduce this topic, there are already tons of articles out there & you probably know it, but I would still love to write about it as this is something every web user should know, especially the ones who are going to start a new website of their own.

Web CMS: What Is It?

If you are more than an average Internet user, you probably have heard about WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc. All this are web CMSs.

Web CMS is a software that allows user to manage authoring, collaboration and administration of website using an easy to use interface. It means: website administrator won’t need sound knowledge of coding or HTML or other markup languages to run, update and modify a website.

So good.

A Web Content Management System deals with three core components of a website:

1) Content repository i.e. database to store and handle data.
2) Presentation layer that is used to display content in arranged manner using set of templates &
3) Server.

So, when you use a web CMS to run your website, you won’t have to handle interactions of your website with database, layouts, and server by coding yourself. Coding is already done by web CMS, you just have to configure it using the admin panel.

If you were in 1980s or before, you would have to write a complete set of codes to create a working website, but with CMS, you just select components, choose layouts, drag and drop them and enter the content to create a full-fledged website.

 

How A Web CMS Works?

Web CMS, in simple terms can be considered as a ready-made mould to craft your website. You just have to choose the right one as per your desire. Some of the most widely known web CMSs are: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, MediaWiki etc. 

All these web CMSs offer coding-free environment on your desktop where you can simply drag and drop visual elements, manage and modify content insert additional features and launch a website in minutes. 

See the video below to understand the whole scenario of CMS properly.

Here’s another one explaining how you can use WordPress as a CMS.

All in all, if you are interested in creating your own website, you must use a web CMS to create and maintain it. It will radically simplify your tasks, save your money and time both & add lots of useful features to your website, all with no coding complexity. Enough said, now let’s turn to real-world benefits a web CMS can give you.

 

Benefits of using a Web CMS:

There are six major benefits of using web CMSs to create a website.

1) Cost:
Most feature-rich and widely used web CMSs come for free. However, you might have to pay for additional plug-ins, almost all basic and intermediate features come for free. There are also premium web CMSs which can cost you based on the size of your website but the cost is still much less than hiring full-time developers.

2) SEO:
With a web CMS, you can easily implement SEO without taking too much time and skills for it. Web CMS allows you to:
– Add markups and meta tags quite easily. You just have to enter your meta data using simple text-editors and can markup the content using simple tools.
– Create custom URLs
– Provide page redirects very easily.
– Manage your social media interactions easily.
– Automatically generate RSS feeds for new updates & more 

Due to arranged structure of coding and level of details, a website made with CMS is quite error-free and easily crawl-able by search engines which makes it quite likely to rank higher.

3) Simplicity:
The main aim of web CMS is to make the web development complexity-free. Web CMSs are designed with non-technical people in mind and hence provide very easy to use interface that even beginners can understand rapidly.

4) Customization:
With number of ready-made skins, themes and design templates, customizing your website becomes quite easier for you. You can get drag and drop AJAX interface to create custom designs in matter of minutes.

5) Workflow Management:
Web CMSs allows their users to control how content is published, when it is published, and who publishes it. With some Web Content Management Systems, administrators can also set up rules for workflow management, guiding content managers through a series of steps required for each of their tasks. 

&
6) Add-ons
While it is hard to avail custom features with custom website development, in web CMSs, you get tons of ready-made plug-ins, most of them for free & developed by active community of developers, for adding custom features in your website. This allows you to make your website more user friendly without complexity of coding and waste of time & money.

 

Internet is a huge beast and it can easily swallow your website if it has no power to resist the force of competition. In this lethal do-or-die business era, you will inevitably need an efficient website that is up to the mark of performance and potential to outweigh your competitors. Web CMS provides you a friendly environment to develop a powerful website for your business or individual purpose, however, you will need some time to learn dealing with it. After all, not everything is ready-made.

So learn a web CMS or hire a professional web CMS developer to develop a website for your purpose. If you won’t do it and ignore its importance, the chances are; you will stumble down fiercely losing the true potential of your business online. Be wise when you invest.

Leave a Reply