What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a software application that allows users to create, edit, publish, manage, and modify content on a website without any specialized technical knowledge.
A Content Management System (CMS) is a software application that allows users to create, edit, publish, manage, and modify content on a website without specialized technical knowledge.
In simpler terms, CMS is a must-have tool that lets any business user build their website without writing a single line of code or knowing how to code. Rather than building a system for creating web pages, storing images, and other basic publishing activities, companies can leverage a content management system to manage all the basic infrastructure and system needs while focusing more on their websites’ forward-facing components and overall content marketing strategy.
This article comprehensively explains a content management system (CMS), its components, essential functions, and best practices for using your CMS software.
In this article
What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?
You must know hypertext markup language (HTML) and cascading style sheets (CSS) to build a basic website from scratch. You’ll also need to learn scripting languages such as JavaScript for advanced features. With a basic understanding of HTML/CSS, you can tweak these templates and customize them per your requirements.
On the other hand, a CMS contains built-in templates developed using these languages that anyone can use to create content. Multiple users can modify the web content without any technical expertise through a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface.
A content management system consists of two key components that manage the “content” part of the process and the “delivery” part:
1. Content Management Application (CMA): The CMA is a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the user to control the design, creation, modification, and removal of content on a website without requiring an in-depth programming language know-how.
2. Content Delivery Application (CDA): This component serves as the back-end service that supports the management and delivery of the content once it is created in the CMA.
Content in a CMS system is stored in databases and displayed on a presentation layer based on set templates. Today’s solutions offer additional features like document management and automated process workflows. Most of the tools are now web-based, so all your users need is access to the internet to update your website.
Content management systems have seen a drastic growth curve over the years. They are widely used to develop static websites and blogs, publications, forums and communities, online stores, social networking, online learning websites, and more.
According to a research by MarketsandMarkets, the ECM market size is expected to grow from USD 31.7 billion in 2017 to USD 67.1 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 16.2 percent and the WCM market size to grow from USD 6.0 billion in 2020 to USD 13.6 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 17.6 percent during the forecast period.
The Difference Between a CMS and a DXP
You may have heard the term digital experience platforms (DXP) used to describe what sounds like a content management system (CMS). Unlike a CMS, a DXP enables organizations to deliver personalized experiences across many touchpoints. The convergence of omnichannel marketing and customer experience makes DXP a potent solution.
A CMS is essential to content management, whereas a DXP acts as an expansion to help deliver a more robust audience experience.
Who Needs a CMS?
Simply put, any business that publishes web content will need a CMS. Most companies, even daily publications, buy an off-the-shelf content management system rather than build one in-house. Today’s offerings include features well beyond just editing and publishing content. These include in-built landing page templates, in-content SEO check tools, page customization, tag setting and multimedia hosting. These features reduce the development work needed to manage and run a website.
Content and marketing teams can use most CMS daily without technical knowledge or requiring developer assistance. This way, the focus remains on ensuring the quality of content rather than worrying about the technical aspects of the site. Of course, beyond the provided templates and functionalities, there is always scope for IT to develop more customized solutions or adjust functionalities and templates as business needs evolve.
Benefits of a CMS
Apart from editing and publishing content, a CMS has also become important today as a collaborative tool when most workforces are distributed across the globe.
Here’s a broad overview of the advantages of a CMS:
- Democratizing websites: Content management software frees IT from working on publishing chores and allows business users the flexibility to keep web content up-to-date.
- Content consistency: A CMS offers a range of administrative and role-based user authorizations that ensure adherence to content publishing standards set by managers and business leaders. This includes page tag settings (limiting the number of tags that can be created), content formatting (font type, height and width of images, formatting of titles and subheadings, etc.), and overall user experience of the content page.
- Improved workflows and collaboration: because multiple users can access the system simultaneously, a CMS drives collaboration, streamlines processes, and lets content managers, developers, and IT all do their jobs without impacting each other at any given time. Content managers across the organization- product lines, geographies, and markets- can also collaborate and streamline content publishing workflows for seamless front-end content experiences.
- Easy-to-use templates and formats: Most CMS platforms offer a wide variety of choices for pre-designed templates for the front-end look and feel of content. This makes the work faster and easier and ensures that the look and feel of content is consistent company-wide, maintaining a singular brand image.
- Content discoverability and search optimization: most CMS software offers advanced content tagging options to ensure your content is structured for optimal discoverability via both- search engines such as Google and internal site search consoles and recommendation engines. This includes the URL structures, the alt-tagging for images, how the headlines and subheads are structured and tagged, meta descriptions, etc. Many CMS platforms today also enable content personalization capabilities. The CMS can auto-populate the site with content specifically designed for a particular known user- a functionality used significantly, primarily by publishers of online magazines, news portals, and even e-commerce sites.
- Integrations for innovation: though the core function of a CMS platform is indexing, search and retrieval, format management, revision control, and publishing, many solutions also feature advanced tools or third-party integrations. For example, some CMS tools offer tailored advertising functionalities that facilitate the publisher’s content monetization goals. This way bloggers and website owners can monetize content by leveraging native ad or sponsored content placement on their websites, by allowing gated content that can be downloaded by readers, or by seeking payment for content behind a paywall.
- Content security: A CMS offers various features, such as role-based view and edit access, tracking of content changes based on timestamps, user activity tracking (who is editing what and when), etc. Many CMS solutions also offer roll-back features, which enable users to undo published changes and roll back content to a previous version.
Choosing the Right Type and Style of CMS
The CMS vendor landscape is complex, with hundreds of options available. When it comes to choosing the right CMS software, the first thing to decide is the type of CMS solution you need. Some are designed to help you manage all of the content your business creates, whereas others are mainly for managing your website. There are even specialized tools to help with teaching/learning and managing individual components of content.
1. Internal or external use-case definition
Enterprise content management (ECM) systems offer integrated document management, digital asset management, records retention, and role-based access to the company’s digital assets. A web content management system, on the other hand, facilitates collaborative authoring for websites. ECM is typically for internal use and ensures the most efficient and effective use of content by all internal stakeholders. WCM is often outward-facing with a more obvious focus on content marketing and lead generation.
Businesses looking to disseminate information will need a different set of functionalities than those focused on personalized content. Your needs will also vary if you’re delivering interactive content experience, an online store, a membership or community site, or building a social networking platform.
2. Custom CMS or Off-the-Shelf CMS
Implementing a custom CMS can be huge undertaking that may need justification in terms of how you will staff the technical and operational specialists needed to develop, maintain and update/ upgrade the custom CMS system on an ongoing basis. A reputed off-the-shelf CMS would take care of most content publishing needs of the average organizations, and even global enterprises with complex web publishing needs are tending towards CMS platforms such as WordPress to minimize complexity, and maximise the focus on the front end. Many off-the-shelf solutions (especially open-source ones) also allow for a fair degree of customizations based on the granular needs of the business.
3. Coupled or Headless CMS?
Your next decision is to determine what “kind” of CMS you need. This means choosing between a traditional CMS or a headless CMS model. Traditional solutions are perfect for businesses that are highly focused on websites as a way of interacting with customers, since the backend and front end are ‘coupled’. The headless CMS is an increasingly popular option for businesses that operate in complex multi channel environments. This means, they need to interact with customers over not just websites, but also mobile apps, email programs, social media platforms etc. Headless CMS’s decouple the head (the front-end) from the body (the back-end) so that content on the backend CMS can easily be adapted to and published at scale and speed on any number of front-end devices, screens and platforms with minimal effort. Both needs are distinct and so are the solutions.
4. Deployment and Service Models:
Once you know the kind of CMS that will best serve your needs, you also need to figure out the best deployment model. Do you want to deploy on-premises or on the cloud? If cloud, are you seeking a public, private or hybrid cloud solution? And finally, what service model works for you? Most enterprises are heading for a SaaS model or a subscription-based pay-as-you-consume model, which offer easy scale up and down of investments; but again, it all depends on your unique needs, budgets and access to IT resources. These key questions need to be addressed at the time of drawing up a CMS vendor shortlist so you can evaluate them on the right parameters.
Aside from figuring out the kind of CMS needed, to draw up an appropriate vendor shortlist you also need to check off basic must-have functionalities that you need, to ensure the vendors you are evaluating offer comparable functionalities and capabilities.
Must-Have Features of a CMS
CMS allows users to manage content from a single internal user interface or dashboard, enabling seamless content management workflows and processes for even the largest and most complex organizations. If you are looking for an off-the-shelf CMS platform, consider the following must-have features when evaluating vendors:
1. Ease of use
Choosing the right CMS solution that offers an intuitive user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) is crucial to boost both – workforce productivity and end-user engagement.
At the business end, users such as content managers need easy navigation through the CMS and overall ease of use of the software to ensure optimal productivity. Visual indications and intuitive workflows reduce the need for undue training and enable experienced users to resolve day-to-day issues by themselves and only seek assistance when necessary.
At the front-end, the audience or website visitor also needs an easy, delightful content experience while browsing the site and looking for (and finding) the information they need with minimal effort.
2. Scalability, stability and flexibility
These are important considerations for any third-party CMS solution, as you need a system that can take on and scale up to larger workloads as your organization grows, both in content complexity as well as geographies. To keep pace with your growth, the CMS should have clarity on how it can help scale up to multiple language needs, high or highly fluctuating traffic volumes without becoming unstable, as well as enable flexibility for quick changes to the front-end. This is especially important for buyers on a hyper-growth path or operating in very dynamic market environments.
For example, having a powerful and easy-to-use editor is a core functionality of every content management solution or CMS. However, a CMS editor that works seamlessly in both WYSIWYG and HTML editing modes, allows content previews, supports multiple formats such as text, images, video, gif, and more, and allows easy addition of third-party content such as YouTube videos, tweets, or podcasts etc. all help drive content managers productivity.
3. Strong SEO capabilities
Digital content – no matter how well crafted – needs to be discoverable in order to reach the right audience. A big part of this is SEO or search engine optimization. While organizing pages in a way that allows search engines to crawl and identify pages on the website is a core functionality and can boost the organic performance of content, more robust SEO features such as on-page SEO tools are critical to optimizing individual web pages via the URL, title tag, meta description, image optimization and indexing etc. Today, it is also critical to ensure that the system optimizes for voice and video search, as such content gains popularity with audiences and search engines. Sites with large content repositories also need a strong site search functionality to help audiences find content easily via relevant search results.
4. Seamless integrations and plug-ins
There is no one size fits all CMS solution in the market that offers every single feature, and most CMS tools will claim to enable integration as well as easy access to a marketplace of plug-ins to enrich website functionality. For example, third-party integrations with email marketing platforms or social media help automate email campaigns or schedule social media posts for newly added content.
However, integration remains a huge challenge for businesses when it comes to tech stacks, and this is an area that needs additional scrutiny when evaluating potential vendors. Just how well does it integrate, how large is the plug-in or app marketplace or ecosystem, how secure are the integrations, how much technical intervention is needed to enable an integration or plugin etc. are all crucial considerations that set one CMS apart from the other.
5. Dynamic content management
Managing the huge and exponentially growing repository of content is a key feature of a CMS. However, a user-friendly and dynamic content management system means a better-than-others content taxonomy system, content tagging capabilities, alignment with the SEO and site search functionality, ability to easily retrieve the right content based on user requests at the front end without delays and drops, effective content version control etc. are all areas to consider when evaluating the content management capabilities of potential CMS tools.
6. Content performance optimization
This is an important area that often gets overlooked when a feature-specific evaluation is in progress. Look for a strong and compelling content analytics dashboard that gives you insights, as well as the ability to test and optimize content formats and placements – such as A/B testing.
7. Web security
One of the biggest advantages of working with a SaaS based CMS software is that you also get access to best-in-breed security features and upgrades. This is especially critical for sites that handle a lot of PII and other sensitive data.
Best Practices for Operating a CMS
There are many a slip between choosing and deploying the best possible CMS and deriving optimal returns from the system. These proven industry best practices will help you get the most from your investment:
1. Know your purpose: Use cases and outcomes
While shortlisting a CMS, it is vital to consider the end-users first. Involve multiple stakeholders based on the nature of your end-users, both internal and external. For example, if the webmaster is the only user at a firm, then a technical solution is an ideal choice. However, an organization with a full-fledged content team must choose a straightforward CMS that is robust and easy to use, requiring minimal training
2. Choose a good web host
While giant corporations usually have their own web host servers, it may not be the same for smaller businesses. Therefore, selecting a web host that ensures fast page load speed and maximum uptime for the website and stability and bandwidth based on your traffic loads and storage needs is key.
3. Implement stringent security architecture
The ever-expanding number of touchpoints and devices have resulted in increased security vulnerabilities and data leaks. On a global scale, brute-force login attempts, malware attacks, and redirects have caused billions of dollars of revenue loss for companies and government organizations alike, not to forget the loss in credibility and regulatory fines.
Knowing your vendor’s security roadmap and historical success rate is important, but no matter how good your CMS vendor is, the organization itself is also liable to own security and ensure users are trained in security best practices, especially when working remotely, or on mobile devices.
4. Pick extensions and plugins wisely
Extensions and plugins help enhance the functionalities of a CMS system. Some of them boost the website performance, some can improve the user experience, and some lets you add third-party integrations to your website.
For example, you cannot build an online store on your website using WordPress CMS alone, but will need to add something such as a WooCommerce extension to create a full-fledged ecommerce functionality.
However, as a best practice, be mindful of the plugins and extensions you choose to build into your site, and avoid ‘frankensites’ that are full of messy integrations which can be problematic later on. Plugins may also impact your security, as well as site speed adversely, so consider all front and backend aspects as you build your plug-in stack.
5. Define team roles and workflows
Publishing content through a CMS platform involves three steps—creating, editing (approval/rejection), and releasing content. Companies with full-fledged content teams and development teams need to define clear roles and establish workflows to ensure the smooth running of their content machinery.
For optimum results, review and refine current processes, and re-assign roles where necessary. This will enable you to do two things – simultaneously, manage different projects and content pieces effortlessly; and arrange the right training to boost team performance and productivity without duplications.
6. Take periodic content inventories
Maintaining a periodical inventory of your content provides a detailed and updated view of all content, by date of publication and publisher.
This helps you maintain a clean CMS, while ensuring that different content formats which may need different maintenance or update schedules are not ignored. Being current ensures better organic search results as well as offers greater value to readers and visitors.
For example, a travelogue to a tourist destination may require annual maintenance, whereas a financial reporting webpage may need monthly updating and regular supervision.
7. Facilitate a quality-minded culture
Creating and maintaining a quality-minded culture in your organization is another best practice to follow for optimized web content management. When the content editors of your team and other stakeholders understand the significance of quality content and adhere to the best practices, the website’s organic reach is greatly enhanced.
To facilitate this, build the right team with the right skill sets, follow content creation and management best practices, adopt efficient workflows and collaboration culture, and ensure user rights management/issues management in your CMS software.
8. Track emerging trends
Finally, paying close attention to emerging trends and CMS platform or software advancements in the market can be crucial. From search optimization to security enhancements, speed hacks or disruptive new plug-ins – it’s important to know about new opportunities to drive more from your content strategy via your CMS. For example, the big content management trend today is to move to a headless CMS that enables easy content publishing on platforms and screens beyond the website- be it mobile apps, digital signage, email marketing or ecommerce platforms. It’s useful to evaluate if such a migration could have big returns in your organization’s context.
In Conclusion
Content management systems allow users to create and run websites or blogs without requiring any specialized programming skills. Before closing on a CMS vendor, carefully evaluate your business needs, use cases, budget, resource availability – both technical and non-technical, security, scalability, and other requirements.
Some of the largest brands use WordPress or Drupal for their websites. However, users with specific requirements or who prefer proprietary software can download and customize an open-source CMS software or can even develop their own CMS architecture. Cloud deployment models have made the installation and management of CMS software an effortless exercise, allowing even the smallest organization to build great-looking websites that offer delightful user experiences.
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