Content Management Systems (CMS)
Over the last few years there has been much talk about CMS or Content Management Systems. This page aims to explain both the advantages and disadvantages of content management systems, and to provide some guidance in selecting a suitable content management system for a website.
Cornish WebServices only started offering content management systems to clients in 2005. The reason for this was that earlier we were unable to find any content management systems that produced accessible code suitable for a search engine optimised website. There were plenty of online content management systems which produced poor quality code that search engines did not like or even hated so much it risked getting your website banned.
UPDATE: We now provide our own search engine optimised CMS called Cornish CMS.
What is a CMS or Content Management System?
A content management system is a system that allows non-technical people within the client organisation to update parts of the website. These can either be fully web based, accessed from any computer via a web browser, or they can include some software that needs installing on your PC enabling you to connect to your website and make changes.
Many content management systems allow different levels of access or can restrict users to editing selected parts of the website only.
The benefits of a CMS or content management system
Content management systems allow the client to make their own changes to the website as often as they like. This should keep costs of maintenance down and gives the client control over update frequency.
The disadvantages of most content management systems
Most content management systems produce poor code. (Of course this is not usually mentioned). The website may have the correct appearance, but it is generally written with poorly marked-up HTML. If your content management system allows you to change font size and font colour for any text, then it is most likely that it is producing incorrectly marked up HTML (website code).
Badly marked up code makes your website makes less easy for blind or partially sighted people to use. The most important web user (Google) is blind! This makes your website less important within the search engines, and will have a major impact on your website's visibility in the search engines. This can then add significantly to the cost of marketing your website.
There was no reason (in our opinion) other than ignorance of website design standards for such content management systems to have been produced - but they were. This is a similar story to the early HTML editors that produced appalling website code.
Good content management systems
For larger business websites we can create websites with an integrated fully browser based content management system that has minimal impact on search engine optimisation.
Articles or News systems
The Cornish WebServices articles systems are designed to be fully search engine optimised and have an easy interface to create articles.
Currently there are 2 different Article systems, these are listed below:
- Cornish WebServices Basic Articles System
- Cornish WebServices Advanced Articles System
