Do you need a CMS for your website?
If you’re struggling to manage your website or if you’re looking to streamline content creation and updates with a scalable system that’s user-friendly, a Content Management System (CMS) might be the solution you need. Let’s take a look at why a CMS can be a powerful tool for organizations of all sizes.
What is a CMS?
A Content Management System is software that simplifies creating, managing and editing content without the need for technical knowledge. User-friendly interfaces allow you to edit copy, upload images and rearrange content throughout the entire site without having to write any code.
The evolution of the CMS
For years, web developers built websites from scratch. Reusable snippets of code that were shared across several sites were developed. Those snippets turned into frameworks, which allowed them to start a website with a basic structure and best practices. Eventually, those frameworks turned into CMSs, which allow developers to hand over the maintenance of a website to other people—marketers, interns, even the CEO.
What makes a website?
Websites are typically built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These can be created with basic tools already on your computer. Simply open a text editor (like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac) and begin typing away. Congratulations, you’ve just created a single web page! Save it, duplicate the file (you'll start to say "dupe" and "duping" a lot soon), change the content and repeat for each page on your website.
For more complex websites, languages like PHP, ASP.Net and server-side JavaScript come into play, which offer advanced functionalities. These can be extremely useful and even necessary when creating a website, depending on the desired features. You can add many complex functionalities with these technologies, but from a purely content creation and management perspective, they offer one very helpful feature—centralized templates. For example, your header and footer are typically part of the site you want to remain consistent throughout. These technologies allow you to update links in your header and footer across your entire site from a single template file instead of editing each page individually. It saves time and prevents mistakes from tedious content editing.
So, if you can do all of this without a CMS, why would you need one?
The scale of your website and business
How big is your website going to be? Are you the sole manager of your website, or will there be others who contribute as well?
If you are a one- or two-person shop or you don't really change the content on your website often, you might not actually need a CMS. But if even if you are part of a small organization, what happens when you get sick, go on vacation or leave? Do you have a way to transfer your knowledge to someone else or will the website just be put on hold until you come back? Essentially, if your content management needs are greater than what a single person can manage, then a CMS is warranted.
For larger businesses and organizations, websites are entire ecosystems, often containing hundreds, if not thousands of pages of content. Managing this complexity without a CMS can lead to many inefficiencies. We often hear from clients constantly dealing with employee turnover, that they don’t want to invest time and resources in training new staff or hiring someone with specialized skills. At Vendi, we've helped numerous clients overcome these challenges with user-friendly CMS solutions. A CMS allows you the flexibility to adapt to changes in staffing while also maintaining consistency across your business, especially with brand and messaging.
Why Vendi uses a Content Management System
At Vendi, we recommend CMSs because websites are more than just a collection of pages. They contain diverse content—images, videos, testimonials, blog posts and more—each requiring different levels of maintenance and control by various stakeholders. We also use CMSs because we understand the quickly changing digital landscape. With new technologies constantly hitting the market, it takes time and expertise to keep up. Most importantly, we’ve built hundreds of websites and we’ve seen the benefits a CMS can provide with many of our clients. We also know that without a CMS there’s really no way for anyone to have a meaningful conversation about the progression, evolution and maintenance of a website.
Want to see how Vendi can make your website an even more powerful tool for your organization? Reach out to Sam Przywojski at sam@vendiadvertising.com.
