Now that Joomla!, WordPress and other fantastic self-serve Web Content Management Systems (CMSs) are more widely accessible, some of my clients tell me they just have to have one to access their site and update their own information.
“But what is a CMS?” you ask.
It’s pretty simple—a Web CMS is any system that lets you add and edit your own site using an administrative panel. This means you can log in and change the content of your site in real time using rich text formatting (sometimes called WYSIWYG, or What You See Is What You Get), a la Microsoft Word.
A CMS can be great if you want to regularly update content, write a blog, or just be more involved in your site. But it can be a huge time vacuum or, alternatively, a source of frustration and guilt when you don’t actually have time to get in there and change things around.
So I often wonder if it’s really the best use of their (or my) time. Because while they’re easy enough to set up, the time commitment required to actually maintain your site can be overwhelming to the average user. This results in a very frustrated client, and a very high consulting bill from yours truly.
Tell me what you want—what you really, really want.
So I would encourage those of you considering a CMS to think long and hard about the intended purpose of your site. If you are a professional blogger or are experienced with web content development and have plenty of time to plan and implement your site updates, by all means—get in there, Sport.
Otherwise, you might want to think about hiring a web design professional who will make it their job (literally) to quickly and efficiently update your site with the latest and greatest, according to you.
It may seem like the more expensive choice, but take into account the time you’ll spend learning the system and updating your site, not to mention the updates that won’t get made when you just don’t have time.
Because doing it right the first time is always the more economical choice in the long run.
© 2010, Ann. All rights reserved.
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I’ve been using CMS for clients for years now, and I don’t know what I’d do without it. I recommend http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/, for the low budget clients. Great post!
Awesome—thanks, Doug! Always looking for recommends on good systems. Cheers!