Selecting The Right Content Management System
Choosing a website builder, or deciding on how you are going to build your website, and with what tool, is very important. The reason why its important is because you have to be able to operate whatever content management system you choose, and it should be able to accommodate your business needs.
First, Lets Do a Skill Level Assessment
If you know how to write CSS or PHP, you’re probably better off moving on to next few pages as you could probably make your own CMS (Content Management System).
However, if your skill level is nothing more than simply knowing your way around your computer, you probably have all the skills needed to use a common CMS to run your web project.
It’s also a good idea to use a website builder program than can appreciate your minimal skillset if this is the case.
Simple CMS
The website builder offered by Yahoo was my one of my favorites when I started out over 10 years ago. It’s easy to get into and get started with. It’s also easy to get exposed to advanced areas of website enhancement along the way.
If you can copy and paste, you have it made with Yahoo’s website builder on its Small Business Hosting Plan. Their website builder is easy to use with a learning curve that ain’t challenging in the least bit.
Advanced CMS
Joomla and Drupal (both are open source CMS platforms) may be too advanced for the novice user, but they are great for building highly advanced websites. The learning curve is steep and will require a class and/or some free study. Most of which is available for free online.
Free resources, like Blogger, are also a great resource for building an online premise.
This website was built using WordPress. Instead of it being set up as a full blog, I decided to add some static web-pages to give my most important content a timeless standing. WordPress gives you the best of both worlds.
If you know PHP or CSS and need to make modifications, you can, and if not, there is always a plug-in to resolve most issues. Even a light understanding of HTML goes a long way with customizing a website using WordPress as a CMS.
In reality, any website builder is a content management system. A system, to manage and arrange your content. The point of this entry is make sure that if you select a content management system, you make sure that you can operate it proficiently. It’s your job to run your business optimally, right?
