Oh what a tangled web we weave-unless of course we practice good Content Management!
People complain about the weather, but they never do anything about it. We can send a man to the moon, but I can’t find a toaster with slots large enough to accommodate my bagels!
Okay, some things are just out of our immediate control. But what about incorporating a Content Management System (or CMS) in your workflow? Nice segue, eh?
If you’re like me, you can wrap your brain around html but just have no real passion for it’s rather, shall I say rigid Boolean quality that demands your deference? And what if you haven’t a binary bone in your body?
That’s where CMS comes into play. Even if you have no background in programming, and terms such as codec and Java XML sound more like a cup of coffee infected with the Swine Flu, rest your weary as I, um, parse out some of the more intriguing and accessible particulars of this very user friendly world of online applications.
Happy Happy Joy Joy!
First, the good news. Much of what’s available is open source. Free. No money down! Easy payments! Joomla, WordPress, Blogger, Drupal—all very popular programs that offer just about everything most casual users will require. Unless you need to upgrade for a fee to something more professional for you business, the basic packages pretty much can do everything. Writers, photographers, artists and various other practitioners of the commerce trade (does that sound right…?) all utilize various versions of CMS to promote, blog about and keep abreast of trends in their businesses. Want to promote your music? MySpace offers the same benefits with the addition of uploading music files. Sure, many people will use it with a less than capitalistic bent, but for many, it’s a quick and affordable means for a fledgling enterprise.
Secondly, even better news! They’re pretty easy to use (that user friendly thing I previously mentioned). If you have even used a program like Microsoft Word, well, it’s more or less the same thing. Text editing capabilities, add video, audio, photos, hyperlinks. Sure you can even edit in HTML mode, but why stress yourself? Still lost? Enlist the aid of the first fourth grader you come across, that should help get you started!
Templates! Content may be the soul of CMS, but templates are at the heart of many of the open-source applications. Many of the free applications offer the ability to customize the html and CSS of their sites allowing for a more personal look– but that’s not the reason why many have embraced them. The very nature of many Content Management Systems is to allow people to become immediately interactive at the most basic level without the hassle of having to hard code. Templates make this all possible. Numerous aesthetically pleasing templates are available when you sign up for a free CMS, and with just little programming know-how, you can even alter these (well, save for WordPress which is not developer friendly) to fit your own particular vision.
Unlike templates of the past, CMS is dynamic, meaning great interactivity for visitors rather than static. Y’know, like this!!
Essentially, you can have a relatively interesting and visually appealing web/blog site for the mere cost of brainstorming a username!
But you didn’t believe me! Why didn’t you believe me?!
So before you starting bashing in your head, let me break it down for you. Here are some of the benefits of embracing the current wave of content management:
- A quality CMS can help you streamline your publishing processes. It can allow you to develop an information architecture that is robust, yet flexible. It can allow you to manage your content efficiently and cost-effectively.
- A good CMS allows non-technical authors and editors to easily and quickly publish their content. No need to know HTML!
- A CMS makes it easier for you to manage who creates, edits and publishes content. Because it establishes defined publishing processes, you can allocate specific publishing rights to various individuals.
By easing technical hurdles in the publication of content, a CMS can reduce the need for training, while facilitating more people to publish. - A CMS reduces time-to-publish! The quicker you get key content published, the more value it creates.
- A CMS allows for the design of common and consistent information architecture (metadata, classification, navigation, search, layout and design). Inconsistent and poorly designed information architectures plague many websites.
- Consistent management of metadata through content template structures. Of the many benefits this delivers is a significantly improved search process. Basically, if the appropriate metadata is captured on all documents, then people can find the right content a lot more quickly.
- A CMS can facilitate better content security. It can control who is allowed to publish to the website, and who is allowed to see what content.
- A CMS can allow you to more easily measure the success of your publishing efforts. You can track who is publishing what, how quickly content is getting published, whether the publication schedule is being adhered to, whether out-of-date content is being removed quickly enough, etc.
- A CMS really comes into its own when you have a lot of authors and editors, based at multiple locations, publishing substantial quantities of content on an ongoing basis. Without a CMS, such an environment can become a nightmare to manage.
One great advantage is the overall consistency on how your content is rendered. Navigation and layout is more or less what every other CMS application utilizes, hence a consistent display on all browsers allowing you to be concerned with uploading and monitoring your content without having to worry if people can adequately access and navigate your site.
Other cool things: The code is generally W3C compliant, so it meets rigid web standards (some sites are less reliable, and let’s keep it at that). It’s cost effective. Well, first off, you can get a free site (happy!), but you can then manage it yourself due chiefly to the general ease of use (user-friendly!!!! Joy!) And because the code is always updated to remain current, you should have little or no browser compatibility issues and maximum search engine optimization.
Ah, but don’t think all this equates to manna from heaven! It still does not negate the need to know how to manage and design and logical and orderly site. It still needs to be concise, not too busy, and allow readers to scan through your content while not straining their brains. To have an effective web presence you need to understand your business environment-conceptualize what you need to impart to people; have good design skills; determine your online and offline branding; and most important, copy writing that people actually want to read! And that’s important. I mean, I’m presuming you’re reading this, right? Heck, I can upload videos, photos, blog about my life and maintain full control of how the content is disseminated. One man operation with the stroke of a key!
So, are we happy? Content? Can you manage your content….?
Okay, how about if we just break out in song?
