Strategies International
http://www.strategiesintl.com/bm/strat_resources/web-content-management-system---use-one-or-perish.shtmlWelcome to the Age of Web Content Management Systems
Get on board with a Web Content Management System.
Goodbye HTML Editor. Hello Content Management System
What is a HTML Editor?
Remember HTML Editors? They were a lot of fun and they served their purpose. HTML Editors are programs that manipulate pages and images on a website, one piece at a time, by one person at a time, and the files are then "FTP'd up to the website", usually by a technical person. It was common to have broken links, missing images and a slow turnaround for additions and repairs. All those issues were a function of how HTML Editors worked, no matter how capable the webmaster who was given the task.<p>
Today, probably 99.9% of all websites on the web were created by a HTML Editor.
Most importantly, the right Content Management System automatically optimizes your website for search engine visibility.
Oh, how times change! Today, successful companies on the web have put HTML Editors behind them and now use a Content Management System to build and manage their websites; one specifically designed to promote a website to the top of search results.
What is a Web Content Management System?
A Web Content Management System is a program that allows you to make changes to the content of one or more websites, without the need to involve specialized technical help to do so. It offers features such as automatic scheduling of content publication and de-publication, image and other media control and many, many other features. Most importantly, it optimizes the website to make it highly visible to search engines.
It's all about Search Engine Optimization
A Web Content Management System is not just about making life easier for webmasters and content writers -- yes, it improves content creation productivity by an order of magnitude -- the real payback is when your website appears at the top of search results.
At Strategies International, every web engagement begins with installation of a Web Content Management System to manage the content of our client's website.
Not all WCMSs are equal. Some actually make it difficult for search engines to comb through the websites it produces. When you engage with us, we'll talk to you about which do and which don't.
Other CMSs -- our favorite for most engagements is the Big Medium product -- produce immaculate HTML code, engineered to be totally visible and accessible to every search engine you care about.
Keywords, content, tags, media and every other control is presented to search engines so that when someone comes to Google looking for the product or service our client offers, our client's website displays ahead of the competition.
But wait, there's more! The advantages of using the right (Web) Content Management System (WCMS)
- Websites are 100% optimized for search engines and appear higher in search results.
- Publication of material on the website can be set to a particular date and time. So too can the automatic removal of a given piece of content be set to a specific date and time. This is useful for the publication of time-sensitive announcements such as product releases, press releases, employment opportunities and so on.
- Image and other media are controlled automatically. No more fiddling with image sizes and formats. No more waiting for your business partner's nephew Vinnie to come back from vacation and make the necessary change to HTML for you.
- Links inside the website are adjusted automatically when a page is removed. Links to a page that were created automatically are automatically removed when the page is removed.
- Usually, the entire WCMS program can be access via a browser user interface. You don't need to install a program on your PC. This means that you can add and maintain content from any computer that has a browser installed and access to the Internet.
- Your website will have a consistent look-and-feel across all pages, images, fonts and styles. Say goodbye to web pages that look like ransom notes.
- The content is stored separately from the style of the website. The style can be changed at the click of a button, without the need to realign all of its content, and the WCMS rebuilds all of the pages with the new style. This means that you can give your website a complete refresh without investing in reworking the content.
- Different access can be given to different contributors to the website. A good WCMS might have Administrators, Webmasters, Designers and Writers. A Webmaster might be allowed to add a complete new section to the website or perhaps swap out the logo with a new one. A Writer, on the other hand, might only be able to add content one page at a time.
Liam Scanlan is Director of Content Management at Strategies International and the author of the very successful book The 12 Habits of Highly Successful Websites.
Keep in touch.