I was recently asked to do a presentation about Content Management Systems (CMS) and I think some people were surprised when my thoughts turned to the dark side of CMS. In principle I'm all for extending web publishing freedoms but I also believe that web design agencies like kilo75 have a responsibility to point out the practicalities and potential dangers of DIY Web Publishing. So what follows is certainly not an exhaustive appraisal of CMS "Pros and Cons" but it may help some people who are wondering where to start when faced with making a choice...

Pros

  • Allows anyone (not just the Geeks) to publish content online (see first Con)
  • Manage roles in order to control who can do what where (and perhaps extend publishing access to trusted third parties - PR agency maybe?)
  • Greater control over presentation = improved brand stewardship
  • Editorial work-flow (i.e. someone writes, another person checks, another authorises release), this is especially useful if managing the localisation of content as translations normally need careful checking to ensure consistency of message
  • Management of publication (when to go live, for how long)
  • Improved Web Standards compliance. Greater control over code integrity not only means less chance of broken pages but also better accessibility and greater likelihood of successful search engine indexing, etc.
  • Speed of making site updates - easy to add, edit or remove content as frequently as necessary without involving suppliers
  • Reduced ongoing 3rd party developer costs


Cons

  • Allows anyone to publish content - without proper editorial process, brand integrity can suffer.
  • Time (and associated cost) to implement (although over the medium to long term CMS can result in improved ROI (Return On Investment)
  • Reality is that often the low frequency of updates does not justify investment in CMS
  • Implementing or integrating interactive content can be more complicated and costly
  • Draconian enforcement of corp guidelines on branding can be a bit too restrictive and stiffling, resulting in a bland site


The top questions anyone considering investing in a CMS should ask themselves are:

  1. How frequently will I need to edit the site?
  2. Do I have the resource that I can trust to make updates to the required standard?
  3. Do I have enough people making edits to require so much systems based editorial and quality control?


If there are doubts about any of these issues then it could be more cost efficient (and safer) to retain someone with the technical know how to make your website updates. If outsourcing the job then the details of how your relationship should be structured to ensure timely updates is probably another blog post in itself.

A strategy that we often suggest is to plan the phasing in of a CMS. Initially build your site without a CMS, then plan and execute all your updates using resource with the technical know-how to edit the source files of your site and after a couple of months you will know if you are generating enough updates to warrant the investment in a CMS.

Here at kilo75 we are quite often commissioned to develop bespoke CMS systems (based on our own software) to meet the particular (and often complex) requirements of our clients. When a client's requirements are not so complex we might use technologies such as Joomla, Drupal or Expression Engine. We would be more than happy to listen your requirements and give an assessment of what solution best fits your circumstances.