If you're a business professional, you've likely either heard of the term CMS or currently utilize one for your organization. In fact, for any business it's an essential term if you don’t have a team running your organization’s website and updating it when necessary.
Still not sure what CMS means and what it actually is? Read on to discover everything you need to know about CMS, including why your organization needs it, how it works and how to use it.
What Is a CMS?
CMS is an acronym for Content Management Solution (or Software), and it's used to create and modify digital content on a website without having to code it—or have any knowledge of coding. About half of all websites are built using CMS, and utilizing one doesn’t necessarily require an encyclopedic knowledge of all things technical. In fact, depending on the platform, it can be quite easy to navigate and implement the software to do what you need, as most CMS platforms are user friendly and designed with novices in mind.
Why Do I Need It?
If you want complete control, or as much control as you can handle, of your organization’s website, you need CMS. This platform gives you the ability to create, publish and update pages on your organization’s website and the content and imagery within it. No need to rely on a third-party IT person to do all the work for you; instead you can create webpages for events, new programs, classes or camps whenever you want without having to wait on the availability of another—unless you want to hire an experienced CMS consultant who is proficient in the platform of your choice, which is also OK.
How Does It Work?
It's not easy to build a website out of nothing. And if you don’t know code, you may find yourself in quite a frustrating and confusing situation since building a website from scratch involves an in-depth knowledge of coding. However, lucky for you, that's where CMS comes in. CMS does all the hard work for you, like utilizing HTML on the backend to implement images, text, navigation and more. It also styles your website to match your organization’s branding. All you have to do to have your organization’s website just the way you want it is to follow the instructions of the CMS platform of your choice. It then implements everything you need to make your organization’s website pop. When you update anything for your website on the CMS platform, it utilizes HTML, CSS and JavaScript to make that happen on the backend. Imagine having to learn how to code HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of doing your regular duties. Essentially, CMS does all the dirty work for you! And you can have multiple people easily access it to make any necessary updates or changes.
How to Implement CMS
When it comes to CMS platforms, the most-used one online today is WordPress, which is currently used by 40.4% of all websites on the internet, followed by Shopify and Joomla. Determining which one is best for your company can be tricky, as each platform offers something unique and can vary on price. However, each platform can essentially accomplish the same thing—building and managing a website for your organization.
Once you've chosen and purchased a CMS platform, you can navigate to the content editor and begin creating webpages, and adding copy, images and CTAs to your heart’s content. Many platforms even include predesigned templates, as well as SEO features and extensions that can help improve your website’s navigability and ranking on search engine results pages.
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