SOS in Choosing Your CMS

Written by Ray Larson

What features should you be looking for in a content management system (CMS)? A CMS allows you to manage the content of a Web site including publishing, format management, revision control, and indexing, search and retrieval. You do not want to be stuck with a system with fancy functionality that you will never use. Here is a guide to help you establish your requirements. 

Core functionality. Test a system for usability before purchasing. Most content management systems allow you to create, edit, delete and organize pages. However, not all systems allow you to manage and organize pages into a tree hierarchy where you can place pages in a chosen section; instead, pages are automatically organized by criteria such as date or category. If this is a feature you really need, ensure this tool is included in your system.

The editor. This feature is the interface through which content is added and amended. Traditional systems have a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that allows basic formatting such as the selection of fonts and color. This type of editor can give too much design control to administrators, which could undermine brand consistency.

The latest editors allow the user to markup headings, lists, links and other elements without dictating the design appearance. For instance, a user may select the headline to be bold in the editor, but on the published Web page the headline is not only bold but also red, in keeping with your branding. You could not change the red to another color via your editor. 

Search. One of the most important factors to look at is speed. Most visitors to your site want immediate results or they will look elsewhere. Another point to consider is how the searches are conducted — do they index the entire content of each page and any attached files like PDFs? And, how often does the search engine index your site?

Customization. Some systems do not allow customization and dictate the visual appearance of your pages. You need a CMS that allows flexibility in the way content is presented. For example, is it possible to extract the latest user comments and display them on the homepage?

User interaction. If you want to gather user feedback or build a community within your CMS, you need functionality such as chat, forums and comments — or your system will need to allow third party plug-ins. You also need to consider how you want users to be managed — will you need passwords or set permissions?

Permissions. It is important to maintain control over who can post what on your site. Although implementations can vary, permissions allow you to specify which users can edit specific pages or entire sections of the site. More complex systems manage entire workflows where a page update has to go through a series of checkpoints before being allowed to go live.

You may not require some of these features immediately, but always have your eye on the future. You want a CMS that meets your current and ongoing content objectives.