What is a Content management system (CMS)?
A content management system (CMS) is a tool that allows customers to build, control, and alter website content without requiring technical expertise. Using CMS platforms, companies can create, revise, organize, and publish content seamlessly.
Moreover, a CMS platform serves as a central repository for content and provides automated workflows for collaborative digital content management and creation using predefined or custom processes.
What does a content management system CMS do?
Here are some of the key use cases of a content management system:
- Easily create and format content
- Store content in one place and consistently for easy tracking, sharing, and repurposing
- Schedule and publish content that instructs the software
- Facilitates content workflow management with defined roles, responsibilities and approval processes.
- Seamlessly publish content on the web, which can also be scheduled to go live in a particular time
- Get access to multiple in-built tools that can help optimize the content to provide a better digital experience
What are the components of a CMS?
There are two primary components of a CMS:
1. Content Management Application (CMA):
Manages the content of a website or application by storing data, creating, modifying, and removing content. CMA in a Content management system enables users to perform the aforementioned tasks without understanding HTML or other programming languages.
2. Content Delivery Application (CDA):
Focuses on the presentation, distribution, and publication of the stored data.
These two components operate in tandem to facilitate effective content management for CMS users.
What are the examples of CMS?
There are multiple types of CMS, with WordPress leading as the most popular. Here are some of the examples of different types of CMS:
1. WordPress:
WordPress is a platform that enables millions of self-hosted websites. You can quickly and effortlessly create a WordPress site with the editor and customize it with any of the thousands of plugins and themes available in the official WordPress directory or on third-party websites.
2. Drupal:
Drupal is a highly flexible content management system that is favored by large corporations and government agencies such as NASA. To completely leverage the potential of this platform, you will need web development experience, but you won’t have to start from scratch.
3. Magento:
A self-hosted variant, Magento OpenSource, is comparable to Drupal in the ecommerce industry. While the CMS is flexible and extremely secure, it can be difficult to learn the large list of various features and extensions in-built.
Key benefits of a CMS platform
A Content Management System (CMS) platform offers website owners and administrators several key benefits. Here are some of the main advantages:
1. Multiple User Access and Collaboration
CMS platforms often support multiple user accounts with various roles and permissions. This allows multiple users to collaborate on content creation and management while controlling access levels and editing capabilities. Administrators can assign specific roles to users, such as authors, editors, and administrators, ensuring proper content workflow and control.
2. Design and Layout Flexibility
CMS platforms offer a range of customizable templates, themes, and layouts, allowing website owners to create a visually appealing and unique website design. Templates can be modified, and additional functionality can be added through plugins and extensions, providing flexibility in design and layout options.
3. SEO-Friendly Features
Many CMS platforms include built-in SEO features or have plugins to optimize the website for search engines. These features may include customizable meta tags, URL structures, XML sitemaps, and other SEO best practices. Implementing SEO enhancements directly within the CMS can help improve the website’s visibility and rankings in search engine results.
