What is a Content Management System?
A Content Management System (CMS) is your website, but more important, it is a powerful application that manages all your site content - anything from text, photos, music, video or documents, to bespoke integrated components and applications that can do just about anything your business needs.
Our preferred CMS
We use the award winning Joomla open source CMS to develop our solutions. Joomla is the preferred choice for businesses all over the world - used to create powerful web-based applications. Typical usage ranges from simple brochure websites through to large corporate sites and portals. Joomla's powerful application framework enables the creation of sophisticated add-ons that can meet even the most demanding of business requirements. And what's more, because Joomla is so popular, you are never tied to one particular development company: most Joomla developers can take on an existing project with relative ease. If you buy into a bespoke, in-house CMS created by a software development company, you are solely dependant on that company, and quite often tied into expensive maintenance contracts and restrictive licencing. With our solutions you have choice: if you are happy with our services you can use us for future development - or choose another company - you are in total control at all times!
Is it difficult to update?
No. Once built, it requires very little technical skill to manage: web pages can be updated easily from the front end - no complicated HTML to learn, or uploading via an FTP program – If you can perform basic tasks in MS Word, then you can update your own CMS website!
If I want to change the look and layout, will the CMS have to be re-developed from scratch?
No. The design (look and feel) is created independantly of the the CMS, so can be updated anytime: if you want to refresh your site in the future, maybe re-brand or to simply update the look/layout, it can be achieved without any impact on your current site - we simply replace the old template with the new design - there are no re-build costs, no down time, just the cost of creating/adding a new template.
How would a CMS benefit my business?
All our CMS solutions are built using the same powerful Joomla framework, so even if you go for the basic CMS, you benefit from the same powerful system as the one used for a large corporate. The CMS can grow as your company does, so you can go from a simple, information only website, to a fully integrated business management solution, without changing the underlying system and with little impact on your existing website.
You get a professional looking, dynamic website, and if you opt for the CRM, it can also become your back office, managing your customers, marketing, sales, leads, invoicing, projects and so much more. If you have limited resources, this option can help streamline and simplify the way you work, and can be accessed 24/7 from any internet connection.
What is the difference between the normal, HTML website and a CMS?
A typical website is normally written entirely in HTML. It is static in that each web page is a separate document and is not attached to any databases or external files. To edit this type of website, you have to go into each page and edit the HTML - usually via a HTML editor such as Front Page, or Dreamweaver - most companies pay website developers to carry out this function as for most people its too complicated. Dynamic websites such as a CMS is written using more complex code i.e. PHP or ASP and has far greater functionality. A CMS allows users (with few technical skills) to update the site. Each page of a dynamic website is generated from information stored in a database or external file, and the CMS directly modifies this stored information.
Which is best for me?
We would suggest a CMS every time, as once its built, it is far more cost effective, and has the power to manage all your business processes from a single place. Most companies prefer dynamic CMS websites because they have a lot of benefits. Dynamic sites reduce ongoing maintenance costs, make data management very efficient, and enable the addition of any future add-ons such as powerful mapping tools, data feeds, comprehensive site search, data capture and reporting and so much more. They also make it impossible to destroy the layout, as might happen if you edit a static HTML website in a web page editor.
A CMS does cost more to develop because they require more complex coding, which includes the interface to enable you to maintain your website. They also require web hosting that can support databases and dynamic languages (which we offer). In the long term, they are the best investment for any size business as they offer unlimited scope and scalability, and as stated earlier, can help streamline the way you work - reducing the need for multiple databases and spreadsheets that don't talk to each other - as is common in most organisations.
So what are you waiting for!
Our Content Management Systems start at just £1495 (some HTML websites cost far more than this). The starter CMS is ideal if you want to be up and running quickly with a professional website. The low price is not a compromise on quality: you still get a powerful CMS that can be easily upgraded in the future to include more advanced functionality. If funds are tight you can always phase the development, adding new features and applications only when you can afford it!
