Content Management Systems: never pay a programmer again!

We are often asked about Content Management Systems (CMS): what are they, are they easy to use and why do we use them?

To answer the first part: websites can be broadly constructed in two ways – by “hard coding” – where all the information is typed into the system at the point of production or dynamically, where the information is obtained from a remote source (a database) which can be easily updated. Hard coded websites are cheap and easy to make, but they are static – you generally need programming skills to change them and thus they often become out of date very rapidly.

However, if your website has a CMS, updating it is much simpler, as the CMS becomes the link between the type of data that any owner can prepare and the website itself. No programming skill whatsoever is required to put the information on the website. In technical terms this is done though a database and the site itself takes care of the relevant presentation automatically.

Thus it’s as simple as preparing a new item in, say, a word processor and then pasting it in the database. This way your site is always fresh and up-to-date and of course, you never have to pay a programmer!

However that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work to keep your site up to date. Users expect up-to-date information on websites and it’s a little like publishing a magazine or newsletter. Every week, month or whenever the owners need to have the discipline to write new articles, post new videos or photographs. We make all this very easy, however what you post is up to you. Roughly speaking, one in every five people on the planet have access to your site (about 1.5 billion) and its growing every day. In the UK over 70% of all people use the internet regularly. (Neilsen, 2009)