Content Management System have become a major requirement when one is considering a website to represent a company on the internet. There are a number of content management systems available to cater to a particular situation. Such systems can be open source or proprietary, custom or third party.
Here are 6 important points to consider before you finalize a solution:
Workflow – Through workflow, you can define the process of how content will be approved before it goes live. So in a multiuser environment, it checks the validity of content being published.
Versioning – The selected content management system should support different versions of the same content and allows for rollback and comparison to previous versions. Every time users import data and modify content, a copy is created in the Database – the old version is not deleted, but stored together with the newer versions. Versioning provides a more powerful alternative to keeping backup files.
Scalability – As the site expands in future, will it be able to handle a bigger website, will it support features like Blog, Polls, User Management, Forum and other advanced modules if need be?
Ease of use – Can you manage your website without the help of developer? WYSIWYG Editor, Spell Checker, User-friendly Interface, Drag-n-Drop features to add modules & pages, help, Ajax etc are few of the features that need to be looked into.
Hosting compatibility – The selected CMS engine should be supported by a large number of website hosting companies so that you don’t end up paying hefty monthly charges to your hosting companies due to limited choice.
Support – Last but not least, professional support should there from the company supplying the content management system. There are 1000’s of content management systems out there both proprietary and open source. Should only consider the ones which are backed by established companies, have good support in case any help is needed. This is one of the major problems with using lot of open source solutions. There is no formal support structure in place and you end up with ad-hoc support through forums.
