There are many factors to consider when selecting a Content Management Solution. Obviously the first question you should be asking yourself is “do I need a content management solution?”

At the very least, if you have content that requires updating on a regular basis, then the answer is yes. And, with the emergence of Web 2.0, social marketing, online communities and online business automation, most of you are likely doing a whole lot more (or what to do a whole lot more) with your website than simple content updates. Choosing the right CMS can not only make the tedious task of publishing content to your website easier, it can also become the platform on which you can unify and integrate all aspects of your online business.

So, you need a CMS. Where to start? In order to make the right decision you have to consider a number of key criteria including what type of functionality you need both now and in future. Ask yourself the following questions to start:

• What type of content will you be managing? Do you require dynamic content? (i.e. News, Events)
• What type of site updates do you need to undertake routinely (content, layout)?
• Is there user generated content? Does it require moderation? (i.e. Discussion Boards, Blogs)
• Do you need to manage multiple databases? (i.e. product catalogs, mailing lists)
• Do you need/want a blog, RSS feeds, e-newsletter, other social marketing tools?
• Do you have an external database that you need to connect to?
• Do you require a secure area for member/client access? (i.e. Extranet, Channel, Intranet)
• Do you need personalized content?
• Do you need to integrate forms/leads/data into a 3^rd party application (i.e. Sales Force)?
• Do you need business automation?
• Would you like to unify your web environments?
• Do you need to manage an online community?

Once you’ve answered these questions, presumably you have scoped out what features/functionality you require from your CMS. If you’ve answered yes or maybe to most of these, then you no longer need only a CMS. You require a platform on which a CMS sits that is customized to allow for additional functionality (rarely does an “out-of –the-box” CMS do everything listed above).

The next set of questions helps you determine which type of content management solution is right for you. There are a number of different options available. We have categorized them into 4 types:

1) Single feature content management solution: these solutions are generally tailored to serve a very specific need – like publishing an image gallery, blog, podcast, forum, etc. (i.e. WordPress)

2) Off the Shelf solutions: a collection of functionality generally tailored to serve a particular industry. This category is wide and includes products that are inexpensive (i.e. Ektron, Marqui, Contribute) to more robust, but pricier products (RedDot, Sharepoint, Team Site). Proprietary solutions from individual web technology companies also fall into this category.

3) Open Source content management solution: Similar to “off the shelf”, but have the added benefit of low (or no) up front cost, and the ability to custom tailor the features and functionality (i.e. Drupal, Joomla, Plone)

4) Custom CMS solutions: commonly built on web application frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails, CakePHP, Django) and provide total flexibility since the application will be customized specifically for your organization. Obviously, these are the most cost intensive options.

Single purpose solutions are typically used when publishing a specific type of content. These solutions are typically used for blogs and give the user a WYSIWG through which they can update content and allows for content categorization as well. These solutions are typically low cost or free and are fairly easy to setup and maintain. A common pitfall with using these systems is that they operate in a silo – if you add more single purpose systems to your website down the line, they commonly don’t know how to talk to each other which often forces your users to remember multiple usernames and passwords to access the different sections of your website.

Off the shelf solutions can provide more features such as dynamic content, password protected areas, unique user content and more. These tends to be a great industry specific solution and are a good fit for small organizations that are looking for a dynamic website, a user friendly interface and do not expect to require more customized features. These tend to come with a monthly or annual fee and could require software installs on your organization’s network.

Open source solutions provide more flexibility than the off-the-shelf solutions and can be customized to fit unique business requirements. Since programmers have access to the code, which is proprietary in off-the-shelf versions, they can customize the CMS to have more tailored features and customization than the OTS version. The open source community also commonly offers free or inexpensive plug-ins and modules that can be plugged into the product to extend the functionality without the need of a developer. These can transform a simple content management solution into a platform that serves a unified online experience for your visitors – community, e-commerce, revenue generating tools and much more all under a single sign-on, with a seamless single look and feel.

Open source solutions give developers the foundation upon which they can customize all the unique functionality required to suit an organization. These solutions are free to use by the nature of their license reducing operating costs for your system. Most extension/ modules are also free.

It should be noted that no single solution, or combination of solutions mentioned so far will meet every business’ needs.

Custom CMS solutions using web application frameworks provide total flexibility to the developer, and therefore anything is possible for you, the client. Where open source CMS solutions rely on previously created extensions in order to add functionality, custom solutions are built from top to bottom to suit the specific needs of an organization. These solutions require more time to develop, and are therefore typically the most costly option, but they provide a unique experience for the user and will suit your exact business requirements.

Inside track: at Fenix we are commonly developing the following types of CMS solutions:

1) Customized Open Source CMS: this is hybrid between the Open Source CMS and the Custom CMS options noted above (options 3 and 4). Very rarely does a existing CMS deliver, out of the box, all of the features our clients require. This can be said about off-the-shelf solutions as well. To avoid the time and cost associated with a custom build, Fenix will typically recommend a CMS that meets as many of the client needs as possible, and will then customize the rest. We choose Open Source CMS solutions for many reasons but most importantly because they make their code available to us, and therefore we can customize that tool to meet our client’s needs. Our clients get an end to end, feature rich solution, but only have to pay the custom fees for the components that are missing from the CMS.

We have used off-the-shelf CMS tools in the past and have had difficulty modifying them to meet our client requirements, specifically because we are only able to work within the constraints the tool provides. This has proven frustrating for our clients, as something as simple as flyout menus in some tools can pose a problem. There is no ability for us to customize the tool the way we like, simply because the nature of OTS applications is to keep their code a secret, as it is proprietary. At best, we have hacked client features into these tools, but this isn’t ideal.

2) Custom application development: for clients whose needs are specific and installing an Open Source CMS as a starting point doesn’t make sense, Fenix develops a custom application online to meet that client’s exact needs. Again, we do this on a number of programming languages, but have recently been developing on a CakePHP platform using PHP 5 and MySQL databases.

Getting Started: If you’re still not sure about whether you or not you need a CMS, or more importantly, which CMS is best for you, talk to a web technology agency like Fenix. Our job is to know which tools and applications will serve your needs best. If you’re not convinced, talk to two (even three), and then you can compare.

We at Fenix are asked daily to guide our clients through the process of selecting a content management solution. We typically time finding out everything that we can about your organization and help you build a strategy to reach your goals. This includes asking a lot of questions and recommending a tool that’s right for you.

More info: Fenix has detailed case studies illustrating the CMS options noted above. If you’d like to see these examples as a means of helping you determine your organization’s needs, please email Jennifer MacKinnon at jennifer@fenix-solutions.com.