Building a Web Presence – Selecting a Content Management Solution

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.