Selecting a Website Content Management Platform
Website content management platforms have gone through quite an evolution over the past 10 years. Ten years ago it was much more common for clients to select a website design firm based on their proprietary website content management solution. These custom solutions were often developed by technical staff and were not friendly for end-users. Most of the time it was seen as a necessary evil to allow users to update their websites and the CMS platform often felt like an after thought instead of a core function of the website.
Open Source Platforms
Over the past ten years the capabilities and prevalence of open-source CMS platforms has exploded. Initially, Joomla and Drupal were often used and gained a lot of support from open-source development communities. The past five years that really has shifted towards the world’s most used CMS platform — WordPress. WordPress became the most widely used platform for a simple reason — using the platform to update content is simple.
WordPress
WordPress started as a blogging platform — one that was setup from the start for frequent updating and publishing of content. Over the past 10 years it has been used more and more on very public, high traffic websites and it has continued to be adapted to manage complex webs of content over a myriad of websites. Due to these roots WordPress, is still one of the favorites for many managers of website content. Our firm chooses WordPress for many website needs as its still a quick and easy content development process for all but those most complex of content development workflows.
Content Management Platform is Just a Tool
While selecting a content management platform is an important part of your website redesign process it is just a tool. How that tool is used to create your new site and how you collaborate with the firm building your site to ensure it meets your needs is the most important aspect of the project.
Are there other platforms?
There are, Joomla and Drupal have lost so much market-share that they are hardly ever recommended any longer, but simpler platforms such as Concrete, Squarespace, Web Flow have been taking hold as an alternative to a full-blown custom WordPress site. These platforms are great for startup businesses or businesses that just need “something” up quickly. They quickly fall part under production loads and needs of mid-sized businesses, but could work well for small businesses in an interim capacity.
In Conclusion
At Floodlight we are believers in choosing the right tool for the job and being experts in using the tools we select. We evaluate each project that is presented to us by clients and make sure their content updating needs are met by the CMS solutions that we propose. While we often choose WordPress, custom CMS solutions come up from time to time and simpler solutions have their place as well.
If you have a question about what CMS platform could work well for your organization please reach out to us and we’d enjoy having a further conversation regarding.
