A content management system (CMS) is software that stores your business’s photos, text, audio, PDFs and other content, and makes it easy to edit, publish, change and delete it. Online media websites that publish content all the time can’t really work without one. Here are five reasons from MWD why your website should use a CMS.
1. A whole team can manage the website
With a CMS, both you and the team members you authorise can update content easily. You can also give people different levels of access, such as administrator, editor, author, contributor and subscriber.
2. You don’t need to know HTML
If you can create a document in Microsoft Word, you and your team can update your website’s content.
The CMS does the work behind the scenes, so you can get things done with a click.
3. Lower maintenance costs
On a site without a CMS, any change to the content has to go to a web developer. With a CMS you can make those changes yourself, so those costs disappear.
4. Run your whole internet marketing strategy in one place
Most CMSs include tools for SEO, email marketing, social media marketing and blogging, so you can manage everything from one place.
You can also create event registration forms, collect donations and store member information.
5. Keep your website up to date
Because you can run the website yourself, it stays up to date. You can keep publishing content that solves your audience’s problems, which improves both your business image and your search engine rankings.
Fresh content helps your rankings and encourages people to engage. The discussions, comments and likes your content generates all help push your rankings up.
You can also cross-sell by tracking what users do on your site and recommending related products. For example, when someone buys a sports outfit on your website, you can suggest matching shoes and socks.
Now that you know the reasons to use a CMS, ask yourself these three questions to see whether you need one:
- Does your business update its content often?
- Does your business website have more than 10 pages?
- Is updating your website costing you too much?
If you answered yes to any of them, a CMS is right for your website.