A lot of people have been asking this question. Every month 1.2 million people search Google with the term, what is CMS.
In its simplest terms a CMS is a lot like a word processor in that you can edit documents in a WYSIWYG format. WYSIWYG stands for 'what you see is what you get', this type of document creation allows you to see exactly what the document will look like as you are typing and adding different elements.
Content Management System
Content management systems are also pretty complex. A good content management system acts more like a database than a word processor. The database is where you can link content together and keep a record of changes made to any web page or web page element.
Electronic content management systems have been around since computers were invented. But content management has been a problem since the beginning of the printing press, and some historians say that the problem began with the first written word.
The scope of this article is beyond the history of the content management systems, instead I'm going to focus on the most used content management systems today and give a brief over view of each system. The most popular content management systems are:
Drupal Joomla WordPress
These are the top three systems in use today as they are all popular among people that don't know how to create a website or haven't learned any HTML.
Drupal
Drupal was launched in 2000 in a dorm room at the University of Antwerp by two students who wanted to be able to share information with other each other and other classmates. It was named "Drop" for the first year until the creator, Dries Buytaert, graduated and moved out of the dorm room.
The name Drupal, pronounced "droo-puhl," comes from the English enunciation of the Dutch word "druppel," which means "drop." Drupal is free. It is open source software that is constantly being updated by IT professionals from all over the world. With Drupal you don't have to know any HTML to create websites as everything is accomplished inside the interface that looks like a word processor. So you can create websites easily and manage all of the web pages from one location.
Joomla
Joomla is also free open source software that allows you to create websites and web pages easily once you get over the learning curve. You'll have to install and learn all of the modules to begin creating web pages. The Joomla website has extensive documentation on how to use the software and a broad FAQ page to help new people learn the tips and tricks and how to get around the different features of the software.
WordPress
WordPress was released in 2003 and has become the benchmark for automated SEO optimization. WordPress plug-ins automates most of the tasks associated with making a website search engine friendly. This software also has to be installed unless you choose to let WordPress host your website on a subdomain such as "yourwebsite.wordpress.com".
Having a website hosted by WordPress has its draw backs as you don't have control over your website and WordPress can ban you if you violate the rules.
WordPress is the easiest to learn of the three content management systems. And in my opinion the best one to start with if you don't have any experience in creating websites. It is powerful bu nimble and if used correctly any WordPress blog can be made to get high rankings on Google.
Now click on this What is CMS link to see introductory videos for the three content management systems listed in this article.
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