The Basics of Content Management Systems

A Content Management System is a computer application that permits the creation, editing, publishing and manipulation of content on a website.  These systems are usually used for the storing and retrieval of technical and user's manuals, news articles, brochures, guides, among others.  The content itself may be constructed of any file type: images, audio/video files, spreadsheet and word processor documents, or any form of Web content. The primary types of Content Management Systems include:  Enterprise, Web and Component systems. 

1) An enterprise CMS focuses on content and documents oriented towards the organizational processes of a business enterprise, and have a primary function in managing the organization's unstructured information content.

Content Management System

2) A Web CMS focuses on content and documents specifically designed for Web publication by non-technical content creators.

3) A component CMS focuses on content within documents, often managing structured content, such as XML, to locate, link and render content at any level of organization.  This content is then often sent over to Enterprise and Web Content Management Systems. 

The five primary aspects of Content Management Systems include the following:

1) Versioning. The ability to keep, and roll back as required, previous versions of content, even after content is updated.

2) Granular User Management. This is the ability to assign and differentiate users based upon permission levels.

3) Content Organization and Relation. This is the ability to position content in both larger organizational structures as well as in relation to other content.

4) File and Image Management.  This is the ability of the system to store files in relation to the content that uses them.

5) Multi-State Content. This refers to the system's ability to store content in a variety of states, from 'in-progress' to 'archived' to 'active' or 'inactive'.

Along with these core functional requirements of a basic CMS, such systems often include a collection of other features and enhancements including extensibility and integration, scheduled publishing and expiration, task management and collaboration, among others.  The capability of such systems to pick and choose among such a wide array of functions provides evidence that no strict definition yet exists.  The CMS, as a technology structure, continues to advance as users and developers define and refine their needs and definitions.

The Basics of Content Management Systems

Web Based Content Management System: Basics

A web based content management system (CMS) is used for webdesign so that the php, asp or jsp scripts call in the data from the mysql or sql database to create the content on a page. You would enter the content of a website in a database using a user friendly Admin Panel and this would update itself on the actual website. CMS is critical to the success of almost every website and intranet.

The need

Content Management System

Static websites are easy to design but hard to maintain. You have created a static website with desired content and you put in efforts to promote that site. As a result, the website grows organically over time, and while it is very useful, it is far from perfect. The search engines give more importance to the websites which are updated regularly.
To update the site content on regular basis, you would require the web professional company to give you continuous support. Now this dependency leads to either continuous expenses or poorly update site.
Thankfully, this dependency is what a content management system is specifically designed to solve.

What is Web Based CMS ?

A web based content management system (CMS) helps you manage the content data on the website. The management includes creation, updating, distribution, publishing, and discovery of content.
And it is not the only thing that the CMS can do for you. The CMS now helps to generate new pages, categorize the content, manage the layout and presentation of the site, manage users and permissions for the site, manage other dynamic modules on the site and many other things using a very user-friendly Admin Panel which requires minimal or no technical expertise.

Features and Benefits

There are a wide range of features and benefits that can be achieved by implementing a CMS, including:

· Create and Manage New Pages

· Manage site navigation and meta content

· Assign users to manage the content in decentralized way.

· Manage site layout and presentation by editing the HTML.

· Manage other modules on the site. Like if you have forum installed on the site, you can manage the forum preferences, settings, categories, forums, users from the Admin panel.

· Better consistency

· Increased security

· Reduced duplication of information

· Reduced site maintenance costs

Out of all the features, content management remains the mainstay of the CMS sites.

Content management

The CMS based sites have a front end which the site for public, a database which stores the vital data of your site and a Admin Panel to manage the site. Through the Admin Panel, you can create content pages like you are creating a document in MS Word. This is a completely non-technical interface to create new pages or update existing pages without any knowledge of HMTL, javascript or programming language.
You can simply click create pages and a page opens which asks you to define the attributes of the page like Title of the page, Link Title for the frontend navigation menu and page content. The page content box uses a WYSIWYG editor which helps you to improve the presentation of the page like making any text bold, colored or creating hyperlinks. You can also upload images with your content.
You can also define the meta tags for the page, publish and expiry date, author information etc to make the page more meaningful.
Once a page has been created, it is saved into the database on the server. This stores all the content of the site, along with the other supporting details.
The CMS also helps you to make the content management an interactive process between you and your users. A similar page can be accessible to your users who can post the content like articles, news or event. The added content pages can be accessed through the Admin Panel and approved to be published on the site.

CMS Availability

There are various CMS options with different capabilities and strengths in the market to choose from. Depending on your business requirements, you can have a customized CMS based website or you can choose any open source CMS available like Drupal, Xoops, mambo, Joomla, Typo3 etc.
Every organisation has a unique set of requirements for a content management system, and there is no solution that can fit your needs. By allocating sufficient time and resources, you can achieve the best possible solution. Out of customized and open source CMS, I would advice to evaluate the open source CMS available and get it customized to your needs by any company specializing in the Open Source solutions like Dyanmic Intel.
Now the common question is Won't my CMS site look like all the rest if I use Open Source solution?
It doesn't have to! Most quality content management systems will allow you to apply templates and plug-ins to your site, which can set the design of your site apart from others using the same engine by nearly anything that HTML and CSS can do. Typically, you can find templates on the main web site for the content management system you've chosen - and in the rare event that this is not the case, templates are typically no more than a Google search away. Most systems which let you install a custom skin will even let you design your own; allowing you to make your new site virtually as personalized as any site on the web can be.

Conclusion

Content management systems are now no more new to the market and have been established as the most important part of your presence on the internet. Now CMS based websites can create SEO friendly pages and be managed by various users across the world.
I have provided the basics of Content Management System in this article. If you want to read more on CMS like evaluating CMS etc, use our article directory Pacific Articles.

Web Based Content Management System: Basics