A content management system or CMS for short allows you the website owner to update, edit or 'manage' a websites menus, pages, text and images.
There is more to a CMS of course, but when it comes to normal everyday use a CMS pretty much hands over the post build management of a website from the designer to the owner. This is great if you are a small business owner, as you don't have to pay a designer every time you need to make a change, with a CMS and a little bit of training, you can do it all yourself.
There are many content management systems out there but the two biggest players are Wordpress and Joomla, both of which provide the foundation for millions of websites worldwide. If your website is built on a CMS you can change the design, the layout, add thousands of pages of content, create menus and drop in any number of add-ons which can do anything from building slideshows, galleries and contact forms, to large scale ecommerce stores and full blown social networks.
A CMS will build pretty much build any website you can think of, from small micro sites to full corporate retail and social environments. Build it big or build it small, either way there will be a CMS out there that can deliver what your business needs. Even if you don’t want to manage the website yourself, CMSs such as Joomla and Wordpress are known to most decent designers so finding someone to do the work is fairly straightforward.
We would always recommend leaving the building of the website to the professionals, but from a management perspective, after a bit of learning to get you through the basics, you'll be good to go. With more complex websites you may still need to bring someone in occasionally, and you will usually pay a bit more to get the website built, but that’s about it. Even so, most designers will happily teach you how to manage your sites basic functionality, and as for the extra cost, it's still a lot less than the cost of going back to a designer for each and every change.
Getting a website built on a content management system will give you control and save you money in the long run. It will adapt to your needs, growing as your requirements dictate. Interested in a CMS website? Please feel free to contact us to find out more about CMS websites and how we can build the perfect one for your business.