Why every website needs a good content management system

For many small business owners, a website can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, a website provides a business with a great way to market their products/services to people far beyond the company's geographical location.

On the other hand, a website either means paying a lot of money for someone to maintain it and make even small content updates, or the owner must learn HTML, graphic design, coding and a lot of other skills to keep the website going. And there's still no guarantee that the site will draw in visitors and convert them into customers.

There is a middle ground, however. Once a business owner has a website up and running (something that should be done by a professional designer), they can easily maintain their site and update the content by using a content management system (CMS).

A content management system is basically just that, it allows you to manage the content on your website. This includes everything from blog posts (and even moderating comments), to the general writing on your site that explains who you are, what you do and so forth. Need an e-newsletter? A CMS can do that as well. Group forum? Piece of cake.

Here are a few more advantages of using CMS:

• Great for non-techies because most CMS programs are as easy to use as your basic word processor.
• Content management systems also tend to be web-based, allowing you to update and maintain your site from anywhere you have internet access.
• Make your website more dynamic. CMS can allow you to add modules that will give your site more functionality (think: Forums, eCommerce abilities, polls, search functions and so forth).
• Faster updating. By using a CMS program, you can make updates in a matter of minutes. This means not having to contact and pay your web developer, or even worse, trying to figure out the code to make the changes yourself.
• Better collaboration among users. If your website relies on multiple users to maintain it and keep it updated, then a CMS program will make this a cinch. You can track changes by user and adjust permissions for each user - maintaining more accountability and security.

Keep in mind that every CMS program will differ, but they should all offer the same basic features and be user-friendly. Here at Two Trees Media we use Drupal as our CMS. Drupal offers tons of cool modules that add nifty features to our site, and updating content is a piece of cake. Drupal is also open source, meaning it is free to use (who doesn't like free?) and is constantly being improved and updated by a dedicated community of developers.

What do you use for your content management system? Leave a comment below and let us know how a CMS has made life easier for you.