What Makes A Content Management System Good And Why Does It Matter?
The secret to building a decent website all starts with a good content management system (CMS) – but what does that even mean? And how do you know which one you need?
Here, we’ve taken a dive into what types of CMS you can have, and how simplicity is more important than you think.
Types of CMS and what they’re used for
There are many types of CMS, such as traditional, headless and multi-tenant, built in different technologies like Ruby, PHP and .Net. You probably don’t care about any of that. The good news is you don’t need to worry about it, either - that’s our job! What matters to you is how it feels to use, and that’s what we’ll concentrate on today.
Broadly speaking, we have paged-based or data-centric content management. The first focuses on creating traditional web ‘pages’ from the title, to the layout of the main body of text and images. The second cares more about the data, and feels more like a database to use. It then takes that data and weaves it with HTML (the web’s primary page layout language) to make the pages themselves. This gives you a choice of ‘flexibility at the risk of disorder’ (page-based), or ‘organisation hampered by rigidity’ (data-centric).
A page-based CMS is ideal for smaller sites and businesses that don’t need to update their pages very often. This is especially true if it’s only one person looking after the website as consistency is easy to maintain. Each page can be individually crafted to suit the content.
A data-centric CMS excels when a business has lots of similarly formatted but regularly updated content, like an events listing or news blog. This type of site tends to be run by many people, or be driven from external data (a feed of financial news for example). In this case, crafting pages individually isn’t viable, so fixed templates tend to be used.
Here at Buzz, we’ve built a block-based solution that aims to give you the best of both approaches - organised flexibility.
So, how does that actually work? Well, our block-based system organises content into blocks, rather than full-page layouts. Each block represents a specific type of content (for example, text, image, video, etc.) which are already designed to themes, and can be reused across different pages. It’s all about allowing for flexible design, while ensuring efficiency when creating structured content, like blogs, news, or databases. Groups of blocks can be data-driven or manually added to pages, so you get control and scalability. It’s a more simple approach that we’ve developed over many years, based on the needs of our clients.
Maintaining consistency beyond the basics
There’s a bit more to it than just what the user sees in the interface, though, and a lot of that comes into play when we start extending basic CMS functionality. A good CMS, will allow you to do this without having to write your own code, and we call these little extras ‘plug-ins’ or ‘modules’.
Your choice of CMS affects which plug-ins you have access to, so, if you know there’s a specific feature you need, you should check the CMS has it built in or that a plug-in is available for it. The quality of third-party plug-ins can vary wildly, and user interface consistency isn’t guaranteed either. If your business wants to quickly prove a concept, a solution built with a hand-full of plug-ins can be a cost effective way to do it, but we’ve seen repeatedly that it isn’t viable long term.
Buzz chose Orchard Core specifically because it is easy to extend using all the same tools we use for bespoke development. The modules in Orchard Core, are designed to integrate more tightly using the same user interface design as the standard CMS, so, appear with more consistency than other systems.
Faster speeds, better security
Another danger of using third-party code behind-the-scenes can lead to compatibility and security problems down the line. Plus, due to the nature of some plug-ins executing complex code in the background, using multiple plug-ins can also take a hit on page speed - negatively affecting SEO and frustrating users.
While our modules also need to be updated, and can contain security vulnerabilities, because they’re integrated at a lower code level than a lot of plug-ins (and are distributed via Microsoft’s NuGet), they are security-scanned automatically and have less freedom to cause trouble.
In short? Less is more. Start small. You’ll find our base modules in Orchard Core already provide everything most people need, anyway – and you’ll still get the same opportunities to incorporate useful and engaging bespoke features as your website evolves.
What do I need for my business?
We’re big fans of the ‘Minimum Viable Product’ (MVP), a product designed to meet the needs of your customers, attain that vital goal of financial viability and do so with only essential features. One of the most important parts of our discovery process is helping you determine what viability looks like. With that established, deciding what features you do or don’t need from your CMS gets much easier.
For us here at Buzz, utilising bespoke modules is not always necessary for the CMS to meet your needs, so, ultimately, simplicity is key.
Why? Because a simple CMS has less to go wrong, gives you choice only where it counts, and doesn’t need hours of training before your staff can run with it. It’s about that consistent look and feel to a website, without complex processes slowing things down in the background.
So, when you’re mapping out your needs, it won’t hurt to bring it back down to the key goals of the business before creating a site map or wireframes (we can help with that when you take part in our Discovery Phase). This will help you stay true to your vision, target audience, and help you commit to best digital practice over the long-run.
Why we work with Orchard Core
We love building on Orchard Core; the end-product has an easy-to-use interface that allows businesses to easily focus on sharing content or data in a professional, clean, and secure way. Plus, Microsoft’s established technology offers some of the best security, while the intuitive functionality allows users to update and publish pages efficiently, without the faff. That’s why we’ve built our block-based system on top to create an even more flexible user experience.
You can read all about one of our latest case studies, with Kivells, where we built a bespoke website on Orchard Core that ensured easy third-party integration for smooth business practice, and a clean, professional design.
Need help deciding?
Before signing up to a one-size-fits-all platform, focus on what your website actually needs to do first – and keep things simple.
To find out more, reach out to the Buzz team, and we’ll help you discover what works for your business.
