First of all a Content Management System (CMS) is a piece of software running on a server. Usually a database application, a CMS makes it easy to publish and administrate contents.
Some basic features are common to all CMS's:
Separation of content, structure and design
bring about many decisive advantages throughout the lifecycle of a website and beyond.
The website's look & feel can be changed or relaunched leaving existing contents untouched.
No need for copy/paste action, simply let recreate the previously existing content in its new design.
Easy content production, no programming skills required
You can read, you can type, thus you can manage contents! By a graphical user interface authors can simply create texts, insert images and multimedia files, schedule contents (and much more) to build and maintain a dynamic website.
Common advantages of a CMS:
- Decentralized maintenance.
Typically based on a common webbrowser. Edit anywhere, anytime. Bottlenecks removed.
- Designed with non-technical content authors in mind.
People with average knowledge of word processing can create the content directly. No HTML knowledge needed.
- Configurable access restrictions.
Users are assigned roles and permissions that prevent them from touching content which they are not authorized to change.
- Consistency of design is preserved.
Because content is stored separate from design, the content from all authors is presented with the same, consistent design.
- Navigation is automatically generated.
Menus are typically generated automatically based on the database content and links will not point to non-existing pages.
- Content is stored in a database.
Central storage means that content can be reused in many places on the website and formatted for any device (webbrowser, mobile phone/WAP, PDA, print).
- Dynamic content.
Extensions like forums, polls, shopping applications, searching, news management are typically ready-made modules. Good CMS's also allow for truly user defined extensions.
- Daily updates.
You don't need to involve a web agency or programmers for every little modification - you are in control of your website.
- Cooperation.
Encourages faster updates, generates accountability for authored content (logs) and cooperation between authors.
- Content scheduling.
Content publication can often be time-controlled, hidden for previews or require user login with password.
