Content Management System (CMS)

As a small business owner, if you are on a limited budget and would like a robust, feature-rich website that you can develop or someone within your company, you may want to consider a content management system or CMS. A CMS is sort of like "a website in a box - with assembly needed. Content not included." Some are easier to work with than others but the three that I talk about in this article are great website solutions for small businesses and because of their popularity, there is a wealth of online support and information. The structure is pretty much set up for you. You can change the look and feel of the site with a quick change of templates. You then build your menus and the articles that link to the menus. There is more to it than that (which I want to also share with you...) but that is kind of the gist of it.

A CMS for the small business owner means:

• Increased productivity - a website or multiple websites can be built more quickly once the CMS system is learned
• User management - multiple users can be granted permission(s) by the site administrator to edit, publish and/or read specific content
• A database driven site created with no previous knowledge of programming languages
• Additional pages are much easier to create once site has been built
• Additional functionality can be much easier to install and configure

A CMS gives the non-developer the ability to build a highly functional, professional looking website for a fraction of the cost that it might take to hire a web designer / developer to create. This is not to minimize the significance of a web designer / developer (I have done both), but if you are on a tight budget and want to have a website built in-house and then manage the site in-house as well, a CMS is a great way to go.

There are numerous CMS systems out there based on different platforms (Java, PHP, Windows, etc) but three of the most popular that happen to be open source are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Open source generally means that the software or technology was developed as a public collaboration or project. Once developed, users can make modifications to the code and use it as they see fit. As bugs are worked out and enhanced features are developed, new releases are published. The three happen to all be FREE! You can go to the websites and download the CMS onto your hard drive.

After downloading, you may ask "Now what?" As a small business owner, I highly recommend two methods of training that got me up to speed rather quickly, introduced me to Joomla and now Joomla is one of best friends. When I first heard of Joomla, as a website designer, I was quite interested in development tools that would allow me to produce more in less time. I did a Google search and found a company called Open Source Training that was conducting 2-3 day training classes in Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress throughout the country. There was a beginner's training in Cincinnati, Ohio and I signed up.

Before attending, I wanted to know at least a little bit about it so I was already of member of Lynda.com, an online software training company. For only $25.00 per month, there are hundreds of software video tutorials that you can view and learn a tremendous amount - from pod casting, web designing, social media marketing to video editing. Lynda.com has an introductory Joomla course and I completed it. I was only able to attend the second day of the Joomla training but because of the course I took online, I had no problem with the remainder of the course. Open Source Training or OS Training offers the live training or the online courses. The training is very reasonably priced, ranging from $200.00 to $350.00. Sometimes, the company will offer discounts as well.

I stress WordPress, Joomla and Drupal because I think for small businesses, they are perfect. However, many large companies have built large-scale sites using these platforms as well. In fact, the White House's website was rebuilt using Drupal. There are many many comparisons between Joomla and Drupal and from my experience, Joomla seems a little easier to learn. The user interface is somewhat more user friendly. WordPress is generally used more for creating blogs. It is also a great tool for small businesses.