Content Management System

You may have heard the term “CMS” as it’s gotten quite popular in the last fifteen-plus years. Maybe you have never heard of it, but either way, we will help you understand it a bit more clearly. CMS stands for Content Management System. Here is the link for the official Wikipedia definition.

In the early days, a website was built using code, but it was not editable by the site owner or a non-technical person; only your web developer could make edits. In the past, even your developer faced more complexity. They stored all files on their local computer and then uploaded those files using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. Back in the day, you had to know HTML (HyperText Markup Language), which is a programming language. Everything took longer and was way more complicated.

Modern websites typically use a CMS, which allows the average person or a web developer to make changes easily. For example, you can update a phone number, add a new employee, or upload a picture to a photo gallery. You manage all of this directly through the CMS, also known as the back end of the site.

It’s still wise to hold off on doing updates and more complicated changes on your own, but the simple things can be done once you learn the basics. We find that many people still rather have Grateful Web Services handle maintenance, and that is totally okay since we do offer that service. It is still in the best interest to develop the site using a CMS since there are so many available tools and plugins that make it the best option when developing a new website. In short, the CMS allows users to create, edit, and publish content from anywhere and at any time. You add content to the CMS server, and the system runs on the server instead of your personal computer. This setup makes editing much easier.

A few advantages of using a CMS

• Easy to edit through a browser-based admin panel
• Tons of plugins to help build your site without pricey custom programming
• SEO-friendly URLs
• Tons of Integrated and online help
• Group-based permissions
• Content hierarchy with unlimited depth and size
• Minimal server requirements
• SEO tools
• Revision features allow content to be updated and edited after the initial publication. Revision control also tracks any changes made to files

The most popular content management system is WordPress, used by more than 28% of all websites on the Internet, and by 59% of all websites using a known content management system., The choice for WordPress is followed by Wix and Squarespace, both of which are less robust. At Grateful Web Services, we use WordPress because it has become the CMS of choice.