Choosing the right CMS is one of the very first steps in creating a website and can have far reaching consequences for the rest of the development process. Not only will it dictate how easy or hard it is for you to update your website after launch, but it can also have a huge impact on the long-term costs of the site’s maintenance and how locked in you are to a particular provider. All in all, choosing the right CMS for the job is far more important than deciding on the right design or words for your site.
1. What a CMS actually does
The main thing that a CMS does is to allow people to add, edit, and manage content on their website, without having to write code every time they want to make changes to their site. Because of this, every platform in this space, such as WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and many others, does this job. However, they differ enormously in how much control you are given, how much technical knowledge you are expected to have, and what they cost in the long run.
2. Hosted, all-in-one platforms
The main option here for those who are not too sure about the website, is to use hosted, all-in-one platforms, like Wix or Squarespace. These platforms are the easiest to use for those who have no knowledge of how to set up a website, and are good for small businesses. The main problem with these types of platforms is that they are not very flexible, they can cost more in the long run, and can sometimes make it very difficult to transfer your content when you want to leave.
3. Self-hosted, open-source platforms
Using open source content management systems to build your website has its advantages and disadvantages. It is free to use for example, although you will need to pay for your hosting. Because there is a huge amount of development taking place with open source systems such as WordPress, there is often a huge amount of flexibility available to you. But be aware that updates, security and backup are your responsibility. For businesses that expect to publish a lot of content, and require strong SEO control, a platform such as WordPress can provide the highest amount of flexibility and control of any website platform.
4. Ecommerce-specific platforms
There are also platforms specifically designed as ecommerce solutions. These platforms handle things such as payment processing, handling of shipping, managing of inventory and more. Shopify is one of the most commonly used solutions for this type of platform. Platforms of this nature can be more expensive than more general purpose CMS platforms. However, they typically offer more solutions specifically for selling online and can be much easier to manage than a general purpose CMS that has been set up for ecommerce solutions.
5. What actually determines the right choice
In practice, it is easier to narrow down your choices by working through a list of factors that determine the best CMS for your needs, such as the following: will you be updating your website with new content on an ongoing basis, or will there be very little for you to do after the website has been launched for the first time? Will the primary function of your website be to sell products, or will there be other features and functionality on offer too? Will you need to integrate your new website with any other software that you are already using? What level of support will you have in place to deal with any technical issues that may arise?
6. Migration is harder than it looks
Don’t be misled by the ease with which you can create and launch a website on a hosted CMS platform. Ease of launching is not a measure of ease of migration to a different platform. While some platforms will export your content in a suitable form for you to import into another system, others may lock your content so that it cannot be exported at all.
Ultimately, every site is different and the only site that can choose the right CMS is the site that chooses first. Getting this decision right early on will save far more time and money than any amount of subsequent tweaking and tuning of your site’s design and copy.