3Howards Media Blog
Why a free CMS can be the best web solution for small businesses
Posted August 3, 2009 | 0 Comments
A good content management system, better known in the web design industry as CMS, can play a crucial role in a small business' online presence. As a small business owner, your focus is on running the business, not on figuring out how keep your website updated. Chances are, most of you don't know much about HTML and CSS or have the skill set to maintain a website. Worse yet, you may not have the money to pay someone to manage the site for you. So, your website quickly becomes outdated, possibly hurting your business by not generating leads or revenue.
This is where a CMS comes into play. A good CMS will enable you to edit content on your website, like copy and pictures, without being an expert in HTML or CSS. Your website, simply stated, is broken down into editable content areas that make it easy for you to manage without the fear of breaking the site. There are a number of CMS' available today that can help you achieve your small business goals online. Even better, you can find a quality CMS for free, it doesn't hurt your bottom line.
The difficult part comes in deciding which CMS will fit best for your needs. CMS' come in all shapes and sizes. Some have little, to-no learning curve, while others require some technical know-how. We're going to take a quick look at some options that will fit your business needs. A couple of factors we considered in creating this list were: 1) how long it's been around, and 2) does it have a large following. These two factors ensure a CMS' stability and support system.
1. Joomla has been around for several years and has a near cult following. It's most recent release has much more refined administrative panel that makes it easier for new users to update. Because of it's large following, a large number of extensions have been developed for a variety of industries. It's also a pretty stable and secure system.
2. Wordpress is widely regarded in the blogging arena, but has quickly become a great solution in other industries. This is due to its stability, flexibility, and easy of customization. Like Joomla, a large number of plug-ins are available that make customizing and site management easy.
3. Drupal is another solid CMS that offers great functionality. As with the previous two, Drupal has a large following resulting in loads of free modules.
These three CMS' are well suited for small businesses and small business owners. In most cases, you will need to find someone who can integrate one of these systems into your website, however, once it's up and running, it'll be much easier for you to manage your website, giving you more time to run your business.
If you'd like to talk to someone about integrating a CMS into your website or have questions about the best CMS for your website, we'd love to chat and answer your questions. Simply fill out our contact form and we'll be in touch.