One of the more important tools for building and maintaining a website is a content management system (CMS). But it is an aspect of web design that is often taken for granted. However, it holds much significance because of its functionality and convenience that allows codeless creation, customization, and updating of websites. With a CMS, virtually anyone without coding and programming skills can design and build a website.
We will tackle the role of content management systems in web design. In the process, we’ll know what it is, its benefits, how it works, its features and examples, and whether you need a CMS for your website. This is another article in our series on web design as part of our big-picture approach to understanding the subject and its many interconnected disciplines.
What is Content Management System in Web Design?
What is a Content Management System?
A CMS is a software meant to create, modify, and manage the content of different formats. These are mainly digital content for use on websites. You can straightaway build websites using a CMS. The convenience is that instead of building your infrastructure for image storage, web page creation, and other web functionalities, a CMS will handle all these for you.
In other words, you do not have to deal with complex code and backend operations just to, say, change a picture, add a logo, or post an article on your blog. In the real world without a CMS, simple updates and modifications of your website will require programming work such as writing an HTML file and uploading it to your server. These are tasks best done by developers and programmers.
With a CMS, everything is set in place and anyone can update, customize, modify, and personalize websites without having programming skills. You can design and build your website from scratch just by putting in and arranging content like they were building blocks. This is usually realized with a drag-and-drop interface.
How Does It Work?
The best way to illustrate how a CMS work is through a familiar platform – WordPress, the most popular content management system which is used in more than 75 million websites – from small blogs to corporate websites of Fortune 500 companies. Most likely, you have a website powered by WP.
With WordPress, you work with its interface that allows you to write your article or text, upload multimedia elements (images, videos, etc.), and arrange and lay out content or blocks of content in the content area using a visual editor and other tools. Once finished, you can preview how the page or website will look like. You can do more editing, then save and publish the page or site.
An underlying code of your site is generated if later on you need to bring in a programmer to look into it. For the most part, a simple yet powerful and intuitive CMS like WordPress allows you to do the process on your own. Furthermore, WP has lots of plugins available like Divi and Elementor that expand the platform’s functionality and offer themes and templates for customization and consistency.
Technically, a CMS is composed of two key parts – the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA). The CMA is what lets you manage and add content on your website while the CDA is the backend process that stores and displays the content that you input into the CMA.
What is CMS in Web Design?
A content management system in web design would most benefit the ordinary user with limited or bereft of technical skills to design, create, and maintain websites. Hence, the purpose of CMS platforms in web design and development is targeted at helping non-developers easily create webpages and websites to regularly publish their content.
In this context, a CMS normally carries the necessary tools for crafting and managing online digital content and publishing it to the website. As such, a content management system usually offers tools to let you do the following:
- Effortlessly build a full website using pre-built templates.
- Quickly create websites and webpages and determine their navigation.
- Efficiently maintain and update the website.
- Easily customize or personalize a site’s design and layout.
- Consistently generate content and publish it to the website.
All the above do not require coding knowledge since these built-in capabilities in CMS are designed to do the tasks. Thus, CMS takes on the role of simplifying and facilitating the processes in web design.
What Are the Types of CMS in Web Design?
There are three types of CMS platforms in web design based on the website’s purpose or audience. These are web blogging platforms, web content management systems (WCMS), and e-commerce platforms. Let’s go through each.
Blogging Platforms
These are designed for publishing a series of blog posts or articles. These web-based apps have limited tools and features to create and manage websites. Blogger and WordPress are the best examples. Usually with WordPress, you would need a powerful plugin with the needed tools to build a full complement website.
Web Content Management Systems
A WCMS is another web-based application specially built to manage web content. It has management, authoring, and editing tools to help developers and non-developers alike create webpages and websites. Examples of these are Wix, Drupal, and Joomla.
E-Commerce Platforms
These are web-based programs intended for businesses and retailers to help them manage their online commercial activities. They carry features that facilitate the buying, selling, and managing of services and products on the Internet. Popular platforms of this type are Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.
Take note that no two CMS are the same even if they belong to the same type. Each CMS may have extra tools and features (like plugins) that extend their original functionalities and capabilities. But most content management applications share a host of common features.
What Are CMS Features in Web Design?
Content management systems have fundamental features necessary for their function. These include:
- Content Management – for completely or partially creating, editing, or removing digital content.
- Content Organization – for arranging the content or its parts into a certain structure.
- Content Formatting – for configuring the content into a specific or preferred style.
- Content Storage – for storing the content in databases or other similar mechanisms.
- Content Security – for safeguarding content like blocking unauthorized access.
With the above, you will find common CMS features in web design such as:
- Access Control – granting users credentials and permissions to access and modify the content.
- Analysis – analyzing the performance of the current content.
- Customization – customizing the appearance and aesthetics of the content template.
- Hierarchy and Taxonomy – managing the content categories, descriptions, tags, and metadata.
- Integration – delivering the content via interfaces and multiple channels.
- Interactivity – adding comments and interactions on social platforms.
- Maintenance – setting up sustainment, continuity, and backup solutions.
- Multilingual Support – providing the existing content in several languages.
- Performance – optimizing the content for quick and efficient delivery.
- Reporting – generate relevant reports and helpful dashboards.
- Scalability – utilize extendable CMS mechanisms and tools.
- Search and Retrieval – indexing the content to make it easily searchable by its intended users.
- Search Engine Optimization – deliver and design the content in formats that are SEO-friendly.
- Workflow Management – customizing the content creation process and workflow.
Is a CMS Necessary for Your Website?
The extensive features of CMS platforms enable anyone to design and build websites from scratch without the need for coding knowledge. That is a big advantage for regular business owners, bloggers, and anyone who needs to put up a website but doesn’t have enough budget or time. This, however, doesn’t make it a necessity.
Weigh your need and study your requirements. Note that a CMS usually utilizes templates that have been pre-built and pre-determined. This might stifle you and not give you the flexibility that you need in designing a website according to your vision and specifications.
For instance, WordPress as a site builder uses standard styles, default page content formats, and third-party plugins with ready-made templates and themes. This means you work with what’s available on the table. This is no issue if you plan to come up with a regular website with simple, typical functionalities.
However, if you’re opting for a custom website with sophisticated functionalities and features and which require complex backend and frontend operation – something you’re ready to put some serious investment to make your website standout, then a CMS may not be your cup of tea for your planned web design and development. Ultimately, the direction and decision are yours to make.
