10 Reasons to Invest in a CMS
Whether you are specifying your first website or planning a website redesign, investing in a content management system (CMS) for your organisation is likely to have crossed your mind. And rightfully so.
We’ve seen first-hand how choosing the right CMS can impact and benefit an entire organisation and its processes, not just its marketing team. And, with plenty of solutions (thousands in fact) to choose from, there is guaranteed to be one, if not many, that meets your business needs, whatever its size. If you haven’t yet got one, here are some reasons why you should seriously consider investing in a CMS.
1. Streamlined content management
Content management systems enable you to store all of your content and digital assets in one place whilst being accessible to all stakeholders depending on their permission level. Organising and categorising vast amounts of this content is made simpler through the use of taxonomies and media libraries, and automated workflows allow your team to easily review and approve content before it is published.
2. No technical knowledge required
If you can use a word processing application like Microsoft Word, you have all the skills you need to add and update webpages using a CMS. This means your team can take over management of website content with just a few hours of training.
3. Less reliance on experts
By allowing delegated employees to update the website, your business is no longer reliant on experts for assistance with even the most basic tasks. Instead of waiting days for ‘the web guy’ to update a product listing, with a CMS you can do it yourself in just a few minutes – without any knowledge of coding. Even more the more advanced activities, such as A/B and multivariate testing or personalisation, are far more accessible and easy to implement for the less technically skilled.
4. Easy site editing
Adding new sections to your website is as easy as adding a new blog post. So if you add a whole new range to your portfolio of products or services, you can expand your site to match without needing expert assistance.
5. Real time content
Content is still king and key to SEO, driving website traffic, consumer engagement and, ultimately, conversions. Content needs to be kept fresh and updated in order to maintain your brand’s authority, credibility and to stay ahead of your competitors. With a CMS adding content to your site is simple enough to allow you to publish articles and the like in real time, whenever required. Helping to keep your site up-to-date attracts repeat visits from search engines and shoppers alike.
6. Enhanced integration
Most CMS systems offer out of the box integration with third party systems and those that don’t usually come with a selection of modules and extensions allowing them to be linked to other platforms. This interoperability means that you can manage your social media, CRM, ERP, analytics, and other systems through one platform allowing you to collect leads via your website and automatically add them to your CRM system for instance. Integrations will then increase the value that the CMS adds to the whole business, not just sales.
7. Built-in SEO
Making your site attractive to search engines is a balance between creating great content, and optimising that content for the search engine bots that will index it. Manually tweaking copy and design elements to meet SEO standards is difficult and time consuming – fortunately a CMS can speed up the process by doing most of the hard work for you automatically.
8. Improved compliance with standards
As well as helping to ensure your website displays correctly on all devices and browsers, a CMS can also help meet accessibility requirements. By building a site that can be accessed properly by a “screen reader” browser as used by visually impaired customers, your business will appeal to a wider audience, increasing exposure and opportunities for lead conversion.
9. Design flexibility
Although the core CMS technology is relatively rigid, the visual appearance is not. You can style layout, colour schemes and text in any way you choose to meet your corporate branding guidelines and create a consistent visual theme for your site.
10. It’s not as expensive as you might think…
CMS platforms can be open source (free, e.g. WordPress), licensed (e.g. Kentico) or a combination of the two (such as Umbraco). Whichever type you opt for, you are likely to have to consider some kind of financial investment, whether that’s in the form of development personnel to implement an open source CMS or a license for a full-featured, enterprise platform. But even these don’t have to stretch your budget, especially as they are likely to be one off costs. Better still, in the long run, reducing the reliance on technical staff or third parties to make even the simplest of changes to your site’s content will not only save you time (and, as we all know, time is money) but also resource costs.
If you’re still uncertain as to whether content management systems are worth the investment, why not see for yourself and request a demo? We’d be happy to show you around the CMS world and help you choose the best one for your business needs. Get in touch with one of our CMS Consultants today.