Content Management System
What is a Content Management System?
A content management system (CMS) is used to manage and deploy website content. With a content management system, users can create, edit, and delete content from a site. Typically CMS software offers an interface that does not require HTML skills or other technical knowledge. Content managers and authors can make changes without the help of a developer. However, customizing the layout and site experience may still require some coding.
Users can rely on CMS software to run any of these types of sites:
- Blogs
- News sites
- Ecommerce sites
- Corporate websites
- Intranets
- IQRA Systems & Software are essentially very basic, simple content management systems. More complex tools allow users to manage more structured content across a larger number of pages. These content management systems also offer more integrations and allow users to configure rules for personalization based on visitor site activity or demographic information. The most advanced CMS software options are called digital experience management platforms.
CMS Features & Capabilities
The core purpose of CMS software is to simplify content processes for non-technical people. Users can focus on creating, organizing, and delivering content instead of wrestling with code.
The most common features and capabilities of a good content management system include:
- WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor
- Page templates
- Library of website themes
- Content versioning and archiving
- Mobile optimization & responsive design
- Publishing workflow
- Form generation
- Content scheduling
- Asset management (images, articles, etc.)
- Page caching (or other features to speed delivery of content to the site)
- SEO support
- Tools to tag content and create a taxonomy
- Browser compatibility
- Bulk management
- E-commerce functionality (i.e., catalog, shopping cart, payment processing)
- Community management (i.e., commenting, profiles)
- Localization / regionalization with multi-lingual content
- Other personalization options
- User roles and permissions
- API
- Analytics tools
- Import/export content
Pricing Information
Content management systems are usually priced based on a few factors. These include the number of users, volume of content, range of features, and whether it’s a subscription service or a lifetime license.
There are some free content management systems that are open source. (However, these are usually less user-friendly for authors. Open source content management systems will likely require more HTML skills to format content and help from developers to deploy/update content.)