What are they?
A content management system is a software platform used for managing your website and its content online. A content management system, also known as a CMS, can make it fairly easy to create, edit and arrange web pages on your website with little or no knowledge of the programming and markup languages that actually drive the content. Many CMS's can be configured and managed through a graphical user interface that looks and feels much like a website of its own, making website creation and management as simple as filling out forms, checking check boxes, and otherwise interacting with a simple administrative interface. Installing a CMS is often as easy as downloading a collection of files, placing them on your local machine that's running a web server or uploading them to your hosting provider, and then following the step by step instructions you are prompted with.
What are the advantages of a CMS?
There are many advantages realized in using a CMS. In addition to creating a doorway into website creation aside from programming proficiency, CMS's make it far easier to update your website's content on a regular basis and maintain a fresh, dynamic content offering. Many CMS's also offer a variety of modular functionality, or plugins, which let you take advantage of various technologies such as RSS feeds, syndication with social media websites like Facebook or Twitter, and robust site indexing and searching. Implementing basic website features with a CMS is so straightforward that creating your website's basic functionality such as displaying text and images at specific web addresses can often be accomplished in a matter of minutes. Compared to conventional website building techniques, using a CMS will literally save you days or even weeks of development time, which in today's market could cost you anywhere from about $35 to $150 an hour.
Are there any disadvantages?
With the power and flexibility gained by using a CMS, and the huge amount of time and effort saved on manually programming your website's functionality, it's hardly fair to call any new challenges it might create a disadvantage. That said, any general purpose solution is bound to encounter some friction when trying to account for entirely customized elements. With many CMS's, that friction manifests itself in the creation of a theme, that is, the visual design that establishes the look and feel of your website. Most CMS's offer a variety of customizable themes "out of the box", which allow you to differentiate your website from others that use the same CMS, and express elements of your brand without creating an entirely custom design. While many (X)HTML & CSS professionals are able to create entirely custom designs for any CMS, this reintroduces the hiring of a professional designer or developer and will drive your costs up somewhat.
Where can I get a CMS?
While there are some proprietary content management systems available, many CMS's are available to download for free. Projects such as Joomla and Drupal not only offer all of their products for free, but also offer extensive documentation and a large support network of volunteer programmers and developers. Many CMS communities are vast; the Drupal project, for example, consists of over 2000 modules for extending and customizing functionality, offers a support network of thousands of programmers, and hosts national and international conferences every year attended by the industry's top professionals. Check out http//drupal.org or http://joomla.org for more information, or just do a google search for free content management systems.
