In a recent post we talked about the different stages of building a website for your business. One of the stages was having a content management system (CMS). This allows you to maintain your website if it has any kind of changing data, from the backend which is invisible to all users unless granted access. Data refers to news articles, blogs, videos, photographs, forums or any other content you want to add/change on your site.

Altering or adding to the content on your website is the case for most websites, these days. However, if you have no changing data, a CMS is an unnecessary hassle. You would only need to get a developer to update a file manually and upload it to your server – this is called a static website.

In order to figure out whether or not you need a CMS, ask yourself:

• Whether you are planning to create and maintain a blog on any of your web pages?
• Will you need to update your site’s content more than once every few months?
• Will you have anyone other than a developer update your site?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you should get a Content Management System site up and running. Using one of these systems will also mean you can update your site from a remote locations, such as other people’s computers or from a smart phone.

The three best known content management systems are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Each CMS has slightly different pros and cons but all of them make it easier to put up a web page without any knowledge of HTML.