Content Management System (CMS) Pros and Cons
PROS:
• Easy ability to make changes to the entire site. This applies during and long after the design process. Easy changes means saving you money. This also gives you freedom to change directions at anytime without the need to empty out your savings for a complete redesign. You may change the columns and rows to the entire site or select pages. Eliminate or add menu options for any pages you wish. New templates can also be added to create complete new looks with the click of a few buttons.
• CMS use gives a uniform feel throughout the site. Page layouts, logos, backgrounds, headers, headlines, font, navigation, bullet points and more. This is great for both applications where branding is beneficial and those sites that simply want a familiar feel for return visitors.
• Ability to allow multiple users to author site content. This can be taken to yet another level by upgrading select user’s privileges to include editing and publishing in some cases. You can lean on the restricted access of these account types to limit the inexperienced from damaging key website components and causing other problems.
• Save money with the publishing of additional articles, links, videos, and other content without the need to pay a designer top dollar to code them into your site.
• Using a CMS gives you the ability to publish and expire content using dates and times. Product specials or content that needs added over the weekend makes great use of this feature.
• Popular content management systems have extensive libraries of pre developed extended features. This can save lots of time and money in the development process.
CONS:
• Sometimes users may feel slightly overwhelmed navigating and using the many functions of the content management system backend without at least some training. This can be costly if your company has a high employment turnover rate.
• You can become “handcuffed” by the abilities of the content management system that you choose. Great care needs to go into deciding on what system to use.
• Sometimes you can experience glitches in the CMS that cause features not to work properly. Most often this can be overcome, but it can slow design times or require a finished site to rehire the developer for a fix.
