Need a CMS Type Web Site?

In case you missed it on a previous page, a CMS type web site is, once set up, very easy to manage, to edit, add or remove content. An example of this type of site is this site.

CMS Sites Used For...

CMS type sites can be used as:

information sites used to share information, promote a business or a service. This is what this site is about,

membership sites where only registered members are able to access certain information or certain digital products. Members are also able to add their own content to such sites, and to make comments on content posted,

ecommerce sites used to sell digital or physical goods online.

Pros

There are many advantages to having a CMS type web site but please be aware that it is not for everybody. Pros of this type of site we could think of are:

managing the site: editing existing content is very easy to do. As is adding new content with menu items pointing to the new items updated almost instantly,

themes: changing the look of the site is very easy to so by just selecting a new theme. The CMS we will install for you has a number of free (and not free) templates you can obtain online, upload to your site for you to see if you like them or not. And if you do find one you like, keeping it is very easy to do,

add-ons: depending on the CMS software you are using, there are add-ons developed by supporters of a given CMS that are available to extend the functionality of the given CMS. Such add-ons can be free or may require a payment.

The CMS we will install for you has a huge number of add-ons to expand just about every aspect of your site, as you can see in the screenshot on the right.

In fact, the way the screenshot is displayed in your browser after you click on the thumbnail above, is such an add-on which was free for us to add to our site. Pretty cool effect!

time savers: they are a huge time saver as you can focus on just the content: text, images, ... There is absolutely no need for you to worry about HTML or CSS code, Javascript or PHP code, and so on ...

Cons

CMS type web sites do have negatives you need to be aware of. The ones we could think of are:

themes I: there may not be a theme you like available for free or for a fee. This means that you may have to settle for a theme that is not really what you want or having to employ someone to develop a specific theme for the CMS,

themes II: while changing a theme will be easy to do, you must warned that doing so may require your banner to be edited or redesigned as the size and/or colour of the new theme may not match those of the banner of your current theme,

theme tweaking: if you happen to like a particular theme but would like to change a couple of things, this could be difficult,

steep learning curve: depending on your current level of skills, there could be a lot to learn in a short period of time to become proficient enough to be able to use the CMS to work on your web site,

 search engine optimisation: be aware that web sites designed using some CMS's will be very hard to properly optimise for search engines. The one that we will install for you is not one of them, otherwise we would not recommend it to you!

add-ons: you will rely on 3rd party add-ons to expand the functionality of your web site. This means that you will rely on the hope that the add-on will work without fault, that the developers will fix promptly any bugs you find and report, and so on ...

third-party scripts: you may have difficulty incorporating third party scripts (written in Javascript, PHP, ASP, and so on...) into your CMS based site, especially if the scripts are not written specifically for the CMS you are using.