In order to attract visitors to your website and keep them there, you need to have attractive content that keeps users engaged. Photos, texts, videos, and graphics all add value for the reader. In addition, all of these things will be positively indexed by search engines.
In order to maintain quality content on your website – you will need to publish, update, revise, and manage it in a simplistic way. Maintaining a large website is nearly impossible without the help of a CMS (content management system). Read on to learn more about CMS’ as well as which is the best choice for your needs.
Choosing the Best CMS
When it comes to choosing a CMS, it can be easy to get overwhelmed as there are lots of options available. These range from simple building tools to huge enterprise systems, making the possibilities endless. To choose the best CMS for your needs, you need to determine what requirements are necessary to support your online project.
Web Content Management
When considering web site development, the main emphasis will be web content management. It will often be necessary for multiple editors to have access to the backend, which can require sharing methods that are quite complex. A quality content management system will provide optimized processing for sites that have several types of media.
News/Blog Publishing
If your site is mainly focused on blogging, it is important to look for a CMS that offers the ability to link web 2.0 functions as well as other social media platforms. Being able to interact with the reader and to control timing of publications can be important features to consider as well. In addition, a CMS must allow you to easily and quickly create content.
Blog Publishing
For those with a blog, developing an online community and making it available to a larger audience will require more functions than simply maintaining a blog. The reason for this is because communities will target active groups of users as opposed to passive readers.
Proprietary Software vs. Open Source
There are many content management solutions for large project communities available open source. This means that the codes for the programs are free to access and essentially be viewed by anyone. Users can then make changes, add extensions, improve it, and adapt the CMS to meet their personal requirements.
Proprietary software is the opposite of open source. This type of CMS is developed by a company and then distributed commercially. Using this type of management system will require obtaining a license and source code is not given to users.
Most open source software does not require a license, which makes these solutions ideal for companies watching their bottom line. When it comes to technological developments, most of the established open source systems are equal to the proprietary solutions and for this reason an open source CMS is often the best choice and in fact, WordPress, which is an open source CMS is one of the best choices available.
Why WordPress is the Best CMS
Overall, no matter what your needs may be, WordPress is ultimately the best CMS available. There are currently around 18 million installations of WordPress, which makes WordPress the most used CMS in the world. While WordPress was first developed as a blog system, there are now numerous plugins available to use for basic installation, which makes it easy to upgrade the software to be used as a fully functioning CMS.
WordPress Features
- Tens of thousands of plugins
- Tens of thousands of themes
- URLs are search engine friendly
- Quick installation using the wizard
- Management and publishing tools for mobile solutions
WordPress offers a large user community, which is beneficial as it is this community that provides such a large selection of plugins and themes. The vast development community makes WordPress a powerhouse.
Security can be improved
One concern about using WordPress is the common problem shared among all successful software developers – open source CMS’ are a target for hackers. For this reason, it is important to make sure that your WordPress software is updated regularly with all of the security updates that are provided. You can also use plugins like Wordfence or iThemes Security to keep your WordPress installation as secure as possible.
Easy installation
WordPress offers a basic installation that requires very little effort. This makes it the perfect choice for websites that are simply structured and small. This is a great choice for bloggers who want to provide readers with content that changes frequently placed in an attractive layout.
When it comes to more complicated websites, WordPress can be used as well. However, it is important to note that because of the larger number of functions that are needed, there will be an increase in the administrative effort as well.
Tips
If you are new to WordPress, a one click installation is included in the hosting package from WordPress.com. If you choose this option the website operators will be able to concentrate on the content as all of the server side administration and technical duties will be passed on.
Conclusion
When it comes to choosing the best CMS, WordPress is overall the best option for most users. Other open source options such as Joomla are good choices as well, depending on what your particular needs are. And while there are some very good proprietary content management solutions available, most people would be better off choosing one of the open source CMS’ as these will provide you with just as good of a system and you have rights to change the software in order to meet your needs, which is not the case with proprietary systems.
Why is WordPress the best in open source CMS’?
When it comes to open source content management systems, WordPress offers an easy to use platform that is ideal for the majority of website owners. While there are other very good CMS’ available, WordPress is the most widely used for a reason. It provides the solutions that are necessary to ensure that you website is attractive and easy for your clients to navigate all while being easy to manage.