CMS is perhaps a concept that sounds familiar. But do you know what it really means? The abbreviation CMS stands for Content Management System. It is a web-based tool used to structure and manage content such as texts and images on websites. An effective CMS helps you easily create and manage your website and simplifies the company’s communication and makes information available to visitors.
A web-based CMS is used to manage the content of a website and where no tool other than your browser is required. It is also the type of CMS that we usually refer to when we use the term CMS.
Strengths of working in a CMS
There are many different web-based content management systems, but some of the benefits that come with most are:
A web-based CMS does not require any special software installed. You only need your browser. It also makes you flexible in that you can work smoothly on different devices.
In web-based CMS, the need to use code is generally reduced. This means that extensive technical knowledge is not required to be able to update the page with texts and images.
In general, CMS distinguishes between content and design. It makes it easier to provide a uniform design through the website’s various subpages.
Web publishing tools enable the integration of existing applications under a single interface.
Web publishing tools are both search engine optimized and user friendly, they usually do not require any prior knowledge of the users for easy use. The publishing tool makes administration easy and the information on the website has a uniform appearance.
A good publishing tool results in lower management costs and leads to greater business benefits.
Website
A new website can often be developed in a short time with the help of ready-made modules. It is also common to want to adapt design, function, and graphic design.
Intranet
Intranets have developed from being a boring one-way platform for internal communication to an effective means of communication that becomes a social intranet with social collaboration. Intranets have today become the hub for keeping up to date with all the functions you need in your daily work. Intranets have been influenced by social media and have become personalized. Create social workgroups and share information with each other in projects and find the right information or person directly.
The advantage and benefit of this are that as a publisher of a web page, you can control the content without having to involve a web agency every time and for every change. To do it, you usually just need a blog. But with most CMSs, that functionality is already built-in.
When most people talk about CMS, they naturally think and talk about WordPress. WordPress is the largest CMS in the world with a market share of almost 60%, and which is behind almost 30% of all websites in the world. Obviously, WordPress is doing something right, but we definitely believe that other competitors will eat market share from WordPress in the next few years. Getting started and running a website with WordPress is relatively easy, but if you want a customized design, you usually need a web developer involved. It is therefore quite likely that other CMSs where the whole development process is easy will take up more and more space.
An advantage of WordPress today is that basically, all web agencies can work with it. The best part is that all content on the website is stored in a database. That way, if you want to make a total makeover on the website, you can easily do so without losing any content – the same applies if you want to change web agency.
Why is a CMS important?
In a way, CMS is a tool that lets your content work to build better relationships with your target audience. Nowadays, all companies want to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time. It can pay huge dividends for all parts of your business. For example, marketers can use the content to engage customers by recommending and introducing new products. Content can be a means of communication to promote better service, and it can teach customers to use your products in new ways or change parts of themselves. Content can also help drive sales, generate leads, and increase engagement from customers and partners.
Content management in practice
Think of a blog. A blog post is one of the most common types of content found in a CMS. A blog post can also have several sub-contents (content inside content!): A publication date, the author, the title, the banner image (the image seen at the top of the page), and the body text. If you think about the whole page, you will find even more pieces of content, such as links to similar blog posts.
Thus, a blog post is only one type of content that you can create and edit to publish with a CMS. There are countless other types of content, including product catalogs, questions and answers, press releases, and news articles… a complete list of all text and image-based content would be too long to fit in an article! In addition, many CMSs can also deliver more complex types of content, such as podcasts and videos.
B2B eCommerce CMS
A B2B eCommerce CMS is exactly what it sounds like – a content management system for B2B businesses. If you operate in the B2B space, this can be a valuable tool to streamline your content management, both how you store and how you make updates and changes to your online system. To learn more about developing and implementing your own eCommerce solutions based on CMS for B2B solutions, – read more here. Thus, you can create your own B2B marketplace, portal, electronic trading platform, etc.
The future of CMS systems
The development of CMS systems has not stopped: personalization of the customer experience pushes CMS forward in new exciting directions. As part of the digital transformation, companies want to build digital experiences that are more relevant to their customers. The goal is to ensure that every single customer gets an experience that is completely unique and created according to their needs, regardless of where they come into contact with a brand.
Many people invest in AI to pursue personalization and for good reasons. But much of the potential for personalization starts with CRM. So why not pair your CMS and CRM to kickstart personalization? While CRM-driven and content-rich customer and partner portals provide better and better experiences, a CMS must be able to offer support for the content part of the vision. A hybrid CMS, with the benefits of linked CMS and the flexibility of headless CMS, gives you a good foundation for building better digital experiences.
