Guide To Content Management Systems

What Is A Content Management System (CMS)?

A CMS, which stands for content management system, is a software application for users to add, remove and update a website easily meaning you don’t require coding skills. These systems allow you to create and format content as well as managing your website which is built from a variety of programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and PHP.

WordPress

Pros of using WordPress

• As WordPress is a open-source system this allows more functionality to improve upon.
• Like many other content management systems, WordPress offers plugins, however, WordPress beats any other competitor in this area as they offer over 54,000 free and paid plugins that can be installed to your website easily.
• This CMS is completely free to use.
• WordPress is known for being a user-friendly content management system, making it easy for users to navigate around the backend of the website, editing content, and simply managing the overall website. 
• SEO is an area that WordPress excels in compared to other content management systems as they promote best practices allowing for users to optimise their content and having easy access to plugins that help to support your SEO campaigns.

Cons of using WordPress

• Even though having access to a huge amount of plugins to support your website is an advantage, installing too many plugins and having extra code added can cause the site speed to slow down.
• If you are looking at installing a theme, premium versions can often be quite expensive for smaller businesses and individuals.

Wix

Pros of using Wix

• This CMS offers users an all-in-one solution meaning you don’t have to spend time resolving issues from widgets or plugins that may have gone wrong. 
• Wix looks after your site security without having any impact on your overall site speed as Wix is known for having average rates when measuring website speed. 
• Whereas many other CMS platforms force you into long-term plans, Wix offers affordable plans for users that can be cancelled at any time.

Cons of using Wix

• While Wix offers users a range of different plans they can use to manage their websites, the starter plan, unfortunately, doesn’t remove ads from your site. In order to remove any ads, you must upgrade to a more expensive plan which will end up costing you more than other content management system platforms out on the market.
• If you’re looking for an option for unlimited bandwidth or storage, then look elsewhere as Wix does not offer this even at their business and commercial plan level which has its own limitations.
• Even though a drag and drop website builder may sound easy to use, Wix’s solution is very limiting and if you are wanted to be creative with your website then you unfortunately will face obstacles in doing so on a Wix website.

OpenCart

Pros of using OpenCart

• OpenCart is compatible with many other payment gateways out there, such as PayPal, Sage Pay, E-Way, and Amazon Payments.
• This CMS offers users a range of reports and metrics that can be customized to fit the needs of your business.
• Many plugins and add-ons are completely free to use for OpenCart
• Similar to WordPress, OpenCart is an open-source community however you are not solely reliant on community support to resolve issues you may run into as there is a dedicated support team available to use.

Cons of using OpenCart

• OpenCart is known for creating canonization issues for SEO and you may find that the same on the website may have several different URLs which can create an issue for your SEO campaign.
• It can be difficult to import your inventory list as the SQL database can be hard to amend with using a premium service.
• OpenCart can have a slow checkout process for users when compared to other e-commerce platforms available out on the market.

Drupal

Pros of using Drupal

• Drupal has a strong community that includes developers and designers that work together to help support other users that may of run into issues.
• Similar to WordPress, Drupal is a open source platform meaning you don’t need to pay anyone else to download and install the CMS for you website.

Cons of using Drupal

• Drupal is known for having a negative impact on site speed and unless you dedicate time and effort to improve the configuration and optimise the system then it will be a very slow CMS for users.
• The CMS’s module compatibility means you can upgrade your website quickly, however, if you’re running more than one module then the wrong combination of modules can end up causing issues.
• Updating the latest update can require a lot of time and effort as legacy installations are not supported meaning there is no backwards compatibility.