Are you a blogger or an entrepreneur trying to build a website for the first time but are stuck in the first step? Well, content management systems got you covered. A great CMS lets you create a website without needing to code. It also allows you to publish, manage, and modify content effortlessly.
A Content Manageemnt System or CMS is a piece if software, often open source and free, for creating a website. A website with the wrong CMS platform can make the process difficult and, at worst, unsuccessful. With a whole lot of options out there, choosing the most suitable CMS can present a significant challenge to beginners.
Even worse, most options advertised as the best are, unfortunately, not beginner-friendly. We choose WordPress because it is the most flexable and cost evective. You only need to pay for a domain name and web hosting. Often costing around $100 for the year. Afar better price than the recently popular website building platforms that cost far more.
So, where should beginners get started? Short answer: reading this guide!
If you are creating your first website, with or without coding knowledge, this post is for you. Read on to find CMS explained and all aspects a great CMS needs.
Table of Contents
What Is A Content Management System (CMS)?
As the name suggests, a content management system, or simply CMS, is software that allows you to easily create a website, manage, and modify website content. In simpler words, a CMS is a tool that handles the basic infrastructure of creating a website. Helping you develop a website without doing the coding from scratch. Typically, web pages are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS programming languages. A CMS handles all basic website infrastructure stuff, allowing you to create a website and manage your website content without the need to learn these programming languages or write a lot of super-long codes.
In terms of features and usability, WordPress.org, Joomla, and Drupal are suited for beginners, but wordpress.org is the best of all. It is a powerful CMS that provides a host of extensions and plugins, allowing users to create beautiful websites or blogs and scale them to anything they want. We have a free guide to get start your website or blog today.
Features of a good CMS
Content management systems can vary widely, but they have many of the same features. Whether you are creating a blog, e-commerce store, or corporate website, the best and most suitable CMS for you should have all the tools you need to create, publish, manage, and modify web content without necessarily writing code from scratch.
In this regard, here is a list of features that your CMS absolutely needs.
Intuitive Dashboard
The admin dashboard is the heart of every CMS. That said, the best CMS should allow you to effortlessly manage everything involved in the production of content right in your dashboard.
That’s what WordPress.org precisely does – it streamlines content production while reducing complexity.
An intuitive and beginner-friendly dashboard should allow you to keep track of user activity, schedule content, monitor threats, install plugins and modules, and review performance analytics.
With the right CMS, you will have access to every level of responsibility on your dashboard, which makes it easier for you to handle content workflow.
Responsive Themes
Themes provide your site with a consistent look that appeals to your audience. That’s why you need to browse the available themes before choosing your CMS platform.
Ideally, you need to find a CMS offering highly responsive (mobile friendly) themes that resonate with your target audience. That way, you can be sure that all your posts and web pages will be optimized for all devices.
Using a responsive theme means having a responsive website, which enhances user experience, increases conversion rate, and improves SEO, ultimately leading to the success of your website.
WordPress.org is an ideal CMS that offers a wide variety of highly responsive free themes that you can apply to your site with only a few clicks.
What is more, you can customize WordPress themes to suit your site needs. If you want high-end themes, WordPress has partnered with online theme stores where you can purchase premium themes.
Powerful Publishing Tools
The content you publish on your website is the backbone of your interaction with target audiences. For this reason, you need superior publishing tools that adapt and cater to your publishing needs while making the whole process smooth.
Besides publishing text, your CMS should allow you to add photographs, videos, response forms, CTA, and even re-arrange within the publishing interface. The CMS should also allow you to preview your posts and pages before you can publish.
Thankfully, a majority of CMS platforms have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, which enables you to edit your posts and web pages without the need for coding skills. What’s more, this feature allows you to see the changes you make.
WordPress.org WYSIWYG editor is intuitive, beginner-friendly, and makes it easy for you to schedule, publish, and, at large, manage content.
Multi-Language Content Creation
You can hardly find a language-homogenous market, a reason enough why you need a CMS that supports multiple languages. A CMS with a multi-language content creation feature allows you to speak to your website visitors in their native languages.
While many CMS platforms do not offer the multiple-language feature, there are a few options like WordPress.org that make it easy for you to create different versions of your posts.
Even if you are an online shop selling language-specific products, you should never dismiss the multilingual support feature because things are bound to change.
Multi-Platform Capabilities
Gone are the days when businesses had only one website. Even businesses and bloggers nowadays have multiple sites.
While running a single platform might feel like enough for you as a beginner, giving yourself room to grow is very crucial. That’s why you need a content management system that can handle multiple websites.
A CMS providing multi-platform functionality gives your business or organization ultimate flexibility and room to grow. It makes it easy for you to manage your content from a single point.
Publishing Controls
Unless you are a blogger, it is likely that several people will be involved in the process of publishing on your website. Considering that many people using your CMS increase the chances of messing up, you want to be able to control what everyone can do on the site.
Publishing controls help you assign various roles and levels of access to the different users of your CMS to ensure workflow and minimize risks. In addition, it helps define the roles and responsibilities of your team while keeping your site secure.
Built-In SEO Tools
Everyone wants their content to rank well on search engines. A CMS with built-in SEO tools will make it easy for you to build pages that follow the best SEO practices.
With the SEO tools, you can also optimize your posts for search engines, ultimately increasing your odds of ranking better andgetting more traffic.
Social Media Integration
Social media platforms remain one of the perfect go-to destinations to reach and interact with your key audiences. It should be no surprise that a majority of CMS platforms take on social tools.
Social media integration is a feature that allows you to leverage the power of social media so you can connect with your audience. The feature offers a way to post your content on social media platforms, so they work together with your website.
Detailed Analytics
Insights and analytics play an indispensable role in helping you visualize what is working best for your website. That said, your CMS should track and return data related to your website to help you strategize accordingly.
The best CMS should have built-in analytics or easily integrate Google Analytics to help you keep track of conversion rate, consumer devices, demographics, content interactions, and strategies performing better than others.
App Marketplace
CMS platforms offer plenty of out-of-the-box features that help enhance website functionality along with user experience.
Although you can hardly find a CMS that offers all the features site owners want, WordPress offers a selection of over 50,000 free extensions in its directory.
Other beginner-friendly options also offer a great deal. For instance, Drupal has more than 44,000 handy plugins in its directory.
Pre-made Templates
When selecting the most suitable CMS for your needs, it is imperative that you check their pre-made templates. Essentially, a template is a single-page layout within a theme that you can download separately.
With pre-made templates, it means you won’t have to create a post or page from scratch whenever you want to publish new content.
Considering that many CMS platforms offer templates, the trick here is finding a platform with a vast range of customizations to help you create a website that genuinely mirrors your brand.
Content Staging
There will come a time when you will want to make considerable changes to your website. That’s when content staging will become very handy.
Content staging is a feature that allows you to stage and preview changes before rolling them out. For example, when making major changes on your website, this feature allows you to test the changes you have made to ensure they improve the user experience before they go live.
The best CMS will come with a built-in content staging environment. In our opinion the best staging environment is with wordpress.org and Bluehost. They integrate well and its easy to use.
Security
Website security is extremely important, and, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your data and that of your website visitors are protected from cyber-attacks. That said, you need a reputable CMS that promises top-notch security.
Along with the security features offered, your CMS should follow SSL, HTTPS, and CDN protocols, offer daily backups and plugin update reminders to ensure your data and that of your visitors is secure.
Support
Customer support has been a priority for many. Although a majority of open-source CMS platforms do not offer custom support, you need to look for a CMS with a well-established customer support department to help you address potential issues that you may experience.
Conclusion
Every CMS is unique and offers a set of features that make it easy for you to create and manage your website.
Even so, WordPress.org is one of the few Website CMS that combines user- and beginner-friendly dashboards with all the above features, allowing you to build an SEO-focused website that will ultimately help your business succeed.
Whichever your goals, WordPress.org remains the best option for beginners looking to create a successful website.