The promise
The promise of content management is phenomenal: anybody can update a website. A Content Management System (CMS) is web-based and requires no special software; all it takes is a web browser. Adding a new page to your website is simple: fill out a few fields and enter your content into an editor that bears a striking resemblance to Microsoft Word. Simple.
With great power comes great responsibility
Should a secretary be writing marketing copy or doing design work? Should an exec be performing search engine optimization? If you’ve answered a resounding “No!” to these questions, bless you. Far too many Content Management Systems and web development companies, directly or indirectly, promote these very scary scenarios.
Separation of Content & Design
The gold standard of content management is the separation of content from design. This prevents the person handling content changes from inadvertently wrecking the website design. It also means that a website can be redesigned without touching the content; only the overall site “template” must be changed.
The reality is that content and design can’t always be separated and still maintain easy edit-ability through a CMS. This is especially true with highly stylized pages with precise layouts such as a homepage. In such cases editing raw HTML is sometimes required. Edit-ability must sometimes take a back seat to the greater marketing objectives of the site. But don’t be worry; we’re here to help you out if you get stuck.
Simple, specialized
Over the years we’ve learned a few things about content management by listening to our clients and watching how they use these systems.
- Only certain areas of a website change frequently
- Content Management Systems can be excessively complicated and inflexible
- Rarely can content truly be separated from design
These observations have given us a different perspective on content management. Rather than using a cumbersome and inflexible general-purpose CMS for the entire website, we favor simple, specialized content management for only the frequently changing areas of the site. In addition to being far easier to use, this approach provides greater separation of content and design and can be customized for your specific requirements.