Content Management Systems
Pocket protectors required.
A CMS (Content Management System) can be a great way to keep your site up to date with a minimum of fuss. In a nutshell, CMS gives Web site owners the ability to manage all the content on the site themselves via a simple, "what you see is what you get" interface.
Make sure your programmer can do more than just spell CMS
Some developers use CMS as a crutch so they don't have to get their hands dirty with all that messy programming. The truth is, even the best CMS out there requires some rejiggering (sorry about the geekspeak there) of the code. And if there's one thing we love to do, it's rejiggering.
We've spent more time than you'd like to know tearing into just about every CMS we could find to find the absolute best one. What we found is that they really aren't "one size fits all". Some work best on large sites, some are better for multiple users, some are incredibly flexible but have big learning curves, some are monkey simple but can't do a heckuva lot.
So rather than be lazy and try to shoehorn all of our clients into one offering, we became experts in several. Among the CMS options we work with:
- Joomla
- Wordpress
- Conrete5
- CushyCMS
We also have the ability to create specific programming for folks that only need to update certain areas of their site.
It sounds great, right? A CMS built just for you - with your logo, specific information about your company, and maybe even an ultra competitive price.
And it just might be the best solution. But here is something very important to keep in mind ...
Most of the time, if a firm is offering you a custom CMS, THEY own the code. That means if you ever need to move your site, you can't take the CMS with you. It might even be prohibitively difficult to get the content (most CMS store all the information in a database, so it's not a simple trick to copy everything). So the end result is that you might have to completely rebuild your site, and learn a completely new CMS as well.
The CMS options that ForeFront uses are well known, and we write clear, consistent code that adheres to proper convention rules. What means to you is this: if anything should ever happen to us (one of the company Powerball tickets hits, and we all move to a commune in Thailand - with wifi, of course) you will be able to keep your site, code and CMS intact.
Contact a forefront project manager - they will work with you to determine if a full CMS system or admin tools make sense, and can also arrange for a demo.
Propeller beanie optional.
