To decide who can do what on a website is a very important factor in controlling its content.  The ways in which roles and permissions are decided, is more complex than meets the eyes, so when looking at a CMS, as with everything else, decide exactly what you need it to do. 

For example, on an enterprise level website, the CMS may have to cater for content to go through various checkpoints, or permissions, before going live.  This could involve several users having different levels of access, and responsibilities.  This scales down to the more simpler roles of one provider, and one editor. 

Try to look into the future on this one.  Websites often have to change for a different site audience, or as they expand.  If you can get the roles and permissions element right in the first instance, this could save a lot time and effort later when the need to change arises.  Adopting one that allows multiple roles is key to choosing the right CMS.

If content is uploaded that is incorrect or in appropriate, it is important to be able to revert to a previous version of the page, or pages, published.  This avoids damaging your website reputation.  The simplest format for this to follow is to revert back to the last published page, but many CMS’ take it a step forward by enabling a page to revert back to a specific calendar date.

Make sure that the versioning capabilities of your CMS’s functionality, allow the option of reverting back to previous saved page, or pages, as it is a relatively new feature, despite being pioneered on enterprise level websites.

As the possibility of running multiple websites from one CMS is now a reality, it is important to have that functionality in the CMS.  You may feel that it is not something you need, and indeed it may not be right at this moment, but it could be something you need in the future, and as with other elements to consider with CMS, it is far easier to select one now than having to tinker or replace your CMS in the future.  Make sure the versioning is on the money too.

Having a CMS with the capability for multilingual support is strongly recommended by the web design community.  It may not seem like an element you need to embrace in the present, but remember businesses grow, and yours could easily be seeing global customers, or reach a global audience in a very short space of time. 

Remember too, that many countries now, have people living in them from all over the world, and having your site available in many languages makes it more welcoming, and therefore attracts more traffic.  This can provide a significant edge over competition, and gives your site or business a better reputation.  Just make sure that you have considered how you are going to translate the content, and how this translation is going to be paid for.

We hope these three articles are helpful in deciding how to choose the right CMS.  As with most things web design related, it does help to make a list of all the things you need the CMS to have, and discard what you do not. 

We would recommend that the ideas shown here are features which you pay attention too, and use them as a foundation to choosing the right CMS.

A CMS is only as good as its users, but this concept is one that conjures questions on what you want, and need, the level of interaction to be.  Let us look at first on what you want the user to be able to do.  They will need to upload posts, and probably edit them, but do you want them to be able to edit all posts by all users?  Is there going to be some level of security and accessibility.  Do you want your users to be able to change the feel and look, of the site?  Or manage passwords, or export information to other systems.  These are all important considerations for the CMS. 

As a minimum, it is important to post forms and collect responses, which is something all CMS’ can handle, but is it easy to change or specify fields, or is that something that is down to someone with specialised knowledge?  What happens with the information you collate?  Do you need a database, or can these be output to a spreadsheet?  How easy is this information emailed to a third party?  The deeper you go with user interaction, the more complex it becomes.  It is a necessity to this however, when choosing the right CMS.

All of this is one concept, but lets not forget end user feedback.  You want ratings, chatrooms, forums and so on, then you will need this functionality.  A third party plug in will cater for all this, but can your CMS support it, and is its implementation easy to do?

Over half the users of the internet enter text in a search field, as soon as they log onto a site.  It is essential that your CMS has good functionality in this respect.  As a simple check list, see if the CMS you have in mind can do this.

Indexing:  Does your website content change on a regular basis?  If so, ensure that the search engine, indexes your site often.

Scope:  Does the indexing include word, excel, PowerPoint documents and the like? 

Speed:  On larger sites it can take time to return a result.  This can drive users away.  Not good.

Refining:  Can you narrow the scope of a search to a section of a site.  This makes searching that much faster.

Ranking:  How does the site shape-up in terms of rankings.  Can this be changed by the user or the website owner?

Customisable:  Is it possible to control how results are displayed and change the design?

By looking at these features in searching, will help you in choosing the right CMS for your site.

Customisation on any CMS is a key factor to its success.  Technology now no longer dictates how the presentation of content should appear.  Though some CMS and web developers will no doubt disagree, the simple fact is that there is no need for code to be limiting on how the content is managed.  Especially as this impacts on accessibility of the site.

The better CMS’ should be able to display end user comments on the front page of a site, or show news stories in reverse order.  The key here is flexibility and ease of use.  Ensure this is considered when choosing a CMS.

That rounds up part 2 of our guide on choosing the right CMS.  We have seen that the last three concepts of searching, customising, and user interaction, should be looked at in detail to choose the right CMS for your website. 

This is continued in part 3 of our guide on how to choose the right kind of CMS for your site.

Possibly one of the best questions to ask yourself, is what do you want from a CMS?  Write down what you want, and stick to it.  Some functionality of  CMS’ are great, but do you need them, or do you just like them?  Think of it this way.  If you go shopping without a list, you’ll probably buy lots of food you do not need, and will not eat.  If you make a list first and stick to it, you only buy the food you will eat, and save money by not buying frivolous food.  The same principle applies to choosing a CMS.

There can be no doubts that the ability to organise, edit, delete, create and manage content is a requirement for any CMS.  You maybe surprised to know that this functionality maybe limited to organising a post by calendar, category, and date.  For many sites this all the functionality that is required, but many others may need to be able to take the functionality that bit further.  Ask yourself, will the category, calendar, and date be suitable for the future, or will you want to organise in more detail?

With so many CMS’ on the market, it is also necessary and imperative that the usability is assessed to see if it is a suitable for the website.  Usability does make and break a CMS.  It is important to choose the right one.

Editing is very important for any blog, and this should be considered carefully.  The traditional WYSIWYG editor which gave control of appearance and formatting to the content provider, should be avoided for two reasons.  First, the branding of the site can be disjointed, and undermined, and second, the CMS mixes content and design too much,  which hampers search engines.

More recent CMS’ have moved away from the WYSIWYG method of editing, but instead use one based on best practice.  Essentially, this means the content provider can specify links, images and the like, but they do not have control on appearance, which ensures branding is consistent. 

The editor is an important tool and it should be a key requirement when choosing a CMS for your site.  Ensure that your editing tool is not rooted in the WYSIWYG method, but instead based on best practice methodology.  If nothing else, the editing tool on your CMS should be able to be changed to a new generation one.

When choosing a CMS, another important factor is the way in which assets are managed.  In many blogs, pictures, and files are necessary to publish along side an article.  This does give character to any blog, and also is a nice, welcoming way to begin an article.  Therefore, it is important that your CMS can handle these types of files well, and are easy to use for the users, and is presented well to your site audience.

Many content providers may need to be able to crop images or resize them.  Ensure that this is taken into account when selecting a worthy CMS.

That finished part 1 of our guide to choosing the right CMS.  We have seen that preparation in what the requirements are needed for a CMS, are crucial to choosing the right one. 

In part 2 of our guide:  How to choose the right CMS, we will be looking at other factors that should be considered.