How to Choose the Right CMS Platform for Your Business Website
Building a website for your business can be an exciting venture but one step that is often ignored is selecting the correct CMS. Once you make your website , you utilize a CMS to manage it . CMS = Content Management System . Looking to add a new service? Blog something? Modify some text? Upload an image? A good CMS makes these things easy to do. The difficulty is that there are so many choices out there today. WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Webflow and bespoke CMS platforms each have their own perks. So how can you know which one is correct for your business? At Digiphlox we think that the answer begins with your business, not the CMS. There is no particular platform that works well for everyone. The proper decision relies on what you want your website to do, how you plan to manage it and where you want your business to go in future. Let’s have a look at what really counts when choosing a CMS for your business website. What Is a CMS? A Content Management System is a platform that allows you to maintain your website without having to write code every time you want to make a little update. For example, if you own a business website and want to publish a new blog, update your contact details, or add a new service, you can typically do it using your CMS dashboard. Imagine it as your website’s control room. The most popular CMS’s are WordPress, Wix, Webflow and Shopify. There are custom CMS solutions tailor-made for enterprises with special needs. Why Does Your CMS Choice Matter? You might be thinking, “I’ll just grab a popular CMS and get started.” Fair enough, but your CMS may influence so much more than just how you edit your website. It can impact your website’s speed, SEO, security, maintenance, content management and even the ease of adding new features later down the line. Imagine paying for a website today and then 6 months later finding that adding a crucial feature is difficult or expensive. That’s the predicament you don’t want to be in. Selecting the appropriate CMS early on will save you money, time, and a ton of frustration later. Before you start comparing CMS platforms, take a step back and think about what your business actually needs. Here are the questions we recommend asking. 1. What Do You Want Your Website to Do? Start with what your website does. Are you seeking to create leads? Selling products? Receive phone calls? Market your services? Create educational content? Build your brand. For instance, a local digital marketing agency could require service sites, blogs, lead forms, case studies, and good SEO capabilities. The requirements of an online clothes company are very different. This may include product listing, payment methods, inventory management, customer accounts and order tracking. Both firms need a website but they don’t necessarily need the same CMS . So just because “everyone is on it” doesn’t necessarily mean it is the ideal platform to choose. 2. Who Will Manage the Website? This is something that firms often overlook to take into account. The developer passes you your website – it’s not done. Somebody will have to run it. Perhaps your marketing team writes blogs. Your sales team might need to update information. Someone may need to add new products or update pricing. If every little update requires a developer, it can rapidly become a headache to maintain the website. Find a CMS that your team can use easily in their day to day work. 3. Don’t Ignore SEO If you want people to be able to locate your business on Google, you need to think about SEO from day one. Your CMS should give you control over critical SEO factors like page names, meta descriptions, URLs, headings, picture alt text, internal links and structured data. It should also be able to get along with Google Search Console and Google Analytics. And a CMS won’t instantly get your website to rank on Google. Even with good rankings, you still need meaningful content, technical SEO, website performance, authority and many other variables. But your CMS should provide you with the tools you need to successfully implement your SEO plan. 4. Think About Website Speed Wait, waiting for a website to load? Nobody likes that. Your CMS is one piece of the puzzle for website performance, but the platform isn’t the only thing involved. Choice of hosting, pictures, plugins, themes, scripts and the method a website is designed can all make a difference. When choosing your CMS, consider how easy it will be to keep your website running fast as you add additional pages and features. This is especially critical if you plan to do SEO campaigns or paid advertising. You don’t want to pay to send people to a website that delivers them a bad experience. 5. Take Security Seriously You shouldn’t wait until something has gone wrong to consider website security. Different CMS platforms demand different levels of maintenance. Some need core system updates, plugins and themes changes on a regular basis. Hosted platforms may handle more of the technological infrastructure for you. Before choosing a CMS, find out: A secure website needs regular attention, regardless of which CMS you choose. 6. Will the CMS Grow With Your Business? Today, maybe your site is simple. Maybe you have 5 service pages, an About page and a contact form. But what about next year? You might introduce new services. You might start blogging. You might extend to another city. You might establish an online store. You might add new functionality. That’s where scalability comes in. You don’t have to develop the most sophisticated website imaginable on day one. All you have to do is make sure that the CMS will not become a problem when your organization expands. 7. Look Beyond the Initial Price A CMS may look inexpensive when you first compare platforms, but that’s not the whole story. Think
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