How to Successfully Use a Content Management System

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content management

The term “Content is King” could be the catchphrase of the first half of the 21st century. If you’re going to be in the content business, you need a content management system to help you deal with it. But how do you actually use a CMS to manage your stuff?

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about using a CMS.

What is a Content Management System?

A [CMS] content management system is a software package that helps organize and publish content. It is the “filing cabinet” where you organize digital material. The CMS is the structure that holds up a website or a backend management system.

There are generic content management systems, as well as proprietary ones. Many large businesses in the modern age are essentially large CMS management operations. Facebook, for example, is a giant collection of “posts” and “likes.” It’s a database of content that is well managed.

A CMS is a framework that controls how the content is handled. It’s the software that runs in the background. It’s like a file system, except there are specific functions to control content items like “posts” or “files.”

A site like Facebook IS a CMS, but that probably isn’t why you’re reading this article. How do you set up your own, personalized CMS for your business? It’s pretty easy in 2018.

The 700 Pound Gorilla

There are many different types of CMS software available. However, there is one CMS, in particular, that is at least the size [in terms of use] of all other CMS platforms put together. I’m talking about WordPress, the human race’s largest software system.

Almost half of all websites are deployed using WordPress.

The word “WordPress” is a little confusing since it represents at least several different entities. WordPress, the CMS, is a software platform that is available for free on the internet. It is a program written in the PHP language and is open source and free for anyone to use or modify.

WordPress is a “fork” of an earlier blogging system called b2CafeLog which was a blogging CMS designed around 2000. A “fork” means that the original source code of a system is taken, re-named, and re-purposed. You can legally fork an open source system and create essentially a new system.

WordPress has since evolved into the world’s #1 content management software. It is maintained by thousands of volunteer developers in the open source community.

Using A CMS

Whether you’re using WordPress or another CMS, the concepts are the same. The software hold content items, usually called “posts,” and organizes them.

One technical difference between a CMS and just storing a bunch of files on a computer is the database. A database is another software product that stores information. You can think of a CMS as the layer on top of the database that holds information.

The CMS interacts with the web server to produce canonical links for the data [“permalinks” in WordPress]. For instance, you’ve seen URLs like:

  • https://example.com/page
  • https://example/page.html

In these examples, the .html points to a specific file on the web server. The “page” without a file extension points to a reference point in the database that isn’t in a file. It’s an important distinction between a CMS and a naked web server.

In a CMS, instead of the traffic being routed to specific files, the CMS software intercepts the web request and creates an HTML document on the fly. One of the advantages of this is that a CMS can re-create the link structure of the system.

“Page” could become “page-1” or any other thing. Or it could be put into a taxonomy system like:

  • https://example.com/new/page
  • https://example.com/old/page

While retaining the actual content within the post.

Another useful aspect of a CMS content management system is that you can apply filters and other software to the output of the system. For instance, if you want to display the information based on the type of device you are viewing it on, or some other criteria.

WordPress accomplishes this by the use of “plugins”. A plugin is a piece of software that you can attach to the CMS to create new types of functionality. you can access thousands of free and commercial plugins directly from your admin control screen.

A common plugin that is used by many sites is an eCommerce shopping cart like WooCommerce or Shopify. These programs turn a common post into something like a product on a store shelf.

You could create a post called “gizmo” and then sell gizmos on your website at the address:

  • https://example.com/store/gizmo

The plugin would handle all the necessary behaviors for actually selling the gizmo. Usually, shopping cart systems are used in conjunction with payment processor gateways like Stripe or PayPal. These allow you to actually charge the customer money for some kind of interaction [like placing an order for gizmos].

Yet another feature of modern CMS systems like WordPress or Magento is the ability to apply language filters to the content. There are programs like Google Translate, which can translate content on the fly, but nothing beats a real human translation. Automatic machine translations miss small language features.

If you’re serious about your content, the translation features of a modern CMS are great.

They account for things like “right to left” character display. Did you know that several languages are printed on the screen from right to left, instead of left to right? This can break an unsophisticated sites’ look, but a modern CMS should be able to handle it with no problem.

Using a Modern CMS

The whole point of a Content Management System is to make organizing and displaying your content easy. If you can turn on a computer, you can use a CMS like WordPress with ease.

In 2018, instead of re-inventing the wheel, you should use a CMS to manage and maintain your data and content.

A Content Management System can dynamically arrange content in advanced ways. Use your CMS to show off your content like an expert! If you’d like to learn more about using modern web tools to manage your business, check out our blog.