5 Reasons Why A Content Management System Will Change the Way You Use the Web

I've built one static website, it was the first website I ever made and because I mucked up so many bits of it, I immediately saw a need for something more scaleable and a little easier to update. A lot of web designers think differently, they claim that CMS's are restricted and enjoy the trickle of income that comes from website updates. A lot of customers don't even know what a Content Management System is. What you're average person needs to know is that it is a system that holds all the content of your site in a databse that you access through a nice website backend. If you can use basic Microsoft word functionality, you can update your website. So how exactly does this benefit you?

1) Better Search Engine Rankings - Which means more visitors to your site
Search engines love sites that are regularly updated. If you can update your site as easily as you can write a word document, chances are, you will update it - unlike your static site that sits unchanged for years at a time.

2) Save money, you no longer have to pay someone every time you want to update your website.
Or wait for them to have space to do the updates. Although you may have a slightly higher hosting bill each month, the savings by updating your site in-house more than make up for this.

3) Your whole team can be focused around your website as a marketing tool
Because everyone has control over the marketing material, your website becomes the dynamic, up-to-date center of your marketing strategy. Your website becomes a living reflection of your company and involves all of your company.

4) Create an extranet and provide customers, partners and investors access in a few clicks
If you have some content that you don't want all the world to see, but want to provide access to it for your customers, partners or investors, a CMS allows you to partition it off in just a few clicks. You can easily create user accounts for chosen people on your website, or allow people to sign up themselves to view extra content, participate in forums or any number of activities you'd rather restrict access to.

5) Keep people coming back
No one likes returning to a website that hasn't changed since their last visit. They do like returning to a site that provides relevent, up-to-date information. New products? Special offers? Exciting news? Your website becomes THE place to go to know what's going on.

Comments

[JC]

Thank you.

As a web designer, I die a million deaths try to sell CMS to people.

The joke is that in this day, it's CMS or nothing.

People don't need much to get your contact info (Google and Yahoo have that covered).

People also don't need much of a chance to be impressed by your competitor's website, either.

A CMS stands out, especially from a small business.

[Jeremy Mansfield]

I agree. Thank you for this post. The sellable benefit for a CMS driven website is that it will always help the client save money and make money. They save money by not having to pay a web designer or agency to update content, and they make money simply because the content is always fresh and relevant, and their consumers can come to rely on them as an industry expert with all the latest news/updates/etc., and that goes a long way for creating customer loyalty and brand relationships.

Jeremy Mansfield
Brand Aid Design Co., LLC
http://www.brandaiddesignco.com
http://www.brandmailman.com

[David Newman]

Good point. But I'm curious if it's now harder or easier to sell CMS, since blogs and blogging are, at the end of the day, all the CMS that most people need. Used to be that CMS would be a high-ticket item and could often sell for more than the website design itself! Not so anymore. On the other hand, the concepts behind CMS might be a bit more accessible now with the blogging paradigm becoming more familiar to non-techies!

-- David Newman
FREE marketing resources for smart people:
http://snipurl.com/sbmcfree

[Natalie Ferguson]

"But I'm curious if it's now harder or easier to sell CMS, since blogs and blogging are, at the end of the day, all the CMS that most people need."
Really? Most non-techie people I know, are pretty unfamiliar with the concept of blogging. Also, I must say although I LOVE blogs, they do not replace websites, but work in parallel. A blog is very limited in it's ability to display information, in a rolling time-based system. We sell websites that lead customers though a decision making flow, a blog is incapable of doing this alone, though certainly aids the process.
We've found people pay for the ability to update their own content, but we try to consider a CMS itself as a 'normal' website and therefore don't directly charge more.
I'd be interested in hearing other web designer's opinions on selling CMS's, I have heard a massive range of answers through some companies we talk to, so it's obviously a broad area :)

[Jeff Paul Internet Millions]

Now this is very interesting, impressive and never thought of. In simple words well done for providing creative information.

[Jeff Paul Forum]

Different techniques can be used as internet marketing tools , cotent management is one of the important methods , these encourages articles to encourage web promotion .

[Jeff Paul internet marketing]

Content Management System provides easy access to customers and clients ,where as it gives economical means to acess content effectively .

[jeff paul forum]

Exclusive content management system change your rank on search engines like Google . These build customer satisfaction and interests .