Break the Webmaster Bottleneck: Managing Content with a CMS
A CMS can revolutionize Web site creation and maintenance.
Content is king on the Web, but managing content can be a costly headache.
That’s where content management systems come in. A content management system (CMS) can make your Web operation more efficient while addressing some fundamental issues that plague many Web sites. Here’s how a CMS can help you bring quality content to your site.
What Is Quality Content?
Web sites should marry an efficient publishing operation with compelling and reliable presentation. Content needs to be authored by the right people, approved by the appropriate entities, and fully auditable. Also, content must be consistently presented in accord with organizational brand standards and delivered on time. A content management system can help achieve these goals.
Authored by the Right People
Traditionally, there are the content creators and the Web team. This separation of content creation and ownership from the people responsible for publishing the content often results in tension between the Web team and content creators. The Web team may feel they’re juggling conflicting priorities, while content owners feel they lose control of their work. This is the Webmaster bottleneck.
A CMS restores balance to the publishing equation. It breaks the bottleneck by separating technology from content.
Content authors use the CMS toolset for content, letting the system take care of the technical aspects of formatting and posting. They open a CMS program on their desktop, change the content, and send it to the system for publishing. With a CMS, anyone in the organization can author site content.
Approved by the Right People
Often, content is posted on a site without review by the staff responsible. This isn’t because organizations are rife with rogue employees. It happens because Web publication uses HTML, a mysterious and incomprehensible technology to most people. Therefore, the review and approval process becomes cumbersome and haphazard.
A CMS provides an equivalent to familiar print processes. An item is authored using well-known tools and automatically sent into the publishing workflow, where it moves from review to review, using e-mail to notify the appropriate players, until it reaches the final approval stage. Mistakes are reduced, potential liability is minimized, and time is saved.
Auditable Content
Because a few keystrokes can change or delete the content in a publicly-available document, Web sites constitute a dangerous liability and miscommunication problem. The ephemeral nature of HTML-based content aggravates this situation. Not only is this content sometimes unrecoverable, it’s also not subject to audit. Changes can be difficult to track.
A CMS can provide an audit trail. In some systems, every iteration of every item is saved, along with a record of when and by whom an item was created, posted, edited, or deleted. The words and images on your site are an essential part of the public record. From the standpoint of liability, record-keeping, and internal knowledge management, an audit capability is an essential asset delivered by a CMS.
Consistent Presentation
Consistency is key to Web sites. Navigation, hyperlinks, icons and the “voice” on each page affect the Web experience.
Authors shouldn’t be worrying about these issues. Do you think Tom Clancy and Danielle Steel are responsible for fonts, page numbering, and other presentation details? Yet many Web authors agonize for hours over presentation issues because HTML requires layout information to be encoded onto each page.
A CMS separates content from site design and navigation. Through the use of page templates, sites maintain a consistent appearance. This frees authors from the onus of worrying about presentation, ensuring a site’s consistent presentation, navigation, and design approach no matter how often content is changed. Once templates are built, presentation never needs to be addressed again.
Up-to-Date, Not Out-of-Date
Timely content is vital. Efficient content publishing satisfies your audience’s information needs. It also means that out-of-date information doesn’t cause legal problems.
A CMS allows anyone with the proper permissions to post content. They eliminate the Webmaster bottleneck that delays publishing. The CMS can handle as many simultaneous transactions as necessary. By pressing a “Submit” key on a Web form, any staffer can update content, rather than relying on a single, busy Web team member.
In addition, most content management systems provide for content scheduling, letting staffers specify when a piece of content goes live on the site. Thus, publication timing is no longer subject to human input or any other environmental constraints. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor international time zone differences matter to a CMS. Content can be created and approved hours, days, or months ahead of time. When the appointed moment arrives, the content goes live. A CMS can also provide for content expiration. If you want a promotional area to go live at a given time, stay live for a specific period, then disappear from the site, content scheduling can automate that process.
Easing the Major Pain
Not only can a CMS solve these content problems, but it makes maintaining a Web site quick and painless. Making necessary content changes doesn’t have to be an ordeal. With a CMS, a simple word processor-like desktop tool lets anyone update content.
Web sites are complex public documents that rely on technologies most people don’t really understand. Content management systems represent an evolutionary step reducing the time and money spent on a Web site. With the ability to make corrections instantly and create an audit trail comes decreases in legal risks. With a CMS, a Web site’s operation will be more efficient, and will deliver better, more timely information to the people who need it.
