What is a web content management system?

A web content management system is a platform that permits both large and small organizations to handle various types of digital information on their website. It allows organizations to create and manage dynamic content without any knowledge of programming or mark-up languages. It also helps businesses make informed decisions (for example; which page got more visits) based on insights delivered through the platform.

How does a WCMS work?

With the help of a web content management system (WCM), any organization can maintain and control the content on a website. The stored content in a central database is recalled internally by the CMS without needing the administrator to write any code, by using its own features written in different programming or markup languages for example; XML or. NET. Anyone can access the web page with the help of a web browser. The content can be edited via a web browser-based control panel that not only controls the content, but also the layout and various elements of a web page.

A web content management system has two parts:

1. A content management application that helps creators, such as designers, content writers, and developers to create a layout of the web page and further modify it as per the organization’s requirements. This application does not need any support from the IT department.
2. A content delivery application that transforms content created at the backend by users into a visible format in the front end for the visitors and does not need any user effort.

Organizations can run WCMSs on the cloud or use open source hosting platforms such as the LAMP or WAMP stack to host their own setups.

Why use a WCMS?

When it comes to promoting a business, websites play an important role in marketing. In fact, modern business depends heavily on websites as it is an important marketing tool for creating inbound interest. The most difficult part of maintaining a website is the constant updates needed for its content. This can’t be done efficiently on a manual basis, that is why the need for a web content management system is unavoidable.

If we look at the different digital marketing activities, for example, social media, email marketing, print, and other modes of advertisement and promotion, they all route users to the website of the company. Therefore, it is vital for any company to keep its website current for an effective online presence. Well, a web content management system not only plays a role in enabling the creation of a variety of content but also provides capabilities for deploying e-commerce websites or online stores.

With a Web CMS, It becomes easy for organizations to maintain the consistency of their online presence across multiple platforms (like web and mobile) as a web content management system offers numerous tools within itself. There are different control options available for users so that they can maintain different versions, and automate processes and activities.

Capabilities and Features

Below are the few main features of a web content management system:

• Flexibility to create personalized content for a website that can be easily designed, created, and maintained via WCMS.
• Before publishing online, editors can easily review and approve the content.
• Standard and automated templates for users that they can use to create content instantly.
• Empowers administrators to control access to the website page.
• Web content management systems are scalable systems, thereby making it easy for companies to implement them across the board.
• Allows users to further extend the functionality of the website through the usage of ease-of-use plugins or add-on modules.
• Workflows allow users to set up review mechanisms for publishing their content.
• Document Management allows users to store multiple versions of documents and maintain a proper archive for them.

Advantages of WCMS

Let’s have a look at some key advantages of a WCM –

Cost-effective: Some of the Web Content Management System (WCMS) platforms available are free or come at a very low cost, with the cost of management and support being the only overheads. Hence, most small or medium-sized companies can afford them.

Ease to use: Most WCMS tools are user-friendly and people with minimal or zero coding experience can also configure and manage them.

Customizable: The tool (WCMS) comes with easily customizable front ends.

Web Content Management System (WCMS) Types

To classify web content management systems (CMS), we can put them into three main buckets

Online Processing

It works on the mechanism of deploying online templates that have an instant impact on the web page on a real-time basis. Whenever the changes are made, the update is published instantly on the live web page.

Offline Processing

In offline processing, the content is created in an offline mode in CMS, where the users are not connected to the internet. This method allows complete due diligence of the content before it is published to the live server for users.

Hybrid Processing

Here, users use a combination of online and offline modes, through the usage of tools such as JSP, ASP, or PHP, instead of the traditional HTML.

Conclusion:

Web content management system (WCMS) is here to stay and there is constant evolution happening in this segment. Today we can find many open source, free platforms that help companies in delivering and managing their content. You never know, the next revolution in WCMS might be around the corner.

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