What The Blueprint looks for in a great CMS solution
A great CMS has a few non-negotiable features: it’s accessible, easy to collaborate, support-friendly, customizable, organized, search engine-optimized and metrics-ready. We look for these characteristics in each system.
How SEO-friendly is it?
You can’t have a successful business without an online presence anymore, for the most part. And the way to an online presence is visibility. If you can’t be found quickly on a search engine, you don’t carry as much weight or professional appeal. And the algorithms that can help you rank are impossible to figure out without AI and computer coding.
A good CMS is one that is SEO-ready for you. It optimizes your pages, gives insight into keywords, and directs the necessary backlinks/coding, so you will have maximum visibility.
Is the content easily customizable and professional looking?
A good site should look professional. Gone are the days of GeoCities and AngelFire looking cool. Your website needs to be sleek and knowledgeable.
And, since each type of business requires different things, the ability to customize is a must. An e-commerce site looks different than a restaurant website which looks different than a portfolio site and so on.
How is support?
If you’re a marketer or business owner, you’re most likely not a coder. And when it comes to technology, bugs are bound to pop up, and things are bound to go wrong.
When that happens, you can’t figure them out on your own, without possibly making them worse, so good and knowledgeable support is a must to keep your site functioning.
What is the pricing - what value do you get for your dollar?
There’s no way around it — money matters. Whether you are working on your own or within an organization, you’ll have a budget.
Of course, low cost is valued, but you also must take into consideration the value you get for your spend.
If a system is free, it still should work well. And if it’s expensive, you should be getting all the bells and whistles.
Is it user-friendly?
There’s nothing harder for a creative or a business manager than being thrust into a technological nightmare.
At the end of the day, you just want the easiest path to getting your content published. A good CMS shouldn’t make you waste your time wading through unnecessary steps and overly complicated processes.
How your business can benefit from using a content management system
With so many moving parts and so much content out there to publish, a business is only as good as its efficiency and reliability. That’s where a CMS is a lifesaver.
Stay updated without the hassle
The beauty of using a CMS is that it is built for automatic upgrades and updates. You don’t need to worry about researching when security updates come out, or manually coding in new upgrades. A good CMS handles all that for you, automatically.
Easy and secure collaborations
You can have as many cooks as you need, without them messing up the kitchen.
With a CMS, you can allow others just what access they need, and nothing more. Meaning you can have guest authors or teammates publish as needed, without giving them your login info or control of your site.
SEO-friendly out of the box
Rather than hope you’re hitting the right notes to rank in the search engines, CMS software usually is SEO-friendly out of the box, or with the help of an easy plug-in. You can rest easy, knowing your content is optimized.
Track audience behavior
Data is power. You’ll only grow a business or an audience if you can have insight into audience behavior.
Content management software comes with dashboards and reporting features that let you see what content performs best, allowing you to tweak content for different demographics.
Don’t feel technically and technologically overwhelmed
CMS software already does the tech part for you, so you can feel confident using it as a non-coder. Layman’s terms abound for the regular folk among us.
No computer science background? No problem. Content management systems are designed to be as user-friendly as possible so you can focus on getting your work out there.
Manage from anywhere
Thanks to web platforms, all you need is a username, password, and an internet connection to manage your site.
Most content management systems allow you the freedom of managing and updating from a desktop, an app, or a mobile platform, so you can stay on top of things from wherever you are. The software takes care of syncing, so your site is always updated.