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Lesson 2 Vocab 18 - Content Management System, CMS

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You are not a web programmer. You are a jewelry business owner. It should not be your job to program your website, nor should you try to learn to program your website. You should concentrate on what you do best and let the actual website programming be done by a professional.

On the other hand, website programming is totally different than managing your online product catalog, or adding content and articles to your site.

You should never set up a website without the ability to easily change the information in it. I'm not saying you need to learn how to program; I'm saying you need to learn how to change your words, photos and products.

In order to make changes you need a "Content Management System" that can be accessed through a web browser. The content management system, or CMS for short, gives you easy editorial control over every page of your website.

Regardless which company programs your website, make sure you have the ability to make changes through a CMS. Please do not pay for service from any website programmer not offering a CMS.

There are thousands of different CMS solutions available. Every programmer will have a preferred CMS, and they will set it up for you.

There's usually a lot of work that goes into setting up a website with a content management system, but once it's completed you should not need to do any additional programming.

There are a few freely available CMS programs, but I have to warn you that "free" usually never means "free." The free CMS programs I have personally reviewed take several days of your time to set up simple features like navigation and page layout. They are usually difficult to upgrade by a programmer when needed.

You will have to pay your programmer to do the software installation for you. Most of the time the programming cost will be more expensive than if you went with a paid shrink wrapped proprietary CMS solution that only includes features you need.

Don't get me wrong, it might sound like a CMS is a bad thing. It's not. You just have to find the right one for your needs, and something you feel is feature rich enough, yet easy to use.
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AT: 01/22/2010 02:06:33 PM   LINK TO THIS ARTICLE
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