CMS Jam Content Management Systems: News and Resources

No matter what CMS package you decide to go with, there are some steps you should take to prepare for the creation of your new site. You should begin the site creation planning long before you determine which CMS will best fit your needs, and you should expect to spend at least a week to accomplish these tasks.

Step One: Make sure you don’t want your site to be just a blog. If you DO want the site to be essentially just a blog, then by all means, stop thinking in terms of CMS applications, and head right on over to WordPress to download the latest version. If, however, you don’t want your site to be a blog, (or you only want a blog to be one section of a larger site), then move on to step two.

Step Two: Determine the main focus of the site. No matter how many topics you plan to cover, keep broadening those topics until you reach the broadest level possible that you intend to cover. Define that broad topic as the main focus of your site.

Step Three: Now, work back down and break down the main focus of the site into ever-smaller groups and sub-groups, until you’ve defined a structure that looks like a company organizational chart. Under the main focus, you’ll define branches (sub-topics), and under each sub-topic, you’ll define sub-sub-topics, etc. until you’ve created an entire structure that defines everything the site will be about. Make notes on your org chart to refer to later.

Step Four: Looking at each branch of the organization you’ve defined, determine what type of information and/or application will be needed to share that topic with the world. Will it just be text and graphics, like a normal web page would provide? Will it require some sort of special application, such as a forum, blog or other interactive module? (This is an important step in helping you determine later which CMS to choose).

Step Five: Do keyword research. This step may be outside your normal comfort level, but it is important to the overall success of any site you create. You need to know what phrases the average person uses to find information on the topic your site is about, and you shouldn’t make assumptions or guess at this. The phrases that people use to search will factor heavily in what you name your site’s pages, menu items, and which topics you focus most heavily upon. To learn more about keyword research and SEO in general, download Dan Theis’ free ebook, SEO Fast Start. Don’t get bogged down in every detail in the book. Just learn what you need to learn about keyword research for now, and absorb the rest later. I highly recommend using Wordze’s keyword research tool to find the phrases you’ll be using. It’s not free, but the information you gain for the low price is very much worth it.

Step Six: Apply the information you discovered from your keyword research to the site’s organizational chart that you created. Determine the menu structure of the site and decide what each menu item will be called (based on your keyword research) and what each page name will be (again based on your research). Now would be a good time to finish reading the SEO Fast Start book and really getting a grip on what SEO is all about.

Step Seven: Either find a design template (free or premium) that you want to use for your site, or hire a designer to create a custom design for you. This step isn’t essential at this point, but it is fun, so it’s always good to inject a little fun into the process since you’ve worked so hard up to this point.

Step Eight: Now you are finally ready to determine what CMS will be needed to turn your awesome site organizational chart into a real, live, kick-ass site! We won’t go into this process yet, as that requires a whole post all on its own, but you’ve got lots of information at your fingertips now to help you determine which CMS will help you achieve your site’s goals.