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…

What is a hosted CMS? A hosted CMS is one in which the company that created the CMS software is also the company that hosts your site. A hosted CMS is very tempting to use because all of the installation and upgrade hassle (no matter how easy it is) is in the hands of someone else. With a hosted CMS, all you have to worry about is creating content, right? Well, not exactly. The biggest worry of choosing a hosted CMS is that of lack of control. By placing control of your site in another company’s hands, you run some very real risks.

• What happens if the company folds? Does your site and all its content simply vanish?
• What happens if the company uses inferior

Over time, definitions of web-based applications tend to change. In many cases, what were once separate systems tend to be combined in mashups and how we define such systems must necessarily change. I believe we are at a crossroads in which various types of systems and sites have undergone enough iterations that we now become confused with what each means.

Although CMS stands for “content management system”, and that in itself seems like a simple thing to define (a system that allows us to manage our site content), it has historically evoked some sort of complex system that cost many thousands of dollars and could only be managed by a team of uber-geeks. I think we’ve finally begun to realize that a CMS doesn’t have to involve high…

If you frequent social networks, you’ll have seen a fair amount of buzz in the last few months about using WordPress as a CMS. I’m here to tell you that for 99% of you out there, that would be a bad idea. Don’t get me wrong. I love WordPress. I have blogs that use WordPress, including this one. I even have one non-blog that uses WordPress - as a CMS! But that doesn’t mean everyone should run out and use WordPress as a CMS, and I’m here to tell you why.

Why should most people not use WordPress as a CMS? Because it is decidedly NOT easy to do so for the average Joe. Perhaps in time it will be, but for now…

Before CMS Jam gets too far along, I wanted to make one thing very clear. This blog is absolutely not going to be focused on large corporations, enterprise-level needs, or IT experts. This blog is for the newbie, the individual webmaster, and the mom and pop business. You may or may not be geeky. You may or may not need to learn a few technical terms. But on the whole, you’re just someone who needs a website that is easy to manage. That’s who CMS Jam is here for. I want to help you find and use a content management system that is easy, free (or cheap), and contains all the functionality and search-engine-friendliness that you need to have a successful web site.

If…

One of the reasons people love using products such as WordPress or Drupal is that they can easily find thousands of design templates (usually for free), even if those products may not be exactly what would be best for them to use. The good news is that even if the CMS product that is perfect for your needs doesn’t come with communities of free themes, you probably don’t need to despair. More than likely, you can use almost any HTML/CSS-based design template for your CMS-based design! All you have to do is make minor modifications, which your CMS product will outline for you. In most cases, all you have to do is insert short tags into the code in the places you want certain…

I’ve mentioned before that my favorite easy CMS is CMS Made Simple (CMSMS). One of the reasons I love it is because it can create search-friendly URLs. What is that and why does it matter?

What is a search-friendly URL?

A search-friendly URL is one that makes it easy for search engines to index and understand what a page is all about. For example, www.yoursite.com/blue-widgets/ tells Google, Yahoo!, etc. that the page blue-widgets is about “blue widgets”.

Why does it matter?

Search-friendly URLs gives a page an extra chance to rank well for that phrase. Many CMS’s will create URLs like this:

www.yoursite.com/id=128483&catno=82746&colid=7373

That makes it just a little harder for that page to rank for “blue widgets” than it would for the search-friendly URL. In addition, search-friendly URLs are…

Content management systems run the gamut from very basic and simple to extremely complex and feature-rich. Large organizations that have extensive staff members, all needing access to site editing, designing, and programming, are probably going to be using the high-end, expensive, feature-rich systems. The independent webmaster often has no need for such complexities [...]

In case you’ve been living under a CMS rock, I want to make sure you know about the best demo site that ever lived - OpenSourceCMS. This site has a fairly extensive array of open source (free) CMS packages already installed, and you can play with (test) every one of them. You can [...]

1. Web-based access to your site’s content, so you can edit from anywhere - home, work, vacation - any place with Internet access.
2. Ability to easily assign tasks to different people. Writers can create and edit content without worrying about messing up the design. Designers can tweak designs without stepping on the [...]