Goodbye Static Pages, Hello Modern CMS: Creating a Dynamic Experience

While static pages have their benefits, creating a more dynamic experience is necessary in order to adapt to the needs of your audience. As your content management system (CMS) will be at the center of your marketing mission, it’s important to select the right one with all the features that will best serve your needs.

Why should businesses invest in a CMS solution?

The most obvious reason for investing in a CMS solution is that it’ll save your business time and money. Instead of hardcoding updates onto a static website, you’ll be able to make the changes yourself much more easily. While these are important benefits, they’re not the only ones that will result from switching to a CMS.

• Easy to use - uploading copy and images is simple and requires no programming experience
• Effective collaboration - with all of your online content saved in one place, multiple members of the team can access it from their own computers
• Access to SEO tools - integrated tools make implementing a basic optimization strategy intuitive
• Increased security - enjoy peace of mind that your site won’t be attacked, as your CMS will be continuously tested against security breaches
• Update in-house - with a CMS there’s no need to contact a web developer to make changes to your site

How does a CMS create a dynamic experience?

Long gone are the days when a company could get by with a basic static website that outlined its services and provided contact details. Now, a business must use its online presence to facilitate meeting its goals. This means generating leads, promoting brand awareness and proving its relevance within its industry.

Blog posts are likely to be among the most commonly published pieces of content on your website. A CMS allows members of your team to upload such content in a timely fashion without having to rely on a web developer to put them live. One of the main benefits is that you can react to changes within your industry or the wider world quickly and stay ahead of the competition.

Depending on the industry and the type of business you run, you may also wish to regularly put updates on your website outside of the blog space. This could vary from stock levels to external circumstances that have an impact on your company and the services it provides. Keeping your customers up-to-date has never been more important and will help you to gain trust with your audience.

How to select the right CMS for your business

While the decision to work with a CMS is a fairly straightforward one, the next challenge is to ensure you select the system that will best suit your business. There are many providers out there and knowing the right questions to ask and the functionality you need will mean you integrate a CMS that will serve you well for the future.

Factors to consider include:

• Ease of use - even casual users should be able to complete basic tasks on your CMS without specialist training
• Integrated SEO functions - a CMS with optimization prompts will ensure your content performs well in search
• Security protection - data breaches can cause significant reputational damage for businesses
• User management - having a simple way to add users and manage their access is vital to keep your company running smoothly
• Third-party compatibility - being able to add specialist plug-ins will streamline your workflow further
• Dashboard - a simple dashboard that summarizes the state of your content will help you see the overall picture
• Analytics - a more in-depth look at how your content is performing and contributing to meeting your business goals
• Ecommerce tools - if you sell via your website, you’ll require a CMS that facilitates the retail process

Make sure your CMS is future-proof

The process of deciding upon and integrating a CMS takes time and it’s important your business doesn’t have to carry out the task again in a relatively short period. That means future-proofing your CMS right from the start. Scalability should be a key consideration when selecting a CMS, as nobody knows how a company will change in the years and decades to come.

Since the main reason for investing in a CMS in the first place is to benefit from a dynamic experience, this must be maintained over time. Find out about the possibility of adding new features to the system and its agility before you start. Otherwise, time and money can be wasted down the line trying to bring it up to a standard that suits your evolving business when it doesn’t truly have this capability.