How To Manage Large Content Sites
Is your website growing like a weed and getting troublesome to manage? Maybe it’s even slowly taking over your life.
If you’re still using FrontPage or DreamWeaver to publish a web site with hundreds or thousands of pages, things can quickly get out of hand. While there’s nothing wrong with these software, they weren’t designed to publish and manage a large number of articles or handle multiple authors.
“The person you hire to update your site can be less skilled and less expensive than someone who knows how to develop websites. You get to keep more of your money and spend it on more important things.”
For your sanity’s sake, you should be using a web based content management system. Even if you hire people to manage the site for you, the content management system will help save you money. Here’s why and how.
- If you share the files with your assistant, the larger your site gets, the larger your files are. Sharing large files or a large number of files can become troublesome even confusing.
- If you edit your pages live, you increase the risk of overwriting each other’s work.
- You may lose the uniform design. Because static HTML pages contain all the code required to display a page, you or your assistant could mistakenly remove some essential coding. Also, when creating new pages, you’d have to build each page all over again.
Whenever you outsource or hire staff to help you publish your content, you need something that allows this person to do their job as efficiently as possible without distractions. With a web based content management system, there are no files to be shared. Only a simple login.
You can also assign different access levels to different people. That way, if you hire someone just to add content, you can rest assured that’s the only thing they can do. Your carefully laid out design will remain consistent on all and every page every time without the chance of someone messing it up.
Another point few people consider is cost. Here’s the truth. It’s far easier to copy, paste and hit a publish button than it is to use FrontPage, DreamWeaver or any kind of web page publishing software.
This means, the person you hire to update your site can be less skilled and less expensive than someone who knows how to develop websites. In the end, you get to keep more of your money and spend it on more important things like advertising and marketing.
Content management systems can also help you grow your site. They allow you to add multiple authors and contributors. Allowing others to submit their content automatically in addition to your content is smart because it reduces your work load. Plus, you get more fresh content regularly. Something both visitors and search engines love.
Last but not least, some content management systems can be automated. You only need to load up on a bunch of articles and let it publish automatically over time. This is a huge plus versus spending time manually publishing a few articles every week.
Now you know, what web based content management system should you use?
There are so many systems out there to suit different needs. Many you can get for free, and some come with a price tag. A few popular ones to get you going are Joomla and Drupal. You could even use WordPress because it’s so flexible.
If you like to try things out, check out opensourcecms.com. This is a great place to test drive the different software before you commit yourself. They have a large number of demos, you’ll surely find something to suit.
Also, ask around and check out other people’s content sites. There are many people who’ve used different systems successfully and won’t mind sharing their experience.
Finally, don’t get bogged down with details. There is no perfect content management system. Find something you like and works for you, get it started. You’ll be doing yourself a big favor.
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