A Content Management System (CMS) is piece of software. It allows you to make edits to your website by making it easier to manipulate the content. Content Management System software is an intermediate layer that sits between the the nuts and bolts of your website and you. A good Content Management System will be intuitive enough so that someone without any specialized technical knowledge could manage the website. All that is required is familiarity with a text editor. Well, almost.
A Content Management System will make it easier to edit the content on the website, but if you have some familiarity with HTML, it will make your life a lot easier because then you can fine tune the changes that you are trying to make. In our experience, people with no HTML experience can sometimes run into styling and layout issues with a Content Management System, which are often caused by copy-pasting text from documents where styling is already applied. That styling carries over, which messes up the intended look.
Needless to say, there are many Content Management Systems out in the marketplace. Some are paid, some are free, and some are custom built for a client to meet their particular needs. With the quality of free Content Management Systems out there, we believe that there is absolutely no need to go to a paid or custom Content Management System.
Without a Content Management System, if you want to make changes to the website, you would typically ask your web developer to do the changes for you, and pay for their time.
While having a Content Management System sounds like a good idea, the decision is not that straight forward. There are downsides to having a Content Management System, so it’s a matter of making sure that the upsides outweigh the downsides.
If you are wondering whether having a Content Management System on your website is a good idea, read our post Do I Need a Content Management System (CMS)?