The advantages of using a content-management system

Although your visitors may never know whether your website is built with a content-management system or the more traditional 'static-page' form of website, the difference is something that you - as the site's owner - will notice from the word go. Here are the main advantages of using a CMS (content management system) to build and deploy your business's website:

  • Non-technical contributors can edit pages and expand a site’s content: no knowledge of HTML is required.
  • A separation is maintained between a website’s content, its structure and its visual design; a change in one of these can be done independently of the others. A complete visual re-design of a whole site can be done without touching the site’s content or its structure.
  • When new content is added, its visual appearance conforms to the design already established for the sort of content being added.
  • When pages are added or deleted, the site’s menus are updated automatically.
  • Updates to the site can be made at any time by anyone with the correct permissions.
  • Requirements for image sizes can be gracefully enforced.
  • Best practice with regard to search engines can be gracefully enforced (page titles, meaningful URLs, correct metadata, etc).
  • Changes made to the content of a website can be automatically posted to major search engines.

Although most CMSs will support the following additions to a ‘brochure’ website, Drupal will breeze through each of them:

  • a newsletter: email highlights from your website by point-and-click selecting both content and recipients
  • role authentication: designate specific people to perform specific tasks on your website
  • email notifications: email anyone (users or yourself) in response to any event on the site
  • a forum
  • an ecommerce/shopping system
  • content moderation queuing: hold newly-posted content until you've approved it for publication

But there are even greater advantages to your business if the CMS you choose for your website is Drupal: Why use Drupal for a CMS website?