How to choose the ideal CMS for your website

Choosing the right content management system for your website is a crucial decision that will impact how you and your audience interact with it. It can influence your site’s functionality, usability, and even SEO. 

This guide will break down the key considerations you need to make when deciding which CMS to choose for your website, so you can make a decision with confidence, having weighed the pros and cons. 

What is a CMS?

A content management system (CMS) is a software application that allows a user to manage websites without having to know how to code. It provides a user-friendly interface for creating, editing, and publishing content on your website. Today, most standard CMS offer different permission levels, enabling you to distribute different levels of access to your team.

Things to consider when choosing a CMS

As with any business decision, choosing a CMS isn't something you want to rush into. There are countless options available, each with different strengths, weaknesses, and costs. Do you opt for something popular and ubiquitous like WordPress, or something different, tailored to your needs, like a Statamic build? The questions below will help guide your decision.

What is the website for?

The first thing you need to do is decide what you want your website to do. Will it be a blog, a brochure site, an e-commerce platform, or simply a repository for information and resources? Different CMSs have different strengths and weaknesses, and knowing what you want your website to do will help inform which will best meet your needs.  

What features do you require?

Once you have established what you want your website to do, you can start to think about the features you’ll require for the website to meet those needs. For example, if it is going to be an e-commerce website, then your CMS will need to support shopping cart functionality, inventory management, and secure payment processing. If your website is going to be a vehicle for brand awareness, then a CMS that offers robust SEO tools will be a must. 

If you have a lot of people uploading content to your website, such as copywriters and content creators, you might want to find a CMS that supports multiple users and roles. This means individuals get their own logins, and you can set the permissions of their account so they can only access the parts of the website they need to do their job. This limits the risk of them accidentally bringing your whole site down. 

What is your budget?

Your budget will play a significant role in determining the CMS you choose for various reasons. 

Some CMS platforms are free to use, while others come with a monthly or annual licence fee. Then there are the costs of the different plugins you might choose to deploy on your site. It might be a false economy to choose a free CMS that requires significant extensions through commercial plugins to achieve the functionality of a licensed CMS, so always do your research. 

What is your level of technical proficiency?

You need to factor in development time for your build. A CMS like WordPress is much easier to get started with if you’re building a blog, and as the most popular CMS in existence (in no small part because it’s free and open-source), it is very well supported and documented. Its ubiquity means that there is a wealth of information available to get the best out of it, but it also means it’s a popular target for malicious actors. A flat-file CMS is a smaller, lightweight application that can create blazingly fast websites but will require more up-front onboarding time and getting to know the system. If you’re less technically inclined, or don’t have your own team of developers, you might want to consider a platform that can give you excellent results with minimal knowledge required (or reach out to Brew Digital!). 

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Choosing the right CMS for your website is no small task, but with careful consideration and thorough research, you can make a decision that best fits your needs and goals. Remember, the perfect CMS doesn't exist; it's about finding the one that aligns with your website's purpose, your required features, your budget, and your technical proficiency.

Don't hesitate to reach out to Brew Digital if you’re still unsure which route to take. After all, your website is a significant part of your business, and it deserves the best.