Content Management (CMS)
[noun]
For digital and non-digital types of business alike, the notion of ‘Content Management’ can be quite broad: it often also entails archive-types of functions such as organizing and storing financial or branding information and documents, to allow for easy internal access and use. However, within a digital marketing agency such as netamorphosis, what is generally intended with ‘content management system’ (or ‘CMS’ implementation) is a computer application or set of related programs which we would use to create, upload, modify, manage, archive digital content on a website.
What goes into a CMS?
The content involved may be images, videos, audios, multimedia, as well as SEO related data fields, including meta or text. CMS interfaces are also often adopted to support multiple users working in a collaborative environment and condense a number of other different types of functions. A CMS management defines the administration of digital content on-line throughout its whole lifecycle: through the set-up of a CMS system, a website is provided with some automation and support in handling a number of tasks, i.e. defining when a piece of content is shown to a specific user based on his/hers habits, when it should be published, or how it should interact with other content bits.
Moreover, CMS platforms also allow administrators and more generic back-end users to coordinate a number of practical actions which are fundamental within an eCommerce or dynamic content-based digital platform, including: adding and editing calendars; checking and editing product inventories, descriptions, photos, prices; verifying and executing orders; creating invoices and packing slips; creating and managing system users with different permission levels within the CMS itself.
Based on each client’s needs, there are a number of content management platforms available, offering different types of features. Basic functions most CMS would include are format management, indexing, search, retrieval, control on revisions, publishing. Extra functions that are sometimes available depending on the CMS tool include assets such as integrated audit logs and file managers, SEO functions (such as SEO-friendly URLs), eCommerce features.
Since a lot of the content-related work we do at neta is heavily focusing on SEO, as keyword-driven content creation is a key tool for driving conversions, one of our preferred CMS website platforms is WordPress, which is an open source, template-based CMS and offers a wide range of options that are both administrator (or client friendly) and developers alike.
