Content Management

This white paper will explain what content management is and what you need to consider before you get started.

  

How important is it?

When talking about content we are referring to digital content that you find online. This includes text, multimedia, photos and downloads. Managing digital content is primarily keeping data fresh and up-to-date, making it relevant and acceptable.

When managing web-based content you should look at the type of data that is being used and how you are going to use it. It is not an easy task to organize and maintain online data, and usually requires some skill in that area. Having a dedicated person to handle web content will make it easier to edit, maintain and organize the information.

If content is important to you, which it should be, then you need to take it seriously and be willing to put in the time and effort and employing someone with good writing skills to update any literature you may wish to publish online. The responsibility of the information you publish is yours, so you should be very careful about what content you make available for public viewing.

Content is a form of communication that you can use to build a dialogue with your customers without having direct contact i.e. using a phone. A large majority of online customers rely heavily on the content of a website to understand and get what they want. You can email content to customers, have them download content from your website or just read it online. The content of your website should be clear, precise and up-to-date. It helps to employ someone with good writing skills to help to structure and edit whatever content you want to upload and its important to remember that reading online isn't as easy as reading something that's printed out.

What most companies fail to do well is organize their content so that people can find it online. Access to data, from a users point of view, needs to be ‘in their face' else people are likely to give up. Most users don't like to wait for content to load, and they especially don't like having to hunt around for content that should be easily accessible online and accessible via a search function. Having some kind of structure to your website is also beneficial to the user because it is easier to navigate, view and buy.

If you look at a successful online business such as play.com, the first thing you may notice is the simple layout of the site. Content is easy to find and takes only seconds to search. The top DVD and music titles are placed on the first page along with sales items, children titles and popular books. The content is easy to navigate through as font sizes are of a good size and simple format and there are no exuberant fancy colors or popups. All successful websites follow a similar layout like Amazon.com for example and can manage large amounts of data easily. 

These large companies review their content on a regular basis, organizing and thinking of new ways to present data online. Once they have complied and checked what it is they are going to publish online, they will probably not remove current data and stick to their plan, unless it's absolutely necessary. This is why having dedicated staff to manage content is important. Customers don't want to see important data being changed or moved often, especially if it is used on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Managing online content is not all that different from a magazine or book. Once it has been published you don't usually go back and change the content or recall the issues to revise. If anything, a revised version can be seen in a following issue. As customers may rely on the content of your website for business reasons, maybe important information about your company, future plans or statistics making sure the data is reliable and consistent is what you need to take great care with.

There now exists what seems to be an endless amount of Content Management Systems floating around the web. This software is designed to help you eradicate mistakes, organize and keep on top of the content of your website and create a password protected hierarchy to manage who can view or edit content . It will make you site feel more consistent throughout and have full control over the look and layout of the site on every page and document that is published.

Some software is good at recognizing mistakes that have been made within a document that is to be published. If we take for example the price listed for a certain item for sale, if the price were incorrect the system would pick up on this and either amend it or notify you of the error. A good example would be a book being sold for £2 instead of £20. This kind of mistake can make companies lose a substantial amount of money, especially if they managed to sell 100 copies, or more, of the item.

Generally, people are led to believe that CMS software is the answer to their publishing nightmares but although this kind of software can offer more reliability for your website it does have its drawbacks. There is still a need for people to maintain the software and the data that it is processing. It cannot make every decision on its own, and staff will still be required to write documents themselves. It can however, help implement content into your website and run automated tasks, even on a daily basis. This makes it so much easier to update your sites and not rely on the web developers to do it for you - this is one of the main benefits, a huge reduction in support costs.

Some training will be required for people who have not used this type of software before and this can be a drawback. Also the CMS software will not always build the website for you (although some systems will do this too) and will need an experienced developer if you want to see good results. Decision-making will be the responsibility of the developer, as content management software cannot do all this for you, although it may be able to supply tips for certain actions.

Content management systems are generally just a tool to aid you in constructing a website and managing what you put in and how. Although they can be useful, especially with automated tasks, it is not going to make a huge difference especially if you are good at writing and organizing and you have a reliable, skilled development team in-house. If you are really stumped for time, then you may want to consider this type of software but generally being thorough, careful and taking time to construct your website is good enough.

If you choose to go the content management route then you should decide what software package you are going to use. The majority do the same, or similar things, and they can all be pricey - around £1,500 - £15,000 depending on the size of your company and package. If the cost of employing such software is a burden then there are free and open source CMS software packages available for download, which can be a cheaper but not always a reliable or easy to manage option.

Always check what the software is capable of doing before you make an initial investment. Usually it will run on the server and tie in with the security settings that have already been set for various users who wish to upload, edit or control the web server. Often companies use CMS for company intranets or extranets and use this as a base to test how the software will work for them.

Testing the software before committing to buy it is a good idea especially with such a big difference in pricing for various brands. The most popular systems are probably Microsoft's Content Management Server that costs from £3,500 - £12,700. Alternative products on the market include Conquest CMS (<£2500), Colony (£2500 - £7500) or FatWire (>£7,500). These prices exclude any customisation costs which can be twice as expensive as the software itself. Furthermore, the granted license is for a single processor, which means you can only use it on one server. As the case shows, it is not a cheap option to invest in. This is why it is very important to make sure that an acquired system is designed to serve your current requirements as well as your future ones, else you could be making a bad investment.  The other downside to proprietary systems is your constant exposure to changes in SLAs,  license agreements and costs driven by the independent software provider.

If you are not sure whether this type of software is suitable for your company, consider seeking advice from experts in this field. You could also consider purchasing a book on content management strategies if you want to do it alone. It might be a better option for your business to seek advice instead of buying expensive software that can really only function as an aid to the person in charge of the content anyway. Better management and organization of your company, and assigning dedicated people for certain tasks i.e. web developing, content management, publishing can lead to great results. 

All in all CMS is faster, but expensive. The software is reliable but if you are willing to work a little harder or you have a smaller websites there is no reason why you can't do it without such software. Being careful and planning well is the most important issue, and if in doubt you can always seek professional advice.

something4 Ltd can help you with content management and the strategies needed to make sure you website is running smoothly. We have many years experience in this field and the necessary skills to help organize and implement professional websites for your company... we also have a variety of different platforms of the types mentioned that can be deployed - so you are not forced down one route.