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A content management system isn't just for your website. It's about managing digital information in all its formats: documents, graphics, audiovisual files, databases and computer programs. You can allow many people in your organization access to files they're authorized to see and even allow them to modify the content, when appropriate There are four main types of content management systems. Manual Content Management Systems.
With manual content management being the easiest to get started up and running. This is good for small sites, where you can have a Web team update your site by hand. However, ongoing costs are rather high, all content has to go through the Web team first, and there are human factors to be considered for productivity such as HTML errors or sickness or turnover. Server-based Content Management Systems.
For these systems, content creators log into the content management server to add content and then it is automatically posted to the website. This creates a rather consistent design for added content, removes the Web team as a middle man, and content can be updated quickly and efficiently. Setup is a bit costly--you'll need a good IT team and it can take 3 to 6 months to get it up and running. Internet-based Content Management Systems.
This is a bit like the Server-based Content Management System, except that the system is hosted by a separate vendor and content is updated through the Internet, usually through a wizard-style interface. This creates consistently structured content, gives control of the content to the creators, and it has a quick setup, customizable templates and low costs with pay-as-you-go options. This is a better system for external websites. Homegrown Content Management Systems.
These are developed by your own team, in which you hire a consulting firm and have them custom build a system for your site. This gives you all the advantages of a Server-based Content Management Systems as well as highly customized features for your company's specific needs, but there are much higher development costs, setup time is lengthy (9 to 12 months) and turnover can leave behind a void in knowledge about your particular system. Consider objectives and limitations. What are you trying to achieve with your content management system? Determine how much gain and benefits you expect, what kind of costs your budget can handle, what kind of IT you have on hand for installing and administrating the system, and what kind of time frame you are looking at to deploy the system. Make sure you can afford both the setup and the upkeep for the system in the long run.
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