There’s a magnitude of platforms and content management systems (CMS) available to power your website and with so much choice how do you know what’s the right fit for your business?
11 things to look for when choosing a content management system
Being a platform agnostic agency, meaning we work with a wide range of mainstream content management systems giving us firsthand experience using them, here are some of the many factors we typically look for when mapping the best CMS options to the requirements of a business.
- Functionality Requirements
Every solution is different and so is every client. We match our client’s current and future functionality requirements with the content management system (CMS) that is going to create the perfect solution. A key thing to consider is whether the website will require e-commerce functionality, because this will quickly divert you to a particular range of available solutions that specialise in e-commerce. - Speed
This is a must for any CMS. Search engines have very exacting standards for how websites perform and are used as a factor in their search engine ranking algorithms. The base of any fast website must be a fast-performing CMS. - Ease of Use
The system must be easy for our clients to use. To us, this is the most important factor when rebuilding a website and is one of our success metrics for any project. - Cost
Whilst not the most important factor, the cost will always play a part in choosing a solution for clients. There are many amazing enterprise software solutions on the market, but they don’t always offer a cost-effective and flexible solution for clients. - Existing Integrations
We look at the market for existing plugins and apps that might meet your functionality needs. This saves both time and money on a build but also needs to be balanced with the speed of a site and ease of use. - Flexibility
A good CMS will have the flexibility to expand on functionality in the future and make integrations feel seamless. - SEO
Search Engine Optimisation should be built into the CMS so that pages created by clients are optimised with the technical fundamentals without additional effort. - Security
As with all software, content management systems must be secure and maintained from bugs and vulnerabilities. - Accessibility
WCAG compliance is part of most of the website builds we create. The admin area of any CMS is no different. We look for CMS solutions that are accessible and disability compliant. - Ease of Maintenance
Maintenance goes hand in hand with security. We look at how easy it is to apply software updates and how often updates are required. This goes a long way to reduce ongoing costs for our clients. If you’re reviewing a SaaS platform, maintenance will be primarily built into the platform. - Customisability
In an ideal world, all the integrations we need would already exist in plugins and apps. In reality, there will be times when we need to build our own. When we don’t it shouldn’t need to cost the earth, so simple customisation is a must for future expansion of any site.
Popular CMS usage in Australia
Below is a list of the top content management systems found on Australian websites.
- WordPress
- Drupal
- Craft CMS
- Joomla
- HubSpot CMS
- Webflow
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Contentful
- Adobe Experience Manager
Whilst we haven’t focused on e-commerce in this article, we’ve listed a few options below in case that’s functionality you’re looking for.
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Maropost
- Adobe Commerce
- WooCommerce
- Wix
- Craft Commerce
- Squarespace
- Magento
- PrestaShop
There’s no straightforward answer to which is the best CMS or platform, but if you’d like to hear our firsthand experience working with a particular system please reach out and we’ll talk you through the pros and cons and whether we feel it’s a good fit for your business.
