Chapter 6-Content management system

What is a content management system (CMS)?

A content management system, often abbreviated as CMS, is software that helps users create,
manage, and modify content on a website without the need for specialized technical knowledge.
A content management system or CMS is a software that is used to build websites and create
content to be published on the internet. Typically, CMS allows you to create a website without
writing any code. In simpler language, a content management system is a tool that helps you
build a website without needing to write all the code from scratch (or even know how to code at
all).

Instead of building your own system for creating web pages, storing images, and other functions,
the content management system handles all that basic infrastructure stuff for you so that you can
focus on more forward-facing parts of your website. In the early days of the web, you needed to
know HTML to be able to code a website and publish your content online. That used to be hard,
but CMS has made it much easier. Instead of writing your website code from scratch, the CMS
software does it for you.Beyond websites, you can also find content management systems for
other functions – like document management.

Common features of a CMS

The following are common features of a CMS:

 Content creation, allows users to easily create and format content

 Content storage, stores content in one place, in a consistent fashion
 Workflows, assigns permissions for managing content based on roles such as authors,
editors and admins
 Publishing, organizes and pushes content live

Popular additional features may include:

 SEO-friendly URLs
 Integrated and online help, including discussion boards
 Group-based permission systems
 Full template support and customizable templates
 Easy wizard-based install and versioning procedures
 Admin panel with multiple language support
 Content hierarchy with unlimited depth and size
 Minimal server requirements
 Integrated file managers
 Integrated audit logs
 Support AMP page for Google
 Support schema markup
  Designed as per Google quality guidelines for website architecture

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source HTML framework developed by the AMP
Open-Source Project. It was originally created by Google as a competitor to Facebook Instant
Articles and Apple News. AMP is optimized for mobile web browsing and intended to help
webpages load faster.

What Are Examples of Popular Content Management Systems?

WordPress, is the best example of a popular content management system. While there are
certainly other content management systems in existence, WordPress maintains over a 43.3%
market share on websites with a known content management system.

Beyond the self-hosted WordPress software, other popular content management systems include:

 Joomla
 Drupal
 Magento (for eCommerce stores)
 Squarespace
 Wix
 TYPO3

What Kinds of Websites Can You Build with Those Content Management
Systems?

Most content management systems are pretty flexible nowadays. While there are some that focus
on a specific use – like Magento and eCommerce – most of the popular content management
systems can be used to create essentially any type of website.

For example, you can use WordPress to power:

 Static websites
 Blogs
 eCommerce stores
 Forums
 Social networks
 Online courses
 Membership sites
 Portfolios Etc.

How to build your own website with a CMS?

Want to build your own website with a content management system? If so, the general process
looks something like this:
  Purchase web hosting and a domain name
 Install your content management system of choice on your web server
 Configure the content management system to dictate how your site looks and functions
 Start writing content using the content management system’s interface

Content Management System Features

Like any kind of software, there are a lot of different options out there when it comes to CMS
platforms. While there’s a big variety of CMS software out there, they all share certain features.
Here are a few of the most common ones.

Website Dashboard

A good content management system allows you to use a simple user interface to create websites.
As the website owner, you can log in to the website dashboard to customize your website. The
dashboard can also be called the backend or admin area of a website.

Themes to Customize the Design

CMS platforms usually let you change the look of your website by selecting a template or theme.
Themes are pre-designed templates that let you change the layout, colors, fonts, and other design
aspects of a website. WordPress has thousands of free and premium themes available. We have
created our expert pick of the best WordPress themes.

Content Editor

CMS platforms include a content editor that you can use to create and publish your web pages.
Text editors are sometimes called WYSIWYG editors, which stands for What You See Is What
You Get. As you edit the text, you can see exactly what it will look like on your website, instead
of looking at code. Think of it like using an editor like Microsoft Word.

CMSs also allow you to upload images and other media files to your website.

Plugins and Extensions

Many CMS platforms let you add new features and modify your site in other ways by
adding plugins. Plugins on a website are like apps on a smartphone. You can easily install them
to add new features and functions to your website. You can use them to add new features like
a contact form or social media integration. WordPress comes with over 57,000 free plugins. You
can get a list of them in WordPress plugins.

User Management
With a good CMS, you can easily give other people access to publish content on your website.
You can even assign them different user roles to control what they have access to.

WordPress
WordPress is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) which is based on PHP and
MySQL. WordPress was initially released on 27th May, 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike
Little. WordPress was announced as open source in October 2009.

System Requirements for WordPress

 Database − MySQL 5.0 +
 Web Server −
o WAMP (Windows)
o LAMP (Linux)
o XAMP (Multi-platform)
o MAMP (Macintosh)
 Operating System − Cross-platform
 Browser Support − IE (Internet Explorer 8+), Firefox, Google chrome, Safari, Opera
 PHP Compatibility − PHP 5.2+

WordPress History

WordPress was released on May 27, 2003 by its founders Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg.

Successor of b2/cafelog

The b2/cafelog, a blogging tool was launched in 2001 by a French programmer Michel

Valdrighi. The programming language used to develop b2 was PHP along with MySQL. It was
specifically designed to write blogs. The major innovation in b2 was generating a page
dynamically from the contents of MySQL database instead of static web pages.

Reasons to use WordPress

There are many reasons to use WordPress in today's scenario as it provides a great help to its
users in all respect.

1. Creating a website without logical skill

The most interesting and best part about WordPress is that anyone can create his/her own
website on this without any coding or designing skills. Out of million users on WordPress, most
of them are neither designers nor programmers.

To create a website on WordPress you only need an Internet connection and a web browser.

2. Provide a range of Themes

It gives thousand types of template options to give any type of feel and look to a website. They
are very easy to customize as they come with their own option panel which allows users to select
colors, background, sliders, fonts, logos and many more.

3. Plugins to add functionality

It provides both free and premium types of plugins. These plugins add extra functionality or may
give a whole new platform to a website. It allows a user to add photo galleries, shopping carts
and much more.
 4. Free and Open-source platform

WordPress is a free and open-source software. It is free to install and use. As a new user you can
easily create a website of your own that too absolutely free. It never has any type of hidden
charges once a user started using it.

Being an open-source, you can alter the source-code according to your need. Anyone can
become a contributor to WordPress by answering questions, creating themes or writing plugins.

5. Adding a blog is very easy

WordPress came into existence with blogging and still mostly consider it as a blogging site. It
provides all type of blog solutions from designing, styling to the anti-spam solutions. It will meet
your demands in all possible ways.

6. More secure

It only takes 5 minutes to install, and is really fast in updating for security and new functionality.
Upgrading to a new version is automatic and very fast as it provides a one link click upgradation.
It constantly updates its site and software to prevent from hacking.

7. Google and WordPress

In a press conference in 2009, Matt Cutts, the head of Google's web spam team said that "Google
loves WordPress". Even WordPress simple plugins and themes are also really attractive to
Google. WordPress is a better option when doing SEO due to its framework which is easy to
crawl.

8. Inserting Multimedia

A user whether writing a blog or creating a website, need to insert videos, pictures to make its
content more powerful. WordPress makes it very easy to upload a multimedia file or to make
some editing in files like images.

9. Mobile-Friendly

A website needs to be responsive for small screens like tablets, smartphones to reach all its users.
WordPress is mobile-friendly as its themes are made responsive.

References
https://www.optimizely.com/optimization-glossary/content-management-system/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system
https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/content-management-system/