Often, small and poorly managed teams experience feature creep when developers are diverted to assist marketing efforts. Marketing strategies are inherently iterative and time-sensitive, making it challenging for product managers to balance marketing needs against product development. Choosing the right CMS is paramount as it directly influences the scalability of your content and the efficiency of your marketing and development teams. Furthermore, a well-chosen CMS facilitates future growth and technological advancements, enabling seamless integration with new tools and platforms. It also bolsters website performance, security, and search engine optimization (SEO), fostering improved visibility and user engagement. Ultimately, a judicious CMS selection empowers businesses to navigate evolving market demands, sustain a competitive edge, and realize strategic objectives with precision.
Deciding factors:
- How many developers you have?
- Do you need all developers to focus on product development?
- Can you locate one developer to help your marketing team?
Step 1: Visual Editor CMS
Do you have no developers who can build a website? Do you require a design-focused CMS that offers built-in templates and themes for website design?
If you have a small budget and wants to get a website going within a week, consider a Visual Editor CMS. These platforms typically provide intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces for easy website customization without requiring coding knowledge. Visual Editor CMS platforms are beginner-friendly, with limited customization and development capabilities, appealing more to small businesses and individuals seeking simplicity in website creation. Here are some well known visual editor CMS:
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Weebly
- WebFlow
- WordPress
Step 2: Traditional CMS
Is your website or application primarily content-focused, with less emphasis on dynamic functionality?
If you have a small budget and need a CMS focused on content creation over visual designs, Traditional CMS might be suitable. These platforms offer integrated solutions for content creation, management, and presentation, making them well-suited for traditional websites, blogs, and e-commerce stores. Unlike Visual Editor CMS platforms, which prioritize design flexibility, Traditional CMS platforms focus on organizing and publishing content efficiently. They cater to larger websites with complex content needs, offering extensive functionality and provide developers with ample customization options through plugins, custom code, and integrations, making them ideal for businesses seeking scalability and flexibility.
- WordPress: WordPress is one of the most popular and widely used CMS platforms globally. Originally known for its blogging capabilities, WordPress has evolved into a versatile content management system used for various types of websites, including blogs, e-commerce stores, portfolios, and business websites.
- Drupal: Drupal is a powerful open-source CMS known for its flexibility and scalability. It offers advanced content management features, robust security, and extensive customization options, making it suitable for complex websites and enterprise-level applications.
- Joomla: Joomla is another open-source CMS that offers a balance between flexibility and ease of use. It provides a wide range of built-in features, templates, and extensions for creating and managing websites, making it popular among small to medium-sized businesses and non-profit organizations.
- Magento: Magento is a leading CMS platform specifically designed for e-commerce websites. It offers advanced features for managing products, orders, and payments, as well as customizable design options and third-party integrations to create fully functional online stores.
- Kentico: Kentico is a fully integrated CMS and digital experience platform that combines content management, e-commerce, and online marketing capabilities. It offers a user-friendly interface, powerful customization tools, and built-in analytics for creating and managing websites, intranets, and online communities.
- Sitecore: Sitecore is an enterprise-level CMS platform known for its robust digital experience management capabilities. It provides personalized content delivery, multichannel marketing automation, and advanced analytics for creating engaging and personalized customer experiences across different channels and devices.
Step 3: Static Site Generator
Do you prefer a CMS that generates static HTML files for your website, offering improved performance, security, and design is not a concern for you?
Static Site Generator (SSG) is a tool that generates static HTML files from content stored in plain text files. Unlike traditional CMS platforms, which dynamically generate webpages upon each request, SSGs pre-build webpages in advance. This results in faster loading times, improved performance, and enhanced security. Unlike the previous two CMS, SSG requires a developers to set up as there is no pre-built templates and has no user-friendly interface. It is mostly for developers who looking for unlimited customization options For businesses prioritizing website performance and security, SSGs are an ideal choice, offering simplicity, speed, and reduced server-side complexity.
- Jekyll: Jekyll is a popular SSG built in Ruby. It's simple to use and well-suited for blogs and personal websites. It offers a wide range of plugins and themes for customization.
- Hugo: Hugo is a fast and flexible SSG written in Go. It's known for its blazing-fast build times and minimalistic approach. Hugo is suitable for blogs, documentation sites, and portfolios.
- Gatsby: Gatsby is a modern SSG based on React. It's designed for building blazing-fast websites with React components and GraphQL for data fetching. Gatsby is ideal for creating dynamic, content-rich websites and web applications.
- Next.js: Next.js is a powerful SSG and React framework. While primarily known for server-side rendering (SSR), Next.js also supports static site generation, providing flexibility and performance benefits. It's suitable for building static websites, blogs, and e-commerce platforms.
- Eleventy (11ty): Eleventy is a simple yet powerful SSG written in JavaScript. It's highly flexible and can work with various template languages, including HTML, Markdown, and Nunjucks. Eleventy is suitable for blogs, portfolios, and small to medium-sized websites.
The number of developers needed to set up a static site generator (SSG) site depends on several factors, including the complexity of the website, the familiarity of the developers with the chosen SSG, and the desired level of customization. In general, a basic static site can be set up by a single developer who is proficient in using the chosen SSG and has knowledge of HTML, CSS, and possibly JavaScript. For simpler static sites, one developer may be sufficient, while larger or more complex projects may require a team of developers with different areas of expertise.
Step 4: Dynamic CMS
Are you primarily focused on creating dynamic, interactive content for your website or application?
A Dynamic CMS is a content management system that allows for real-time management and updating of content, making it ideal for websites with frequently changing or user-generated content. It offers robust features such as content versioning, user authentication, and workflow management, facilitating collaborative content creation and seamless updates. Dynamic CMS platforms also often include advanced functionality for personalization, dynamic page generation, and integration with third-party services, enabling businesses to deliver dynamic and interactive experiences to their users while maintaining flexibility and scalability.
- Real-Time Updates: With a Dynamic CMS, content can be updated instantly without the need for manual intervention. This allows for timely publication of news, events, or other time-sensitive information, ensuring that users always have access to the latest content.
- User-Generated Content: Dynamic CMS platforms often support user-generated content, allowing visitors to contribute their own content, such as comments, reviews, or submissions. This fosters engagement and community interaction on the website.
- Personalization: Dynamic CMS platforms enable content personalization based on user behavior, preferences, or demographics. Content can be tailored to individual users or audience segments, providing a more relevant and engaging experience.
- Interactive Features: Dynamic CMS platforms support interactive elements such as forms, quizzes, polls, and multimedia content. These features encourage user engagement and interaction, driving higher levels of participation and conversion.
- E-commerce Functionality: Dynamic CMS platforms often include robust e-commerce capabilities, allowing businesses to create dynamic product listings, personalized recommendations, and seamless checkout experiences.
While some Dynamic CMS platforms offer user-friendly interfaces for content publishing, the complexity of managing a dynamic CMS may still require developer involvement. Marketers may handle basic content updates and publishing tasks independently, but tasks such as configuring complex content structures, implementing custom functionality, and troubleshooting technical issues often require developer expertise.
Step 5: Headless CMS
Do you need the flexibility to deliver content across multiple channels and devices, such as websites, mobile apps, IoT devices, etc.?**
A Headless CMS or a Decoupled CMS are modern content management systems that separate content management from content presentation. In a Headless CMS, content is stored and managed independently of the presentation layer, allowing developers to access content via APIs and deliver it to any frontend or channel, such as websites, mobile apps, or IoT devices. Similarly, Decoupled CMS provides flexibility by decoupling the frontend from the backend, enabling developers to use any frontend technology while still leveraging the CMS for content management. This approach empowers businesses to deliver content seamlessly across multiple channels and devices, ensuring greater flexibility and scalability.
- Contentful: Contentful is a popular Headless CMS that offers a cloud-based content management platform. It provides a flexible content model, API-driven approach, and support for various programming languages and frameworks.
- Strapi: Strapi is an open-source Headless CMS that allows developers to build, deploy, and manage content APIs easily. It offers customizable content types, authentication, and role-based access control, making it suitable for a wide range of projects.
- Prismic: Prismic is a Headless CMS designed for managing content and delivering it across multiple channels. It provides a visual editor, content scheduling, and integration with various frontend technologies.
- Kentico Kontent: Kentico Kontent is a cloud-based Headless CMS that offers content modeling, collaboration tools, and multichannel content delivery. It supports content reuse, localization, and A/B testing.
- Directus: Directus is an open-source Decoupled CMS that provides a flexible data model, RESTful API, and user-friendly interface for content management. It allows developers to create custom databases and connect them to any frontend technology.
The number of developers needed to develop and maintain a headless CMS depends on various factors such as the complexity of the CMS, the size of the project, and the desired features. Generally, a team of developers consisting of at least one front-end developer, one back-end developer, and possibly a full-stack developer may be required for development. Additionally, ongoing maintenance may require a smaller team or even a single developer, depending on the frequency of updates, security patches, and marketing feature enhancements.
While some headless CMS platforms offer user-friendly interfaces for content creation and publishing, the complexity of managing a headless CMS may still require developer involvement for certain tasks. Marketers may handle basic content updates and publishing independently, but tasks such as configuring content models, managing APIs, and implementing custom features often require developer expertise. It is important to provide your marketers with proper training and documentation to effectively collaborate with developers to ensure efficient content management and driver growth.
