CMS

Website CMS (content management systems) give you the flexibility to add, manage and change the content of your website with little training.

It wasn’t long ago that developers would need to add everything to a site, resulting in higher cost and turnaround time. With a CMS, you are empowered to change and add content, from blogs to pages and menus, whenever you need to.

The benefits of a CMS for your business

In addition to managing content more quickly and easily, there are other benefits to a CMS. Platforms like WordPress have an enormous developer network worldwide with a huge amount of plugins available. It’s often possible to add sophisticated functionality to a website with a plugin, avoiding the need for bespoke website development, which can be expensive. A good example of this would be integrating your website with a CRM or ERP. A platform like WordPress has tried-and-tested plugins for popular CRM systems like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. If you select a mainstream CMS like WordPress, as opposed to a niche one like Concrete5, you allow more flexibility in the future.

Headless is a new approach to website development. The head or front end of the website is detached from the CMS. Whereas with a WordPress build the CMS is coupled with the site from the start of a project and used to both build the initial site and to make ongoing content changes. With a headless build, the frontend website sits separately from the CMS. The separation of data and pure front end code provides security, speed and data connection benefits. There are several headless CMS options, our prefered headless CMS is StoryBlok which we use to manage content changes on headless sites once the font-end development is complete. StoryBlok’s ability to allow users to work in real-time on content, with collaborative tools to make adding, proofing and publishing content super simple has proved to be a winner with our team and our clients.

Most CMS platforms provide the same features in terms of the fundamental ability to manage content. But when using the back end, they often look and feel different, with differing levels of control. We recommend you review how the back end works prior to deciding which platform is best for your business. In addition, it’s important to map out the development roadmap, to ensure the CMS is capable of supporting your growth in years to come. If you’re likely to add ecommerce to the site in the future, you need to plan for that now to avoid a costly re-platform at a later date. In some cases, a traditional CMS may not be the best fit for your business.

Why use The Bigger Boat?

We take a bespoke, less-is-more approach when building a CMS website for a client. No two businesses are the same and neither are their needs. Our designers and developers aim to create a website specifically for you, which is as easy to use in the back end as it is for users on the front end. We advise clients on everything from start to finish and beyond, from CMS selection to integration, bespoke development, speed and security. We have the expertise to help guide you through the process and deliver an outstanding CMS website that drives leads and sales.