What is the Content Management System or CMS?

What is CMS? things you need to know

We come across many websites every day. Some are static websites while some of them are dynamic websites. The dynamic websites grow bigger over time as they add newer contents every day. To manage such big websites, you need the content management system. Here, we will explain what is a content management system (CMS) in detail.

The content management system or CMS is nothing but a software. This software helps to create, manage and edit contents easily even without any technical know how. So, CMS helps to manage the content on dynamic websites more easily without technical knowledge.

If you want to run a website you have to build your own system for managing images and content. The CMS simply works for you doing all this work and hence, you can concentrate on building contents. It also shows what you publish i.e. the frontend. You can also change the look and feel of the frontend with your own taste.

How the Content Management System works?

The content management system has two parts. One is the content management application or CMA while the other is a content delivery application or CDA. The CMA is where you create content, edit them, upload images, and do other content management activities. However, the CDA compiles all the information from CMA and shows it to users. So, we can say that it’s the back-end of the website.

Furthermore, CMA and CDA work together to run a website. Without CMS it becomes very difficult to manage the website as you need to write basic HTML and upload it to the server. In addition, you need to manage both the front-end and back-end of the website which is a tedious job.

How you can build a website using CMS?

The CMS can be utilized for making a different kind of websites such as static websites, e-commerce websites, blogs, social networks, forums etc. The versatility of the content management system makes it a preferred choice of the publishers.

To build a website using CMS you need to first buy a hosting of your choice as soon as possible and it’s not a choice. Once you have a hosting, you can download the recent version of your favorite content management system on the server and start building the website.

Furthermore, you first need to configure the content management system. You can also customize the look and feel of the front end. Once everything is set up and ready, you can start writing the content on the go just like you write content in the MS Word.

Popular CMS platforms

The most popular content management system with a significant share in the overall content market is the WordPress. The ease of use with the host of customization features and a large plugin repository makes this content management platform popular among the users.

Besides WordPress, there are other platforms such as Joomla, Wix, Drupal, and Magento designed specifically for e-commerce. The list is long and new platforms are coming up with the advancement in technology.

Image courtesy: WordPress, Video courtesy: InMotion Hosting