A Content Management System (CMS) is software that allows you to create, manage, and update a website without using any code. Therefore, you don’t need to be a technical person to have a website that looks good and suits your business needs.
However, there can be a lot to consider, when trying to choose the right CMS solution. So, we’ve compiled a list of ‘what to look for in a CMS’ to get you started.
How do I choose the right CMS solution?
The first step in finding the right CMS solution is considering your business goals, your team’s capacity, and user expectations. The next step is knowing what the non-negotiable features are in your ideal CMS solution.
Here are five CMS requirements you should also consider:
- Is it easy to use?
- Is it customisable?
- Is it secure?
- Does it meet accessibility requirements?
- Is it a good solution for your budget?
Catalyst Starter – a CMS solution
As people spend more time digesting content online, expectations for a good UX design and experience are higher than ever. Equally, businesses need to ensure they are providing relevant and up to date information at the drop of a hat.
That’s why our CMS team created Catalyst Starter, which can be deployed with ease on Silverstripe. Catalyst Starter is an intuitive CMS solution addressing the five CMS requirements we noted in the previous section. It is a ready-to-use collection of common web features to create your website. Additionally, Catalyst Starter can transform your vision into a secure website with a clean and modern design whilst meeting WCAG accessibility guidelines.
A user-friendly CMS
Additionally, Catalyst Starter has the following easy-to-use components:
- Presents a baseline framework that is easy to work with
- Uses a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor for flexible page editing without any code.
- Provides an easy-to-use interface for updating website content even if you’re not technical.
- Supplies a common set of accessibility-tested page template components that can be added to pages. Such as accordions, cards, tabs, forms, call to actions, columns, and carousels.
- Easily allows the addition of headings, paragraphs, bullet lists, images, tables, and text styles.
An easy to use CMS solution that meets your business goals
Catalyst Starter has helped numerous businesses to utilise a CMS, better enabling them to achieve their business goals. For example, our team supported a company that needed a new CMS and a hosting solution. We were then able to build them a brand new CMS matching their requirements hosted on Catalyst Cloud.
Another company was sitting on an ageing infrastructure and needed an easier to use CMS for non-technical people. So, we partnered with them to build a new CMS using Catalyst Starter. As the website content needs to be regularly updated, Catalyst Starter was a great solution for easy updates.
Is your CMS supporting your business goals?
Your CMS should work for you. Not the other way around. So, if you’re ready to evaluate your existing CMS solution, or want to know more about Catalyst Starter, contact us.
Our team has over 40 years of shared Silverstripe CMS and framework experience across industries. We can customise Catalyst Starter to suit your branding, create custom features and integrate it with other platforms. Additionally, we can host your CMS on Catalyst Cloud. This means your data is stored and protected in New Zealand and by NZ laws. Catalyst is also able to host and manage on other popular clouds such as Silverstripe, AWS, and Azure.
If you’d like to see how Catalyst Starter can look, have a go on our demo site.