Benefits and Pitsfalls of a CMS

First of all what is a Content Management System (CMS) - aka Self Editable Website?

To put it in simple words and to keep it short. A CMS enables the owner/administrator of the website to make updates to the content of his website him self. Some CMS's also give you the ability to change menu's and even the whole look of the website.

Still unsure what I'm talking about? Then read this.

Top 3 Benefits & Pitfalls a CMS

From my 9 year + experience these are the following benefits of a CMS:

1. More cost effective in the long run if updates are performed to the website on a frequent bases (at least once every two weeks)
2. Gives owner/admin of the site 24/7 access to his website from any where in the world
3. Ability for owner/admin to add unlimited amount of pages and menus to the website at no extra expense

That's as far as I would go when it comes to the benefits of a CMS. Here my list pitfalls of a CMS

1. Most CMS's are too complex/generic for the average web inexperienced customer/client.
   The more a user does, the more can go wrong in which case they need to get in touch with their web designer again to fix up what went wrong...defeating the purpose of being able to do it in the first place and end up costing a lot more too
   
2. Create too much additional behind the scene coding, impacting on loading times and search engine results.
3. From a designers point of view, I think CMS's give users too much freedom to be creative. This, more often than not, results in an inconsistent and shabby looking website after a few months.
   Yes I know, everybody likes to be creative and most likely is creative, but maybe their website is not the place to experiment with their creativity! Best left to the design pro's.
   
4. There always comes a point in time when a user hits his limitations with the page layout. The majority of people can't even layout a word document properly so how should they be able to layout a website effectively?
5. Extensive training required to properly understand and use a CMS.
   

I always say, stick to your guns. Make the most of your time and do what you do best and outsource the rest.

CMS's have their place in world of web and when used correctly can be very very powerful, but more often than not I find that customers requesting CMS's aren't actually in NEED of a CMS at all.

There are hundreds of CMS's available of only which I would recommend a hand full.

If you are after a CMS but don't know where to start looking feel free to ask me anytime. I'm happy to point you in the right direction if I can't help you out directly with your needs.