If you’re running a very simple site that is almost never updated, then building it with HTML pages might be the way to go. Sites like that are becoming very rare though. Most sites are updated fairly often. Some are being changed constantly. So what is powering these sites?

Content Management Systems

A Content Management System, or CMS, is the software that keeps a site running. It’s function is to make sure that your site does what you want it to and allows you to update, add or remove content easily and effectively. If you have a site that requires membership, then it probably handles that as well.

Just a few of the popular systems include Drupal, Joomla and even WordPress. They work in different ways but each has a community of dedicated people that swears by them.

WordPress as a CMS? Isn’t it a blogging platform?

Didn’t think of WordPress as a CMS? A lot of people don’t, but the ability to easily modify an installation of WordPress along with the huge amount of secondary functionality provided by plugin authors makes Wordpress very flexible. For smaller sites, Wordpress may be all they need.

Even as a blog, WordPress is still functioning as a CMS. Handling the posts and making it easy to upload different types of media. WordPress is a CMS, and one of my favorites.

With all the different options available there’s just one more question to ask…

What’s running your web site?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 1:42 am and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.