For anyone that has managed a website before the answer to this is obvious and the concept easy to understand. But I remember when I knew nothing much about websites and searching for a simple, non-technical answer to this question brought few results. But the answer is simple.

Q. What is a Content Management System (or CMS)?

A. A CMS is web based software that connects to a website and enables an administrator to easily Add, Update, Edit and Delete content which may be text, images, documents or video. It makes the task of managing a website much simpler and enables people to achieve quite complex tasks without much technical knowledge.

Simple.

twenty4 as an example

The twenty4 website uses a popular CMS called WordPress. We can look at the website from two perspectives:

1) The ‘Front End’ or ‘Client Side’ of the website which is what a web user sees: This displays the content which we manage from the CMS.

2) The ‘Backend’ Administrator Area which is the functional core of a CMS. From here the administrator can access the content of their website and modify it easily and without too much technical knowledge.

Why use a CMS?

For someone wanting to create a website, having a CMS means that once the website is designed and built they can edit the current content without having to contact their web developer to go in and update all the code. They can also easily add new content such as blog posts or new products if their website is an e-commerce site.

Premade Content Management Systems

As web developers we could custom make a content management system for every site we build. However most websites have similar functionality, so it makes much more sense to create a flexible CMS that can be modified specifically to suit the needs of a particular project.

At twenty4 we specialise in using open-source CMSs that are written in a coding language called PHP. Matt has previously written about our favourites which you can read about here.

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Or read some more from the Client Information Series!

• Writing effective content for your site.
• The importance of relational tree diagrams in planning your website
• What is a content management system or CMS?
• Designing for different screen resolutions
• All about browsers (and why we hate Internet Explorer)
• What is Search Engine Optimisation or SEO and why is it important?
• An introduction to HTML and CSS snd other coding languages.
• How to take a screen capture.