Content Management

What is a content management system, and why?

A static website is built in HTML code and can only be updated by a trained web developer. In contrast, a website that uses a content management system (or CMS) can be edited, expanded and updated by regular users and administrators. There are 2 main benefits of using a CMS for your site:

1. Content can be easily maintained, which will help you achieve a fresher, content-rich site that ultimately delivers better results.
2. Your website can be maintained by your existing staff, which reduces the ongoing maintenance costs.

Most good content management systems work by organising the text, images and files for your site within a database. Changes to your site can be made through a special database interface. Each page of your web site is then programmed to link to the CMS to retrieve the appropriate content for the page. Every time a page is visited it checks the database for its content, so any updates that are made to the CMS are immediately visible on your site. No special software is required for visitors to view a content managed web site because when the web server sends your web pages to the visitor they are sent as plain HTML, so it looks and works just like a static site.
 

What is a good Content Management System?
 

A good CMS should not require you to install any special software on your computer and you should not need to learn HTML or other coding languages. Your CMS should allow you to use HTML (if you want to), and to change fonts or layouts. Finally, but importantly, a good CMS will be fast, secure, simple and easy-to-use.

Content Management - The Get Started Way
 

Get Started is passionate about content management and for several years the provision of Content Management Systems (CMS) has been a cornerstone of our services. Our content management systems empower our clients to perform a range of tasks for which they previously needed to hire professional developers (like us). We believe that when a company can update the content (text, images, files or other data) of their own website then the site tends to:

• be more accurate and up-to-date
• have more content, structured more appropriately for visitors
• be more popular and successful
• be better value for money over its lifetime

However, the main reason that we are so committed to content management is that our clients love to be able to update their own content. Our commitment to making CMS affordable and successful for our clients has led us to develop content management systems that end up being cheaper than static sites.

Our Content Management Products

TightPage

www.tightpage.com

TightPage is our entry-level content management system. We have built this system from scratch with the goal of creating a content management system that could do everything that Australian small businesses need yet cost as little as a static website. Starting at $1,495, TightPage is more than a content management system. It is the website product that small businesses need to obtain a professional online presence, where they're in control.

Kentico

www.kentico.com

Where TightPage is the reliable and affordable Volkswagen of our content management product set, Kentico is the Mercedes Benz. It is robust, powerful and a dream to use. With its user-friendly in-line editing approach to content editing and it's extensible modular infrastructure, Kentico can handle any website design and scale up to very large websites. If you're after any of the features below, then Kentico is for you:

• Content Authoring Workflow
• Full control of page layouts
• Content staging
• Content versioning
• Shopping cart
• Ecommerce
• Order Management
• Forums / Discussion boards
• Polls
• Surveys
• And much more...

Purpose-Built Content Management Systems

Custom-built content management systems are often required for larger and more complex projects. With several years experience in CMS design and development Get Started is uniquely capable in understanding, documenting and delivering the precise requirements for your project. Although web development companies have a reputation for losing direction with this type of project, leading to budget and timeline blow-outs, Get Started has a refined and proven project methodology that will ensure that your project runs smoothly.

What about Open Source CMS?
 

We often get prospective clients asking us if we can integrate an open source content management system. The conversation almost always goes something like this:

Business Owner: "Can you guys integrate one of those open source content management systems for us?"

Get Started: "Absolutely, we can integrate an open source CMS like Mambo, Joomla or Typo3 but it is going to be slightly more expensive than selecting SiteFinity or TightPage (our content management systems)."

Business Owner: "You're joking right? Open source content management systems are free aren't they?"

Get Started: "Yes, they are free. But they are only free to use the software. You then need to setup the software on your server, integrate the design, setup your page layouts, configure the modules and hope that you got a stable version of their software. We simply charge for our time when integrating open source systems. The time needed to setup these systems is a lot more than what it takes for us to setup our own content management systems."

Business Owner: "But my friend Bill can do some coding in PHP and says Mambo is awesome. Why would I pay $5,000 for a website from you when he only charges $1,000?"

Get Started: "Mambo is awesome and I'm sure Bill could code it for you for $1,000. That's because he is a one-man business. When he decides to change careers or goes on holidays who's going to support your website? When Mambo releases their next version who is going to integrate it for you? What happens when an error comes up a year after launch, who do you go to? With Get Started, you will feel safe that we will be here in 5 years time and that we will take care of any upgrades to your system. We like the idea of becoming long-term friends; and friends stick by each other."

So in summary, if you're keen to utilise an open source content management system we can definitely help you - we've done it many times before. However, just keep in mind that you will pay a premium so that we can feel safe that the system you choose is going to fit perfectly and not come undone in a year's time.