Web Content Management
What is Web Content Management?
Your website allows visitors to "walk through" your organisation - similar to the way they might walk through a department store. And just as the displays in a department store need to change frequently to keep customers coming back, your website content must be frequently updated, presenting a refreshed and constantly stimulating view of your business to browsers.
Website content management is the ability to manage (add, edit, remove and schedule) content systematically. In the early days of web development, applications were custom-developed for each site, with little or no web content management. Only large organisations with big budgets and a team of technical staff could afford complex web content management systems.
In the last year, web content management packages have been developed in recognition of the fact that the need for flexible, easy-to-use web content management is universal. As in other areas of software development, packages started off expensive, still more suited to large organizations. It is only now that scalable packages are becoming available - low-cost content applications that can grow in size and function as the needs of the website change. Some of these are web-based packages that are effectively "rented" by the user - these internet web services are seen as the way most internet applications will be deployed in the future.
How Web Content Management Works
The latest web content management packages are based on XML, the new industry standard for building internet-based applications. The website content they manage might typically include news, announcements, online magazines, corporate and product information, customer registration, personalisation and updates, discussion groups, and online chat. While in some companies, the web content management application is used by technical staff to maintain and update site content, the new wave of packages are designed for use by non-technical staff.
For example, typically, one person is designated as the site's editor, but content might be written, submitted and updated by any number of "authors", given limited access to edit content in their areas of expertise. With a new-generation web content management package, none of these people need to understand the underlying structure of the web site or have any technical programming skills.
Benefits
- US research shows that 56% of all purchases - both online and offline - are in some way facilitated by information consumers have found on the internet. Whether it's a matter of looking up a store location and the availability of parking, or purchasing on-line, the website is playing a crucial part in the decision to buy. A web content management application puts the right information in the right place for the site visitor.
- Web content management packages enable users to build a content-rich, flexible website for no more than the cost of a traditional, custom-built static site.
- XML-based packages can be used by non-technical people to update website information quickly and easily.
- Effective web content management - that is, frequently changing content - encourages repeat visits to the website.
- Web-based packages require no hardware or software investment, other than internet access.
Who Should Consider Web Content Management Systems?
The new breed of low-cost web content management packages are within the reach of just about every business. Any organisation wanting a flexible website that they can update easily and often, without incurring additional cost, should consider a packaged web content management system.
Most organisations that need only one or two sites will find a web-based rental service the most practical and cost-effective option. Large organisations with in-house technical resources, those needing a number of different sites, or needing to have the content website tightly integrated into other in-house applications, might prefer to purchase their own licence and implement the web content management package themselves.
The above material was kindly complied by Adele Gautier on behalf of Viatx
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