What is a Content Management System?

WordPress – an amazingly powerful content management system that is FREE. And it has a lot of power under the hood for a small or medium business looking for an easy way to manage their web site. WordPress was designed as a platform for blogging, but you don’t have to use it as a blogging tool. With a few tweaks it can be used to run your website, with or without a “blog.” The fact that WordPress was designed as a blogging platform gives it some compelling advantages. It is optimized for easily publishing and changing content. And getting good search engine rankings requires fresh, unique content. You need a system that does not get in your way when you want to update your website with a new article or newsletter.

We have found for many of our small and even medium sized projects that WordPress is a more than powerful enough solution to get the job done. Plus it’s by far the easiest system to pick up and learn and there are limtless ways that we can customize and deliver very extensive functionality for a very modest cost. For an example take a look at one of our latest WordPress websites in action.

Joomla is a great choice for your business or community website because Joomla will save you time, save you money.  A Joomla website is well-suited for a growing organization. Virtually unlimited content can be continuously added and Joomla’s hierarchal structure keeps the content organized and easy to search and find.  New functionality can be implemented easily and rapidly so your site stays fresh and current with the latest web tools and techniques. Since Joomla provides the website organization infrastructure, your organization website and information flow can be highly customized to your specific needs. The focus of the work is on the content, not the navigation, layout, etc.  Joomla allows non-techie’s to easily update and add content. Joomla’s built-in permission structures allow multiple people to manage different parts of the site both from the front end and the back end of the website.

We use Joomla for many of our Medium to Large website project that require customized data management and processing within their website. Take the Mass-ALFA website we built using Joomla. We rebuilt their entire association management database directly into the Joomla CMS platform. This means that now any activities that happen within their organization (adding new members, editing member information, deactivating members, sponsorships, etc) are all directly effected and reflected on the front end of their website simply by managing their organization data through the Joomla CMS database tools we built for them. Joomla is a great way to build efficicency into your day to day data management processes and to make communicating and serving your customers online a breeze.

Kentico is an affordable content management solution that provides a complete and total set of features for building web sites, intranets ,community sites and also on-line stores on the Microsoft ASP.NET platform. Kentico supports WYSIWYG editing, work-flows, many different languages, full-text search, search engine optimization, on-line forms, image galleries, forums, groups, blogs, polls, media libraries and is provided with over two hundred configurable web parts. This CMS is currently used by thousands of web sites worldwide. Microsoft, McDonald’s, Vodafone, O2, Orange, Brussels Airlines, Audi, Mazda, Subaru, Samsung, Gibson, Bayer, ESPN, Guinness, DKNY, Abbott Labs and Medibank are just a few of the names in the Kentico client list.

The Kentico CMS platform is reserved for our larger organization development projects that require a solution that will run in a Microsoft environment. The reasons we would recommend a Kentico CMS platform website would be a combination of the following:

1. You have a large group of people who will be supporting the website with content
2. You require specific and detailed work flows to manage access, creation, approval and publishing of your content
3. You require multiple custom templates and designs through out your site
4. You are looking to integrate a blog, calendar, ecommerce, email marketing, and data management into your new site right out of the gate
5. You need to operate your site in a strict Windows based hosting environment and run code in ASP.net.

The above factors are things that the Kentico CMS does right out of the box, which for the base price of a Kentico licence at a mere $1999 makes the package a steal. Where the FirstTracks development crew comes in, is to help you organize, design, customize, implement and train your staff on all the elements we activate and use for your organiztion. It is a POWERFUL solution that will support your organization for a long time. Take a peek at our latest Kentico CMS project Northeast Delta Dental.

We have built quite a few websites over the years, and in this process have see the things that constantly challenge our clients in the ongoing use and management of their websites. That is why we have built our own in conjunction with SimpleMan Web in Concord NH. When you work with the platforms above as frequently as we do, you quickly begin to realize there are things (many times simple things) that these platforms can’t easily accomplish. Hence the birth of our own content management solution. Our platform is a great implementation solution for any small to medium sized business looking to take complete control of their online presence.

Why use the FirstTracks CMS?

It’s simple…..complete control and development with zero restriction on format, functionality or content. I know what your thinking….that sounds expensive, I assure you it’s not. More often than not our program solution is cheaper than the other open source solutions also use above, because we have written our program to accessible and useful based on all the feedback and challenges we have encountered in our prior development projects, and it’s always evolving. Our custom solution makes it easy for us to build you a site management program that is EXACTLY what you need, because we created the system it means altering core elements to align with your online objectives is a snap, when you write the rules from scratch the are a lot easier to bend when you need to. Rock solid development, security, design, and editing tools means your website will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.