Content Management

Keeping your content up to date

Many modern websites now use content management systems to allow the content to be efficiently and consistently updated. However, getting these systems to produce exactly what you want on a regular basis isn't always easy. That's where our experience of working with these systems comes in.

We almost never build a website without some sort of content management system. There are a wide range of content management systems available and we can help you choose the right one for you. We've worked with a variety - from the small, lightweight and simple through to immense, multi-lingual, comprehensive, all-singing, all-dancing installations.

If you have a site that is built in static HTML, we can convert it to a CMS. If you'd like to kill two birds with one stone, we can update the look and feel while we do it.

1.

Content Management Systems

A content management system (CMS) like Wordpress, Silverstripe or EzyPublish simplifies the process of publishing content on the web. CMS's let you load your own content into a website, without you needing to get down and dirty with HTML, CSS or JavaScript.

With a CMS you can just log onto your site and then go to town. Write your content and it'll immediately appear on your webpages - attractive, well-formatted, and consistent with the rest of your site.

CMS systems provide huge advantages for managing sites with frequently changing content. In addition to the obvious benefit of being cheaper long term, CMS's have myriad technical advantages:

  • They enforce security (so only authorised people can edit your content).
  • They include facilities for mailing lists and signups.
  • They allow hosting promotions and competitions.
  • You can have members-only areas with social media logins.
  • Site search is made simple.
2.

Site Builds

CMS sites need three things:

  1. Design: Sites need to be designed. They need to look great and that's the purpose of a web designer. There are many fantastic, talented web designers who will do the graphic design part of the process. They'll produce a mockup of the site, in Photoshop or similar, and hand it to us.
  2. Development: Once you know what the site will look like it's time to bring it to life. We'll take those pictures from your web designer and build the templates in your chosen CMS. The site will be modern, standards-compliant, easy to use and will run on all mobile devices, laptops and desktop computers.
  3. Content: Sites need content. Words and pictures. That's something you can do yourself or you can retain a copywriter, marketing or search engine optimisation (SEO) firm to do it for you. You populate the site with content and structure and it will be published for the world to see.

We specialise in development. That means that we handle that second step - taking a graphic design and making it into a real site.

We don't claim to be web designers or copywriters. If you need someone to help out with these steps, we can recommend some companies. That said if you need someone to help you upload your designated content through your CMS onto your site we're more than happy to do this for you.

3.

Keeping your website's content up to date

With today's modern world highly reliant on the Internet, the number of sites requiring constant updates and maintenance is high. If this is the case for your site we can not only help you build the site but also make sure its content is kept maintained.

We have experience with a variety of different content management systems and are used to building our sites to utilise them, so you can easily add new content and update old content. But if you don't want to have to worry about the details of each new page our staff can do the ongoing maintenance of getting your content online. That way you can just worry about what you want your site to display and we can worry about ensuring that each page gets from back end to front end with the content and appearance you want.

Additionally we'll make sure to keep your CMS up to date with patches and upgrades so that you can be confident that your website is being kept safe and secure.