CMS web design Bradford

Why you should use a content management system (CMS) to build and maintain your web site.

Hi, I’m Philip a web designer in Bradford and a WordPress assistant.
On this web page I’ll explain why your content management system (CMS web design) helps you communicate directly with your customers in a timely fashion. But first, if you haven’t used a CMS before watch this short video to see how easy it is to change the text on one of your web pages.

Watch this video to see how easy it is to add change the text on your web page.

If you use a web designer to update your website you’ll always be two steps behind the times. You think up some new useful content that will engage your customers interest, draw them in to your site and give them a good reason to tell their friends about your business. Then wait until your web designer can fit you in to their schedule. Now you have to wait for the work to be completed then OK the content or get revisions made. Then at last your new (no longer up to date) content goes live and can be seen by your customers.

Wouldn’t it be much easier to add the content to your own web site yourself? With a CMS web design you can.

Types of web pages you might add to your CMS web design.

• Your own press releases
• Writing your own blog posts
• Running polls and getting users to vote
• Publicizing events you run
• News and announcements
• Writing articles and newsletters
• Adding details about your products and services
• Publicising your special offers
• Highlighting your customer testimonials and case studies
• Advertising your vacancies and staff personnel profiles
• Displaying useful links to friends websites
• Distributing your online resources and downloads
• Promoting your new product launches or marketing campaigns
• Updating the text on old web pages
• Adding or changing photos and videos
• Managing products and pricing changes
• Changing sponsorship banners

How a content management system keeps your website content fresh and up to date.

No one knows your business better than you do. You know what questions your customers ask and what things worry them. So who better to solve your customers problems than you? If a customer came in to your office wanting advice would you say wait a minute, my web designer could explain this better than me, I’ll get him to ring you. No? I didn’t think so. Just write your web page as if you were speaking to a real customer because that’s what you’re web page is doing, it’s speaking to your customers just like you or a sales person would. A CMS web design makes this easy.

If something is new in your industry you can have that information on your site within the hour. Your customer is well informed and you are the up to date expert who they heard the news form first.

CMS web design, Google and SEO.

WordPress, the CMS I use, has good built in search engine optimization features. And there are excellent free plugins available to make its SEO features even more powerful. These plugins guide you as you make your web pages telling you the steps to take that will improve your ranking in Google. (See Yoast’s excellent WordPress search engine optimization plugin.)

Google also loves to find fresh content on your site. It’s probable that a regularly updated site is one of Google’s two hundred quality marks (Google is tight lipped about exactly what these are). The the more good quality web pages you make that are relevant to your customers, the more likely it is that potential customers will find your site. Good content also means other sites are likely to link to your site, and that’s exactly what Google wants to see and rewards you with better page rankings in search engine results pages.

You could build a Community Around Your Business. A CMS web design can become a valuable resource to your target market.

Many years ago I came across a copywriter who kept referring to value wells. He told a story of pioneers crossing a newly discovered continent, they had to move from well to well to reach their destination. If the pioneers couldn’t find a well, they and their animals would go thirsty or even die. A business doesn’t need wells filled with water, but it does need value wells of good services, advice, and products, if its going to thrive.

Your website can help your business to be seen as one of these value wells of knowledge, good services, and products. You could be the go-to expert, and because your CMS web designed web site is online twenty four hours a day customers could rely on you for the information they need when they need it.

Save money with a CMS web design.

Once your website is built, it costs as little as £10 a month for web hosting fees. And when you or one of your staff have learned the basics of maintaining the site, your overall running costs are amazingly low. Can you say that about hiring a web designer?

Easily add more functionality to your content management system.

WordPress, the most popular content management system, has thousands of plugins that can be easily added to your site to enable your site to do more things. Such as running web feed back forms, polls or easy backup solutions. Many of these plugins are free but you can also buy easy to use powerful plugins if you wish.

Change the look of your CMS web design easily.

One of the big advantages of a content management system is that it keeps the content of your web site separate from the design of the site. This means that you can change the look of the site at any time without breaking the site content. Once you’ve learned how to do this you can completely change the look of your site by changing or customizing the theme. The time changing themes takes depends on all kinds of factors, but you can certainly change themes if you wish.

WordPress the easy to use content management system.

Many hands make light work, you can authorize different employees to update different parts of your site.

You can have many different authors working on your site and you can set each of these users or authors to have their own level of privileges. A user can add new pages to your site or even delete other peoples pages, you decide who to give privileges to and what level of privileges they have.

Update your web site content anywhere, all you need is a web browser.

WordPress and many other CMS’s are updated using a web browser like Google Chrome or Firefox. So to add new pages to your site you don’t need any special software. If you’ve used a word processor you could soon learn to use a content management system like WordPress.

WordPress is by far the most popular web site content management system. And if you get someone else to set up the site for you they can make it so you only see the buttons and dialogue boxes that you need to use (hiding the complicated stuff). This makes your website less confusing and easier for you to update.