Content management

If you really want to take control of your website so you can react quickly to changes in the marketplace, update it for new inventory and generally keep it fresh looking for your customers, then you need to be able to directly manage your own content. It also saves costs compared to hiring someone else to make the changes.

Ready made content management systems are commercially available. Unfortunately they are often costly, not only to buy but also to configure, do not necessarily do what you want and can look plain ugly.

Even choosing the right one can be a time consuming nightmare and if you make a mistake then you are stuck because they are only as flexible in meeting your requirements as their specification permits.

The alternative

Small or medium size businesses, for internet or intranet sites, are often better off with a bespoke approach to content management. My approach is

• to design a site that fits your business and relates to your customers
• then adapt it to allow you to manage the content

Off the shelf content management systems often tend to work the other way around.

I set up sites to allow you to manage content in two ways:

• using bespoke interfaces designed for you - here content is stored and retrieved from a database
• using Macromedia Contribute (which allows you to easily make changes directly on the web page)

Which is best depends on your preferences and the type of content. Both methods can co-exist on a site. Take a look a Young Enterprise on the web and in my portfolio to see a site that uses both methods to excellent effect.