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What is a CMS? Why do I need it?

Content Management Systems

Your website, in its raw essence, is a computer program. It's made up of thousands of lines of computer code and scripting that are read and interpreted by web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera), and then rendered for display on your computer monitor.

Not surprisingly, websites are created by skilled designers and programmers - people experienced and conversant with all the software and computer languages required to put a website together.

And after a website has been created and is live on the Internet, it will need to be maintained and looked after - there will be prices to change, telephone numbers and email addresses to update, new products to add, and content to keep fresh and up-to-date.

And unless you can read and write the computer languages that came together to give shape to your website, you're going to be stumped making those changes.

You can, of course, pay the people who made your website to look after it... or you can use a good CMS (Content Management System). A CMS a programme that sits between you and befuddlement.

A CMS is part of your website. You access it with a web browser - the same way you do for the rest of your website. The difference is it's password protected, so only you can access it.

A CMS is commonly referred to as a website's backend (the front-end is the public side of your website, e.g. your home page).

A CMS enables you to make changes to your website without having to take a course at university. It's an interface you use with the simplicity and ease of using a programme like Microsoft Word.

A good CMS will let you edit and revise the content of your web pages - making changes to text and images. It will let you manage your products catalogue, moderate your website forum, review your website visitor stats, respond to queries submitted via website forms, and edit your website's metatags - indexing data used by search engines.

And your changes will be live immediately. If you want to change something at 2:30 in the morning, you can login, make the changes, click update, and those changes will be live as of right then and there.

As a CMS is browser-based, you can administer your website from anywhere there's a computer and a connection to the Internet - from your office, your living room, or even on a cruise ship heading to Hong Kong. And as there's no requirement for software downloads or dedicated programmes to be installed on your computer, all you'll need is a username and a password.

A good CMS should also be expandable. There should be the facility for plugging in further modules, as your needs grow. It should also be custom-tuned to your business or organisation. For example, there may only be one user (yourself), or there may be several - with each one having a separate username and password and access to their own specific areas of the website.

Merry Christmas

The first ever SMS text message sent went out in the UK in early December 1992. The message read: "Merry Christmas". Sixteen years later, and it is calculated the British exchange more than one billion SMS text messages every week (Source: Mobile Data Association). One billion text messages (of say an average of 8 words in length) equates to about the amount of text you'd find in 100,000 novels.

Keeping in touch is important

Email Newsletters

Before the Internet, keeping in touch with your customers meant waiting either for them to return to your store, or by snail mailing out a brochure or flyer (expensive and time consuming).

Thankfully, we live in the information age and we have the email. The email newsletter can be delivered directly to your customers' inboxes - instantly and at (virtually) no cost.

A regular newsletter is an excellent way to keep in touch with your customers, and keeping in touch is important. It maintains awareness of your business, and if what you send out is well put together, you can further develop and cement relationships with your customers.

You can use your newsletter to:

• Highlight new products and services
• Answer frequently asked questions
• Offer free tips and advice - you'll enhance your standing, if your customers know you to be an expert in your field

If you can, try to personalise your newsletters. For example, include the name of the person receiving it: "Hi John, here is our latest newsletter..."

A newsletter is an extension of your website, so provide links to it. Link back to:

• more information, or further reading
• related products and services
• online-only specials

You can also entice people to return to your store (unless your business is entirely online), by offering time-limited discounts and other in-store specials.

Make sure your newsletter is sent out regularly, and that it is well written and free of spelling and grammatical errors.

Help! My website is stale!

Website Makeovers

One of the most important elements of a website is its freshness. The presence of new content is the best incentive to encourage a visitor's return - return visits increases the likelihood of sales, and turns a new customer into a repeat customer.

If you're reasonably diligent, you'll be keeping your website's content relevant and up-to-date. But what about the website itself? How does that look?

Like everything else (the car, the TV, the computer), a website can grow old. Given time, it can start to look dated. At worst, it can become "so last decade."

For this exact reason, Internet majors like CNN, Microsoft, Amazon, and eBay (to name a few) regularly and routinely change the look and "feel" of their websites. Every year or two, they give their websites makeovers.

And you can too.

Giving your website a makeover is not like reinventing the wheel -you're not rebuilding your website from the ground up, you're just changing it's appearance.

Even the most basic of makeovers - a new colour scheme, for example - can revitalise your website instantly.