Is your Content Management System the best suit available for you in terms of features? Are the features of your CMS really addressing your pain-points? Is it really secure? …Baffled completely by these questions!! Don’t worry.. We have all the answers.

 

Your Content Management System (CMS) is important to your website’s functions. If for a minute your site is down, you could be losing visitors or potential sales by the second.

Do you know that 40% of people will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load? Or that if an e-commerce website makes £100,000 daily, a 1-second page delay could cost you £2 ½ million in lost sales annually?
It is therefore important to have a top performing website at all times, which means a Content Management System that is fully functional and adequately secured is needed.

Knowing when and how to upgrade your CMS is not a casual decision to make. Even though upgrading your website may require time and money, the cost of not doing so can significantly be higher than the overall cost of having the appropriate technology in the first place.

 

What Are The Features You Need To Run A Fantastic CMS?

1. Content Personalisation

Marketers who provide personalized web experiences get twice as many returns on their marketing performance and response, as shown in this study. As a matter of fact, a PWC survey revealed that up to 94% of top-level executives say that offering personalized experiences is the key to communicating with their customers.

With more advancing technology, content marketers are finally able to meet consumers’ personalization demands. Some CMSs are capable of providing out-of-the-box personalized content while others require the integration of a 3rd party cloud service. First, outline your goals and strategies before embarking on a direction, because personalization is still a complex area for some companies.

 

2. Open APIs

You may have heard so much about APIs, but unless you are tech savvy, it might still be a gray area. As a 21st century marketer, you ought to know more than its surface definition. An Application Programming Interface is a piece of software that facilitates the exchange of data between various systems.

With an API (acting as an intermediary), application programs can interact and share data with each other. With a combination of an open API and a flexible repository, your CMS can provide content that supersedes the web. A CMS with open API can help a developer to build an app with pre-existing content that provides commercial value. Talk about a high-performing website!

 

3. Flexible Content Repositories

If your CMS still relies on a single channel for engagement, you need a quick upgrade. A modern CMS should help drive business growth, it is therefore critical to have a clear differentiation between presentation and content. This means your content creators can work without worrying about how their work would be displayed on the single front-end.

Brendan Wilde, the marketing manager at Umbrellar Cloud Hosting, believes a flexible content repository is a must-have for every Content Management System. “Besides giving you more options to work with, flexible content repositories completely simplify your user engagement. We encourage our clients to use it because it enables them to structure their content,” he says.

Why do you need structured content?

  • Visitors enjoy more flexibility on your app or website and find information quicker
  • Suggests new ideas for your users – especially if it simplifies their search
  • Deliver personalised UX to your audience
  • Provide multiple access levels for your content (differentiate between new and longstanding users).

 

4. Permission Control

The final point above states that you can provide various access levels to your content. This means structured content can help you offer it to new visitors and customers who have remained loyal over time. The same works for their creators too.

Organizations have different content types and job functions. The fact that a business has multiple content writers does not mean they also have the permission to publish. There must be a process in your CMS that controls the publishing powers of each writer.

While some writers can publish only certain topics, others may not even have publishing authorisation at all. This helps to keep in check the type of material a company releases. There may be a combination of processes, but a rank-style publishing procedure is a key feature of a good CMS.

 

5. Multilingual Support

Since the evolution of the Internet, its users have transcended beyond mere local interaction. Businesses have more than home users patronizing their material, thus it is important to increase the width and language capabilities of technical support.

Your business may not be global yet, but you probably have plans to expand in the future. Consider building a CMS that caters to multiple language requirements. Fortunately, many CMS service providers offer multilingual features through extensions or plugins. However, be careful, as plugins can go un-serviced for prolonged periods exposing your website to security leaks.

Speaking of leaks, it is extremely important to provide hack-tight security for your CMS. CMS-powered websites are easy targets for hackers because most of the popular ones are open-source. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla account for 75% of CMS websites online today. Ordinarily, you would expect such big names to have water-tight security, but the reverse is the case. For instance, a recent study showed that over 70% of WordPress sites have some form of vulnerabilities that can be exploited by automatic tools. In 2014 alone, over 170,000 WordPress sites were hacked with such tools.

The open-source nature of CMS websites makes it hard for true accountability and hackers know this. They then target these vulnerabilities usually, as a means to an end. Some of them use vulnerabilities found in CMS-websites to trigger automated large scale attacks.

2016 reports showed that over 21,000 websites were hacked with WordPress making up a massive 15,000+. Joomla! came in second with 3,000+ websites hacked. Modx, vBulletin, Magento and Drupal all showed better security. The numbers may be going down on a strong slope in comparison to previous years but it is still paramount to ensure optimal security for your CMS especially if you run any of the top names.

 

Here Are Some Top Ways To Secure Your Content Management System.

  • Use a strong password to secure the Administrator Backend

Almost everybody and their distant cousin can access a Joomla website with /administrator or a WordPress website backend with /wp-admin. Ensure you change your website regularly with a strong password.

  • Install a Firewall

Firewalls are not only effective for web security, they also help you track suspicious activities on your website. In some cases, you can even see the IP address of the offenders.

  • Upgrade your CMS features

One of the easiest ways for hackers to breach a system is through an outdated plugin or extension. Ensure you keep current with the latest versions of your CMS features and update them when due. Be sure to backup your data before any updates.

  • Back up your systems

The importance of backups can never be over emphasized. Keep your backups up to date too. You never know when you might need them. Data can be lost any time.

  • Get a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

An SSL (HTTPS) is a security guarantee for your website. Besides encrypting all your web data, it gives your visitors the assurance they need that their personal information and data are safe on your site. What’s more, Google supports secure sites by labelling them accordingly and ranking them positively on its search engines.

Does your CMS satisfy all these requirements? Be sure to check free Drupal themes, free Joomla templates, Blogger templates, free Prestashop themes, free Opencart themes, free Virtuemart Templates.

 

On The Whole:

If you are really concerned about the correct choice of CMS for your website, then TemplateToaster web design software will really serve your purpose tactically. As it provides a great flexibility feature being a unique WordPress themes/template builder, to switch your theme/template to another CMS at any moment of the designing process. It supports almost all the major CMSs. Further, it regularly updates to guarantee the users with the latest enhanced features. So, TemplateToaster website maker will benefit you to create a captivating and searchable website easily without coding overheads in no time.