Website Content Management Systems -- Create a Website part 2

My favorite way to build websites and blogs is with website content management systems. Now if you don’t know what a CMS is…it’s basically just a collection of tools that allow a webmaster (you!) to create, modify, organize, and remove information on your website with ease. These are fantastic programs that save a ton of time and let you do things only advanced computer programmers can do (but without all the time and knowledge).

There are many website Content Management Systems out there but the ones I recommend are Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla (see my "Content Management System Comparison" of these). Each of these is free (or you may hear them referred to as "Open Source," meaning they're free) and they are the three most popular CMSs used. There are also CMSs that you can pay for but I would not recommend these, especially for new webmasters, because open source (free) CMSs offer all the features a new webmaster will ever need and they have huge user bases that participate in their Content Management System’s forums where members help other members with any problems they have (for free). Also, there is a lot of competition between open source CMSs, so they compete to be the best and are constantly getting better and fixing any problems they may experience.

It is easy to make your website look good without any knowledge of HTML or CSS with a website content management system.  Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla let you download themes for free that make your site look great (and these themes add functionality to your site too)! *note--there are many free or cheap themes out there for popular Content Management Systems that look amazing (and are customizable) so it's not necessary to spend a lot on these.

Deciding which Content Management System to use is an important decision because certain CMSs make certain kinds of websites easier to make and maintain. When you are researching which CMS you are going to use think first if you are going to create a website or blog. Then think about what features you want on your site and how much effort you want to actually put into creating the website because certain CMSs have larger learning curves than others. Once you have your goals in mind check out my comparison of Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla to help you make your decision.

Once you decide on which website content management system you want to use all you have to do normally is use a one click installation with your host and the host will download, install, and set up everything you need…after that you’ll be ready to start using your CMS in a matter of minutes. If for some reason your host doesn’t provide that option all you have to do is download your CMS of choice from its respective website and upload it to your host. Then you’ll have to set up the CMS based on the instructions from its respective website (*however, all decent hosts have a 1 click installation these days).

So to wrap this up, I highly recommend using a website content management systems because it will save you a bunch of time and give you a lot of control over how your website looks—but without having to learn computer programming skills!

...What are your thoughts on content management systems? Which ones have you tried? Feel free to comment below.

Also, If you want to learn about search engine marketing, SEO, and link building for your website or blog...check out this free report I wrote.