Today the question is no longer whether a website is an asset for your company, but rather how to build it and what web presence is the most appropriate. Depending on the sector in which your company operates and the concept of it, your company's website can serve several goals and objectives. Traditionally, a web page of a company is primarily a complete online business card with general information such as hours of operation, contact information and location. Moreover, it is also standard that simple dynamic elements appear, such as contact forms allowing for example the visitors to make an appointment, to reserve a hotel room or a stay, or even to place an order of purchase etc. Finally, there is now a tendency to provide users with added value and to enrich the content of corporate websites, for example with a blog, practical Internet services or a user forum.
When creating the website of your company, the difficulty of knowing which elements are necessary, the search for the most suitable software for your project is also complicated. Because of the low costs and the many options, most companies tend to quickly use a content management system or CMS, the English Content Management System. But often the question of the most suitable program for an SME (small and medium enterprises) or for a very small company remains open. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, there are however many aspects and elements that need to be taken into consideration to find the best CMS for your SMB.
First point: What is the available budget?
The material and human resources available for the creation of your website are of fundamental importance for the choice of the appropriate system. In general, a small business does not have the same financial capacity as a large corporation and that is why it is necessary to make precise calculations in order not to exceed the budget. Depending on the concept of your website, there is a wide range of possibilities for financing your needs for the realization of your project. In particular, it is important to know if you plan to complete your entire web project internally, which can save money and avoid the need for external graphic designers and developers. staff needed and trained enough to do this work. This can quickly reduce the choice of suitable CMS for you, especially if your internal developers can only work with specific scripts and programs.
The cost factor of installing, administering, and maintaining your CMS is also important. You will also have to decide if you prefer to manage the hosting of the CMS and the website internally, which means buying the necessary equipment or else renting accommodation spaces to external suppliers. Having your hosting internally can be stressful, even if you have to know that a CMS does not usually use a lot of structural server needs, so this factor will have little or no impact on the choice of a server. appropriate system.
Second point: What type of site do you plan?
The type of content you plan to publish on your company's website is certainly the most important criterion for selecting a content management system. Generally you can, with almost any system, create simple static pages as well as more complex pages with dynamic elements, but the flexibility and ease of doing so is related to the modular structure of the CMS. And many CMS also offer a wide range of extensions and templates in the default installation, which means that many additional options and features are available but are not needed for most websites. On the other hand, it may, more rarely, happen that a CMS is too simple and therefore not suitable for the realization of your site or while a CMS is out of your budget or difficult to use.
Third point: Usability of the desired CMS
It is important that a CMS for SMEs provides visitors with a minimum of comfort. If the employees involved in the programming of the system do not know how to use it correctly, it will probably be visible in terms of the quality of your website. The features to develop and update your website must be easy and enjoyable to use, if your team of developers for your web project can not achieve the site in this way, it is certainly the CMS that you use is not good for you. Another important factor is the panel of options for administration. In fact, the administrator's space must be clearly separated from the editorial part and must allow the allocation of roles and rights of the users, in particular to determine which employee is able to use a function or not to be able to access to a configuration domain for example.
An important source of usability is of course the implementation of the content, so this is necessarily an important criterion of the CMS for your SME. Authors, editors, and other employees responsible for the content must be able to add texts, videos, images, and this in an intuitive way. Content formatting tools, such as WYSIWYG software that automatically converts existing text into HTML should be considered a mandatory program for creating and updating content. regular day of content.
Fourth point: How to guarantee the accessibility of the content?
When setting up a website, the goal is also to make it accessible and usable by the largest number of users. Only the language barrier and sometimes the type of device used can be brakes. But as today more and more people are using Internet browsing via mobile devices, it is now necessary that your CMS can be able to create a mobile version of your company's website without much difficulty, even for a company. medium or small. The solution is therefore often to design an adaptive website (Responsive Website), which offers visitors a comfortable consultation experience even with different media such as smart phones or tablets for example.
If you want to have a website available in several languages, it is then obviously advisable to choose a system with a multilingual function. The interest is in particular not having to have two or more websites depending on languages or countries, but on the same site to have the opportunity to present the content in multiple languages. Another important aspect for your site is the accessibility of the Web. Here you can find information about web usability and usability of the websites for all users on this article that measures the degree of usability of your site. It is important to ensure that all of your content is always accessible to the greatest number, this will greatly improve the usability of your Internet project.
Fifth point: Is CMS security sufficient for your data?
Zero risk obviously does not exist against hacker attacks. However, there are CMSs with useful functions to enhance data protection. SMBs for small businesses offer the following benefits on programs for very large projects:
They are not a significant target of cyber criminals because of the limited scope of the sites. Interest is often low for hackers.
There is less flaw and vulnerability because of the limited number of plug-in and modules.
You must also make sure that the selected CMS developer also checks the reliability and functionality of all modules that are offered by third parties, such as a tracking plug-in. A CMS that automatically indicates the updates available for the system as well as all the extensions that are in use is also a great advantage, because a software updated regularly is then more difficult to hack. Finally, in addition to standard protection with a password, some CMS offer additional secure access via a secure connection.
But the private data of your Web project is not only vulnerable from the outside. It is indeed important to choose a CMS that can actively respond to user errors and problems with systems and databases. It is therefore recommended to make sure of the following points:
Define user roles individually so that an inexperienced or unauthorized employee can not make configuration errors that can sometimes be critical for the system.
Version management of documents, so as to quickly and easily cancel a human error.
Automatic backups of the CMS system and databases.
Sixth point: the CMS, an asset to search engine optimization?
Even though SMBs for SMEs are basically limited in terms of functions for this domain, SEO modules are still essential and should not be overlooked. That's why when choosing your CMS it is necessary to check that the following SEO options are present:
Ability to define metadata (title, description) .
Ability to create alternative texts for links and images .
Ability to generate an XML Sitemap .
Creating specific links for search engines .
Resolution of HTML codes .
Installing Rich-Snippets .
In summary: the ideal CMS for your SME depends on your preferences
Not all the criteria listed above are to be taken into account for each small business in order to choose the right CMS, the panel of criteria and preferences will vary indeed from one company to another. But in general, an SME will benefit from a less complex system. The current trend of content management software is to offer more and more features in the standard version, which limits the need for plugins and extensions. But some are still very useful for creating creative and innovative ideas for your web presence, not just for the classic website. Too large a range of options can be detrimental to an SME's web presence, especially companies that have a lot of content such as publishers, it can indeed be quickly difficult to manageable and this increases the risk of security breach.
Below you will find a list of the most important things you need to have in mind and define to choose the right CMS for your SME:
Decide to internally manage CMS management, or go through external agents or companies.
Define the type of content and the main purpose of your website.
Make sure your CMS is easy to use for all participants.
Check that the CMS offers all the technical prerequisites you need to make your site accessible to as many visitors as possible .
Make sure the CMS provides good data security.
Finally check that the system supports optimization for search engines.
0 Comments