Your Content Management System (CMS) houses all the content on your website. It provides the interface through which you manage, style, and edit that content. Through its features, you present that content to site visitors and shape their experience on your website.
A CMS is enormously important to your site and your business. Choosing the wrong CMS – many are out there, and this is not a one-size-fits-all proposition – can cost you money and frustrate both you and your customers. It’s not cheap or easy to back away from a CMS that, as it turns out, cannot scale up as your business grows, confuses internal and external users, requires specialists to carry out minor changes, and lacks the features you need. The only solution is to migrate the site to another platform or build a new site from scratch.
The choice of a CMS is a fundamental early step in building a website. But how do you make the right choice? First, determine exactly what you need your site to do, so you can find the one that does it best.
Then, assess your team’s needs so you can find the right CMS to match. Here are some tips.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a CMS
Ease of Use
A user-friendly interface is essential for both beginners and experienced users, especially if your team has limited website management experience. Look for a CMS that allows easy content creation, editing, and publishing without the need for extensive technical skills. You will constantly create, update, and move content. Make those tasks quick, easy, and efficient.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Drag and drop functionality, a WSIWYG editor, easy navigation, simple workflow and more make Titan CMS an easy-to-use choice.
In fact, Titan CMS is rated 9.2/10 for ease of use by actual users with published reviews on G2, the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace.
Scalability
A scalable CMS will accommodate both your current content and functionality requirements and your future growth. For those with growing product catalogs or expanding bodies of content, this is a key factor in choosing a CMS. The CMS must support seamless integration of additional features and handle increased traffic without compromising performance.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Titan CMS offers a range of licensing options to fit every organization’s needs and budget. Titan CMS License Add-Ins let you add additional users and websites to your license as needed without changing license levels.
Titan CMS is also updated regularly to meet clients’ needs and evolving digital trends. Layer on additional features and functionality as needed and manage everything seamlessly through one administrative interface.
Customization Options
Design and theme templates are great for efficiency, but do they allow you to express your unique brand identity? Choose a CMS that offers a high-enough level of customization to match your specific brand requirements and desired design. Seek out flexibility in design, layout, and functionality through layered use of different tools to create a unique and tailored online presence.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Many digital experience and content management systems require you to purchase a base license that includes a lot of bells and whistles you'll never use – and pay a recurring annual license fee on top of it. With Titan CMS, our one-time license fee gives you access to powerful, robust, and affordable CMS functionality that most businesses require right out of the box.
Use Titan CMS Add-Ins to layer on various features and functionality so you get only what your organization needs without paying for the stuff you don't.
Community Support and Documentation
Don’t be left isolated when you need assistance and resources. Opt for a platform with an active community forum, reliable support channels, and extensive documentation. A CMS with such solid support indicates that developers will continue to add features in line with community feedback.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Our online documentation library gives you access to quick answers anytime. Semi-annual Titan CMS Users Group (TUG) meetings give you the opportunity to discuss features and future enhancements with our developers, share experiences, and learn from other users. At TUG, our users also have the opportunity to help set development priorities. Additionally, support is available via our Help Desk, email or online, along with customized training for your unique instance.
Security Features
Unauthorized access to your site’s CMS can cause lasting damage to your business and your customers. Find a CMS that prioritizes security through features such as regular updates, secure authentication, and protection against common vulnerabilities. Work only with platforms that follow best practices for data encryption and user access controls.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Organizations with the most rigorous security requirements and audit needs trust Titan CMS. Built on the latest .NET technology, our clients in health care, financial services, government and more rely on Titan CMS’ robust security infrastructure to safeguard their data, customer information and integrated 3rd party systems.
A variety of Add-Ins are available to add to your Titan CMS license to provide additional security and vulnerability testing, depending on your needs, such as: Data Privacy to meet current and future data privacy laws, single sign-on, multifactor authentication, coverage reporting, and more. Regular upgrades, updates, patches, and bug fixes ensure Titan CMS is always up-to-date and as secure as possible.
SEO Friendliness
Search Engine Optimization is crucial for visibility on the web. Choose a CMS that makes it easy to follow SEO best practices, including customizable meta tags, clean URL structures, and the ability to integrate with SEO plugins or tools. SEO can be complicated and confusing to navigate; a tool to help you optimize your content can make all the difference. If it’s baked into your CMS as a core feature (or available via plug-in), it can save your content editors lots of time.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Titan CMS not only comes with necessary SEO features and functionality right out of the box, but our digital marketing and strategy experts are also part of our product development team. They have direct input into our roadmap and the development process to ensure Titan CMS constantly adapts to ever-changing SEO needs.
Content Migration
If you are migrating content from an existing website or plan to do so, ensure that the CMS supports easy content migration. Some CMS tools are good at this; some aren’t. Without an easy pathway, content migration can be an expensive, time-consuming, manual slog of copying individual pages.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Our team is ready to assist with content migration needs – and migrating content onto the Titan CMS platform couldn’t be simpler. But we don’t just migrate your content; our UX team is available to review your content and recommend edits to ensure you’re offering the best possible user experience. Choose from a variety of content services to meet your needs and budget.
Cost and Licensing
Consider your budget constraints and the licensing model of the CMS. Some CMS options are open-source and free. Others have licensing fees or subscription costs. Generally, free CMS solutions do not suit most business sites. Choosing an established but cost-effective CMS can balance quality, support, and affordability. Be sure to factor in not only the initial investment, but also ongoing maintenance and support expenses.
How Titan CMS Delivers: All of our license fees are one-time only. Choose from a variety of maintenance and support options to ensure an appropriate level of support and upkeep based on your individual needs.
Integration Capabilities
Evaluate the CMS' ability to integrate with third-party tools and services, such as e-commerce platforms, analytics, and marketing automation tools. Plug-ins and extensions can add entirely new feature sets to your CMS, which can enhance its scalability as your needs change. A flexible tool that can integrate with anything you might need in future is a great choice for a growing website.
How Titan CMS Delivers: Need your CMS to talk to your marketing automation system, CRM, or other marketing technology? Interested in integrating forms from your marketing automation system to automatically capture and/or pre-fill contact information? With Titan CMS, integrating with your third-party software and tools are no problem.
And, if by chance we haven’t integrated with your software before, our custom software experts have built hundreds of APIs for clients during the past 25+ years. We can build one to meet your needs.
Final Thoughts
A CMS is a large investment for most organizations. Don’t leave your CMS selection to chance. Make sure you know what you want your CMS to help you accomplish, then look for the right tool for the job.
Keep flexibility and scalability in mind, as well, so that your new CMS can grow with you as your needs change. And, ensure that not only the tool you select meets your needs but is backed by an expert team of digital experts who can guide you as much or as little as you need.
Want to see if Titan CMS is a good fit for your organization? Schedule a demo!