Feature
The Gist
- What is a Content Management System? Return to the roots, so that you don't wander off in pursuit of shiny digital objects.
- Modern CMS features. Top features include sophisticated, user-friendly content editing, AI integration, composable architecture and the ability to publish content efficiently to multiple channels.
- Why is CMS important. Revisit key reasons why businesses need centralized content services as part of a modern, agile infrastructure.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated on October 8, 2024 to include new data and information. The original content was authored by Scott Clark.
Since the beginning of the web, content has reigned supreme, and as such, the content management system or content services platform has emerged as the backbone of most digital experience software stacks.
This article explores exactly what a content management system is, why it matters more than ever today and how it empowers businesses to efficiently manage their online content, engage with their audience and ultimately drive their business.
Table of Contents
- What Is a Content Management System?
- Benefits of the Modern CMS
- Key Features of the Modern CMS
- How to Use a Content Management System
- The Impact of AI on the Modern CMS
- 10 Popular Enterprise-grade CMS Platforms
- 10 Popular Broad Market CMS Platforms
- Shaping the Future: The Role of CMS in Digital Evolution
What Is a Content Management System?
What is a CMS? In its most basic form, the term content management system refers to a software application or service that facilitates the management of digital content and often the presentation of that content, allowing business users to create, edit, design, publish and update websites, apps and other digital properties easily.
A content management system is typically at the core of an organization's digital experience delivery architecture, providing a source of record for the organization's publicly delivered digital information and enabling collaboration, content distribution and a consistent online experience for end users.
For many, but not all, practitioners today, a CMS is synonymous with a digital experience platform or DXP. One can argue various sides here, but for CMSWire our position is that CMS and DXPs are largely the same thing today and that when people say CMS, they are simply choosing to use a more commonly understood acronym. They do not mean to draw a distinction.
Additional Reading: What is a Digital Experience Platform?
Benefits of the Modern CMS
Modern content management systems offer a range of powerful features that make it easier for businesses to maintain a dynamic and robust online presence. From enabling collaboration and ensuring security to providing instant updates and SEO-friendly tools, a modern content management system works to streamline content management and deliver a solid, consistent and cohesive experience for end users.
User-friendliness
Modern content management systems are designed with the user in mind. They provide intuitive interfaces that make it easy for anyone, regardless of technical knowledge, to manage and update content. The drag-and-drop functionality, the what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) content editing tools, the clear navigation and built-in help guides reduce the learning curve, enabling users to easily manage their online properties.
Ease of Collaboration
Content management systems are typically designed from the ground up with content collaboration in mind. Multiple users can access, edit and contribute web content simultaneously, with clearly defined roles and permissions. Team members can work together without risking workflow conflicts or content overwrites, allowing for parallel, synchronous and asynchronous workflows.
No Technical Skills Required (of Editors)
Gone are the days when you needed a developer for every web page or web content update. Modern CMS systems empower non-technical, business users who don’t know anything about web technologies to create, edit and manage digital content with ease. In other words today's systems typically support a strong separation of functional roles thus increasing the speed and simplicity of updating your web site and digital content.
Templates Enforce Presentation Consistency
Modern content management systems typically separate the web page content from the final presentation structure and logic. This is both a modern architecture principle and a necessity as the number of different user interfaces — sometimes described as "heads" — grows.
Most CMS offerings come out of the box with a variety of predefined content templates and have or support a templating framework that support an unlimited range of content templates.
Templating of the presentation layer has many benefits, including:
- Editors can often select from a number of present presentation formats for their content
- Templates enforce consistency and adherence to a design system across components and pages
- Content updates are easier and the possibility of introducing rendering or presentation errors is reduced or eliminated
Instant Updates
Updates to content and web pages can be made instantly or at least quickly. Whether it's a blog post, a product listing, a pricing change, a simple update to some web pages or a change in site structure, modifications can be live within minutes.
This ability is critical for maintaining a dynamic and up-to-date online presence.
Ease of Access and Use
As with most modern software, today's content management solutions are accessible to anyone with a modern web browser and from anywhere with an internet connection. And most CMS back office interfaces support some form of mobile access and editing. This flexibility gives you the ability to update your content from anywhere at any time.
Usability is generally high across this category of software systems. Legacy systems and slower moving enterprise-grade content management systems may be a bit clunkier that one might hope, but these most platforms have been modernized and are both easy to learn and easy to use.
SEO-Friendly Rendering
Search engine optimization is essential any public facing web property that the operators wish to be found. Modern CMS platforms tend to be designed with this in mind, but certainly not all systems are created equal in this regard, and any headless content management systems leave this problem squarely on the lap of the implementation team that is building the "head".
It is generally fair to say that the well established "enterprise" systems do not tend to invest in the SEO friendliness of the system, as the expectation is that a sophisticated team is running the implementation and they will have specialists covering this area. Where as more SMB-oriented systems, like Wordpress, tend come out of the box with a fair bit of tooling and thought applied to its SEO friendliness.
Access & System Security
Today's CMS offerings typically offer robust, comprehensive access control frameworks for authentication and role-based authorization. Additionally, commercial offerings are either cloud-based services with security managed by the provider, or in the case of self-hosted commercial solutions, the vendor typically is regularly releasing security patches and related updates. These measures protect your online properties from cyber threats. But as with any self-hosted software, the operator is responsible for regular updates at a cadence commensurate with risk tolerance and their resources.
Multi-Channel & Omnichannel Content Delivery
For many medium and larger organizations managing and delivering content goes beyond the scope of a single website. These organizations may have multiple websites, services, mobile apps, kiosks, digital signage and other devices that all consume content and/or presentation from a central CMS and tend to think of their content management practices as omnichannel content management.
Modern CMS platforms support multi-channel or omnichannel content and experience delivery in a variety of ways and with a broad range of sophistication. Headless content management systems are originally designed for this use case and often offer a significant amount of flexibility.
Other systems offer a range of APIs and possibly client-libraries that enable developers to access content, presentation, personalization and other sorts of assets programmatically.
Related Article: 5 Key Challenges to Building a Successful Omnichannel Customer Experience Strategy
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Customer Support
Modern CMS vendors offer a broad range of customer support options, including self-service documentation, community forums, online chat and professional customer service.
When considering entering into a new CMS vendor relationship, customer support is a significant consideration and should be explored carefully. All vendors are not created equal — do your homework by speaking with existing customers, gaining access to the support forums and other self-service resources before you commit to a product.
Key Features of the Modern CMS
The modern content management system has evolved significantly since the early days of the web. Current system incorporate a wide range of features to cater to the diverse needs of digital content creators, web developers, marketers and businesses — so much so that a whole cottage industry exists helping prospective buyers scope their needs, build a short list, navigate product demos and commit to their new platform.
Some of the key features of a modern CMS platform include:
- User-Friendly Interface: Modern CMS platforms offer intuitive and user-friendly interfaces, making it easy for multiple users with varying technical skills to create, manage and publish content.
- Content Type Extensibility: Modern platforms must offer unlimited content type extensibility — allowing operators to define new structured content types that can be easily created, edited, managed, workflowed and published by business users.
- Multimedia Support: Supporting a wide range of multimedia formats, including images, videos and audio files, the modern CMS often comes with built-in digital asset management or support for integration with well known DAM platforms.
- Content Workflow and Collaboration Tools: Tools for content workflow management are often incorporated, such as content scheduling, version control and collaboration features for multiple team members.
- Responsive Design Compatibility: This ensures that content is optimized for various devices, particularly mobile, with responsive design capabilities built into templates and themes.
- SEO Tools Integration: Most content management systems now include built-in search engine optimization (SEO) tools to help improve the visibility of web pages on search engines, including capabilities for metadata management, URL customization and integration with Google Analytics.
- Content Personalization and Targeting: Advanced CMS platforms offer personalized content delivery based on user behavior, preferences and demographics, enhancing user engagement and experience.
- Ecommerce Integration: Many CMS platforms now offer ecommerce functionality or integrate seamlessly with ecommerce platforms, enabling businesses to manage both content and online sales from a single platform.
- Multi-Language Support: To cater to a global audience, the modern CMS provides multi-language support, allowing content translation and localization.
- Security Features: Enhanced security features are a staple of modern CMS platforms, ensuring that multiple users can work safely with regular updates, strong password enforcement and protection against common security threats like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS).
- Customizable and Extensible: Extensive customization options are available through plugins, extensions and themes, allowing businesses to add new features and tailor the CMS to specific requirements.
- Social Media Integration: The modern CMS enables easy integration with social media platforms, allowing content to be shared directly to social networks while enhancing social media marketing efforts.
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Headless CMS Capabilities: Some modern CMS platforms offer headless capabilities, where the content management backend is decoupled from the presentation layer, providing greater flexibility in delivering content to various channels and devices.
Erik Pham, founder and CEO of Health Canal, a health and wellness media company, told CMSWire that a CMS not only provides his business with the necessary tools for content creation, but of equal importance, it offers an efficient workflow management system. "This enables our editorial team to seamlessly collaborate, review and refine content. The structured workflow ensures that every article, infused with the expertise and authenticity that our audience expects, undergoes a thorough review process before reaching our readership."
Depending on the scale of your team, collaboration may be a critical function for your content management system, and this is an area where the range of capabilities and user friendliness is broad. Consider this carefully if you operate a medium to large content team that is interactive and distributed.
How to Use a Content Management System
The right CMS is pivotal to efficiently manage content and streamline marketing and digital experience operations.
1. Select the Right CMS
To get started, it's important to select a content management system that aligns with your specific business needs. For many organizations, when you commit to a platform, you are forming a long term relationship. Further, the future is unknown, so having a system that is flexible is key, and having a vendor that will be a good partner is essential.
Carefully consider factors like:
- Ease of use
- Extensibility
- Native integrations
- Ecosystem robustness
- Vendor health
2. Look at Your Content Strategy
Once a CMS is in place, it's time to organize your content strategy. This step involves categorizing and scheduling your digital content, whether that's blog posts, news updates or product descriptions. Ensure your team leverages the CMS to maintain a consistent and responsive design across all channels and platforms.
3. Incorporate SEO Strategies
Next, focus on optimizing your content for search engines. Utilize various tools within the CMS to add relevant meta tags, set SEO-friendly URLs and incorporate keywords. Regularly update your content to keep it fresh and engaging, and monitor user engagement and feedback through built-in analytics features, as this data is invaluable in refining your content strategy to better meet the needs of your audience.
Keep in mind that effective use of a CMS goes beyond basic operation. It involves understanding how to create content management system processes that are tailored to your organization's unique needs, which requires defining workflows for content creation, approval and publication and ensuring these processes align with your team's structure and content strategy goals.
Related Article: 14 Rules for Selecting the Right Content Management System (CMS)
The Impact of AI on the Modern CMS
The integration of AI into content management systems has marked a transformative phase in digital content management, enhancing the capabilities of these platforms and paving the way for more sophisticated and efficient content strategies.
AI's impact on content management systems is multifaceted. One of the most significant advancements is in content personalization and recommendation. AI algorithms analyze user behavior, preferences and engagement metrics to deliver personalized content to users. This not only improves the customer experience but also boosts engagement rates, as content is more relevant and aligned with individual user interests and behaviors.
The integration of AI into the CMS has also been responsible for a conscious effort to add more humanity into the mix. Jay Sanderson, senior product marketing manager of digital experience at Progress, told CMSWire that in an era where digital interaction is increasingly favored, the humanization of digital experiences has become more crucial.
"Businesses are now tasked with finding innovative ways to embed human elements into these digital interactions,” said Sanderson. “This can be achieved through the integration of conversational AI and omnichannel experiences, facilitating a more natural connection with customers while easing the burden on human resources."
Another area where AI has made a substantial impact is in search engine optimization and content creation. AI tools can suggest relevant keywords, predict trending topics and even generate content drafts, making it easier to create content and streamlining the content creation process. This technology helps brands maintain a high SEO standard, ensuring their content ranks well in search engine results and reaches the intended audience.
Automated content tagging and categorization is another function where AI has proven to be invaluable. By understanding the context and semantics of the content, AI can automatically tag and categorize it, saving time and improving content discoverability and organization.
Customer support and interaction have also been revolutionized with AI in the CMS. Chatbots and virtual assistants, powered by AI, can respond to customer queries, provide instant support and enhance overall customer engagement. These AI-driven systems learn from interactions to provide more accurate responses over time, improving the efficiency of customer service operations.
10 Popular Enterprise-grade CMS Platforms
There are a lot of web content management platforms out there to choose from, with many of them bundled within digital experience platforms (DXPs). How do you determine which is right for your business?
Take a look at our overview of some of the most popular solutions on the market below:
- Adobe Systems: Adobe's CMS offering, primarily through Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). It provides an enterprise-level platform that integrates digital asset management with the power to create, manage and optimize customer experiences across all channels. It's designed for large organizations in need of a scalable, secure solution.
- Acquia: Another CMS solution named as a leader by Forrester, Acquia is a cloud-based service that provides a suite of tools to build, manage and optimize digital experiences with Drupal. Aimed at large organizations, it emphasizes security, scalability and personalization, offering an extensive set of tools for content management, digital marketing and commerce.
- Bloomreach Content: Part of the overarching Bloomreach ecosystem, Bloomreach Content is a headless CMS named in CMSWire's 2024 DXP Market Guide. It's a powerful, open-source system designed for creating personalized digital experiences that combines AI-driven search, merchandising tools and a flexible content management system.
- HCL Software: Named a challenger in Gartner's 2024 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms, HCL Software offers a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to create, manage and optimize personalized digital experiences. The platform integrates content management, digital marketing and collaboration tools, allowing organizations to deliver compelling content and digital services efficiently.
- Contentful: Another vendor in CMSWire's DXP Market Guide, Contentful offers an API-first, headless CMS that allows developers and marketers to work simultaneously on content across multiple platforms. It's particularly suited for organizations looking to deliver content across multiple channels with a high degree of flexibility and scalability.
- Contentstack: Contentstack is a headless CMS named in CMSWire's DXP Market Guide that focuses on delivering content as a service. It provides developers with the tools to build applications and enables marketers to manage content across digital channels. The platform emphasizes speed, security and scalability, making it suitable for enterprises that need to manage complex digital experiences.
- Optimizely: Another leader named by Forrester, Optimizely (formerly Episerver) offers a comprehensive digital experience platform that combines content management, digital commerce and personalization. It allows marketers and developers to collaboratively create, test and optimize digital experiences that drive engagement and conversions.
- OpenText: Another challenger listed in Gartner's 2023 Magic Quadrant, OpenText includes a powerful content management system designed for large organizations and geared toward enhancing digital experiences through content personalization, asset management and workflow optimization. The platform excels in managing large volumes of content across digital channels, ensuring compliance and security, and is particularly suited for industries with heavy regulatory requirements.
- Sitecore: Named a leader in Gartner's 2023 Magic Quadrant, Sitecore combines content management, digital marketing and commerce. It's designed to help marketers manage the entire content lifecycle, from creation through personalization and analytics, across multiple channels. The platform's strength lies in its robust integration of data, allowing for deep insights into customer behavior.
- Crownpeak: Another CMSWire DXP Market Guide pick, Crownpeak offers a cloud-native digital experience platform that includes a CMS designed for flexibility, scalability and ease of use. It's focused on providing solutions for enterprise-level businesses that require agility in their digital operations. Crownpeak's CMS stands out for its headless architecture, enabling the same content to be delivered across multiple channels and devices seamlessly.
"Selecting an appropriate CMS transcends a one-size-fits-all approach," suggested Sanderson. "Important considerations include security, functionality, scalability, user experience, omnichannel capabilities, support and the need for continuous upgrades." He reiterated that scalability is paramount as it must cater to both performance demands and organizational growth, ensuring the CMS can adapt to rapid content demands and expanding content teams.
Related Article: 5 Ways AI Content Creation Tools Transform Your Brand
10 Popular Broad Market CMS Platforms
Not every organization needs an enterprise-level CMS to get their content out into the world. There are plenty of broad market solutions available, with Wordpress being one of the most popular cms platforms. Let's take a look at what these solutions have to offer:
- WordPress: According to reports from W3 Techs, WordPress is used by 62.8% of all websites using content management systems, accounting for an astounding 43.1% of all websites. Compare this to the next most popular broad market CMS, Shopify, which accounts for only 4.2% of all websites. WordPress is known for its ease of use, flexibility and a vast ecosystem of both free and premium themes and plugins. It's suitable for everything from simple blogs to complex ecommerce websites.
- Umbraco: The Umbraco .NET CMS platform has been in the market for many years, starting out with a strong emphasis on its open source version and community. These days it offers a range of licensing approaches including open source, commercial, cloud and headless with the Umbraco Heartcore product.
- Shopify: Although primarily an ecommerce platform, Shopify functions effectively as a CMS for online retailers. It offers an intuitive interface, beautiful designs and extensive ecommerce features, making it ideal for businesses looking to sell products online.
- Wix: A popular and user-friendly CMS, Wix is particularly favored by users for its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and a wide array of templates, making it a great choice for individuals and businesses looking to create professional-looking websites without requiring extensive coding knowledge. Garry West, creative director at Imagefix, told CMSWire that a flexible CMS with a range of templates, widgets and customization options allows his business to tailor each website to the unique brand identity and target audience of its clients. "We believe in providing our clients with the creative freedom to express their brand's essence through their website, and a CMS that provides a broad range of design styles is essential for achieving this goal."
- Squarespace: Known for its sleek templates and user-friendly design interface, Squarespace is a popular choice for creatives and small businesses. It offers a range of features including ecommerce capabilities, without requiring users to have extensive technical skills. “We have a reputation for designing websites that not only look stunning but also allow our clients and their teams to manage their own content after handover,” said West. “A user-friendly CMS is essential for this, allowing non-technical users to navigate and update content without feeling overwhelmed by technical jargon or coding.”
- Joomla: Joomla strikes a balance between user-friendliness and robust functionality. It's a versatile CMS, suitable for creating a wide range of websites, from personal blogs to corporate portals. While it does not require any coding or programming knowledge, it still has a moderate to steep learning curve.
- Drupal: Known for its powerful and flexible framework, Drupal is particularly well-suited for complex, data-intensive websites and applications. It offers a high degree of customizability and robust security features, but does come with a fairly steep learning curve.
- PrestaShop: This open-source ecommerce platform gives companies the power to create a customized online store without heavy coding. It offers comprehensive customization options through modules and themes and is geared toward small- to medium-sized businesses looking to expand their online presence.
- Google Systems: While not a traditional CMS, Google offers several tools that organizations can use for content management, such as Google Sites for simple website creation and Google Workspace for document and digital asset management. These tools emphasize user-friendliness and collaboration, leveraging Google's cloud infrastructure for accessibility and integration.
- Webflow: Webflow combines website design and development in a single, no-code platform, allowing organizations to visually build professional, custom websites. It's ideal for agencies and businesses that want control over the design and functionality of their sites and content without the need for extensive coding knowledge.
Each of these broad market CMS platforms caters to different needs, desires, skill levels and technical knowledge, from the multitude of themes and plugins for WordPress to Drupal's robust and scalable architecture to Wix’s simplicity and ease of use. The choice of CMS often depends on the specific requirements, technical expertise and the nature of the project at hand.
Shaping the Future: The Role of CMS in Digital Evolution
What is a CMS? It's a central platform to manage content and distribute it online, an indispensable tool for brands competing for customer mindshare in the digital realm. The modern CMS platform leverages the capabilities of AI-enabled personalization, automation, analytics and extensibility alongside robust features for stylized content creation, collaboration with multiple team members and omnichannel publication. With no-code, user-friendly interfaces enabling teams to efficiently produce optimized, engaging content, the CMS provides the ability for brands to build enduring connections with customers across devices and touchpoints.
