What Makes the Best CMS? 5 Factors to Consider When Choosing One

What makes the best CMS? Choosing the best CMS (content management system) seems to be easy as statistics clearly show that WordPress rules this industry. No one can deny that WP is an excellent system with robust customization opportunities, and yet why isn’t it the only one? The reason is that other CMSs have other advantages that make them more beneficial to use in some situation. If you want to build an excellent website by hand, you need to choose a CMS that will meet your needs perfectly, so you have to understand what to look at when evaluating available options.

5 Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best CMS for You

1.      Customization

All good CMSs are flexible enough to allow you create a great custom website. However, the extent of that flexibility varies greatly. WordPress is the absolute leader because it’s the biggest platform today and it has thousands of plugins and themes that you can use in any combo to create a truly unique website.

Smaller platforms have fewer options of extensions, plugins, and themes. Therefore, it’s essential to determine if the CMS you consider has all the customization tools you need. Bear in mind that having fewer options is not a disadvantage in many cases. Platforms that develop its own extensions are usually more secure and work more smoothly overall as there are fewer issues with plugin incompatibility.

2.      Website type

Depending on your skill and plugins used, you should be able to create any type of website with any good CMS. However, you’ll be best served if you choose a platform designed for your specific needs by default.

For example, WordPress is great for creating simple blogs but can be good for landing pages. However, if you want to make something truly complex and multi-layered, it’ll be best if you create a Joomla website.

3.      SEO

There are two factors to consider when choosing CMS that allows for best SEO. One is the built-in optimization features. See if the system allows you to add and edit meta data by hand.

The other factor is plugins/extensions available for website SEO. Take a look at the options and their features to determine if they would be sufficient for your needs. Don’t forget that your website must be able to scale.

4.      Security

The best CMS must have a good cyber security team that relentlessly works on improving its defenses. Take a look at the system’s updates and be sure to look up any hacking incidents related to it.

Note that a complex CMS with a wide range of third-party tools (plugins, themes, etc.) will be more vulnerable by default. If security is your main concern, go for a platform that develops the majority of its extensions ‘in house’ as this provides for fewer vulnerabilities overall.

5.      Ease of use

If you plan to create and maintain your site yourself, and don’t have any specialized knowledge, the best CMS for you will be the simplest one. However, many systems with a not-so-user-friendly interface incorporate more advanced website building features that allow you to create a complex and unique site. These, however, will require you to spend more time mastering the software at the beginning.

On the other hand, complex CMSs may not allow you to integrate and manage third-party software easily or at all. You also should consider who will work with the website in the future and their level of training.

See Also : How to get high rank on Google for free?

Sum It Up: How to Choose the Best CMS?

To choose the best CMS software you should make a list of your requirements for the website and work from there. Assess every option carefully and choose the one that has features best suited to your needs, instead of picking the most popular one by default.