Content Management System

Programs like Dreamweaver, Front Page, and Contribute are great but they will only get you and your clients so far. Unlike a collection of different HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and image files, a CMS is a database driven system that allows for comprehensive web site management.

 

My CMS of choice is without a doubt Expression Engine (EE). The power and flexibility through the various modules, plugins, and extensions makes EE leaps and bounds better than the competition.

 

Benefits For The Client

A CMS will save you client time and money. Rather than running to a developer every time they want to change a sentence or a graphic, a CMS gives them the power to make these changes on there own.

 

Benefits For The Design Firm

Offering a CMS based site allows you to attract larger and more profitable projects.

 

EE speeds up the development process considerably over trying to make a dynamic website the old way with hand coding. That wastes a lot of time and money. Why not use a system that has all that functionality built in?

 

With a CMS, when that final payment from the client arrives you can pretty much close the book on that project and move on to the next. You might think that losing all that site maintenance work is a bad thing, but making all those small changes breaks up your time and causes your efficiency to suffer.

 

My process:

While a good amount of my clients are located in Raleigh NC, I also work with clients all over the United States. But whether or not your located in Raleigh, my process is the same:

• Start with a Photoshop mockup
• Slice the images into graphics where necessary (some effects I replicate with CSS)
• Code the XHTML/CSS
• Integrate with CMS

Forum thread comparing the major CMS here.

 

 

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