Web Content Management System

yhicsf · 08-22-2008, 11:07 AM

Hi

I developed many websites and make a living off two, where lawyers pay to list their firm as advertisement, and a third for my real estate investing career (my main career)

I was looking to start a web design company as many people have asked me to do a website for them in the past, but I've declined.

The main reason was I didn't want to have to be constantly maintaing sites for other people.

But I think maybe a content management system or a web cms, at that may be the answer to that problem.

Firstly, do I understand correctly when I think a cms can be deployed on an existing website built using dreamweaver, that would then allow non-technical users (the people I design sites for) to access the cms and make changes to the website?

For example, could I install a cms on my already existing website, yourhouseintocash.com and have it look exactly thesame as it does now, but let someone, or even me have the ability to make changes to the site without using/knowing dreamweaver or another program similiar to dreamweaver?

Secondly, if my thinking is correct, can anyone recommend a good web cms that would suit my purposes and doesn't take a rocket scientist with 3 phds to figure out how to install, and use?

I think opencms.org looks pretty good (and like it would suit my purpose) but the support and instructions on setting it up are written for geniuses and therefore completely 100% useless to me.

Lastly, if my thinking on a cms is not quite correct, can someone recommend something that would suit my purpose? IE, allowing non technical people to make changes to their site after I've designed it for them in dreamweaver.

Thank you so much!

Indian_Webmaster · 08-26-2008, 12:19 AM

I think CMS is a better choice mate.
CMS is a best way to allow non technical people to make changes to their site

I have used Kentico CMS for ASP.Net in past and you can almost do anything with this software but it is not open source

nancy123 · 10-23-2008, 12:24 AM

hello dear, you have come on to right decision of converting your site to cms so that one can make changes easily. Keep it up.

Boogle · 10-23-2008, 02:14 AM

Are you guys trying to say that you can just 'plug' a CMS onto a site that's already built?

Never heard of that before?

Boog's

merovinq · 10-23-2008, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boogle

Are you guys trying to say that you can just 'plug' a CMS onto a site that's already built?

Never heard of that before?

Boog's

No you will have to transfer the old content to the new CMS

jumanji456 · 10-24-2008, 05:23 AM

hi

I think you can use joomla or wordpress for this. both are easy to handle.

thanks

Sean@WMS · 10-24-2008, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jumanji456

hi

I think you can use joomla or wordpress for this. both are easy to handle.

thanks

Joomla, yes; WordPress, not so much -- wouldn't recommend it as a CMS, though it's excellent for it's purpose: blogging.

Sean@WMS · 10-24-2008, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yhicsf

I was looking to start a web design company as many people have asked me to do a website for them in the past, but I've declined.

The main reason was I didn't want to have to be constantly maintaing sites for other people.

But I think maybe a content management system or a web cms, at that may be the answer to that problem.

Yes indeed! You are absolutely correct here -- both with CMS as the solution and the fact that you really probably don't want to get bogged down maintaining all kinds of content of client sites; very tedious. Offer the CMS solution and weed it down to those who are just dying to pay a premium to have you manage their content.

Quote:

Firstly, do I understand correctly when I think a cms can be deployed on an existing website built using dreamweaver, that would then allow non-technical users (the people I design sites for) to access the cms and make changes to the website?

I'd say you are about half understanding correctly. Yes, you can deploy on an existing site, but you will have to work the look of that site into the CMS application, and yes, your clients will have a web-based back end where they can easily manage just about everything about the site.

Quote:

For example, could I install a cms on my already existing website, yourhouseintocash.com and have it look exactly thesame as it does now

Not without some work.

Quote:

but let someone, or even me have the ability to make changes to the site without using/knowing dreamweaver or another program similiar to dreamweaver?

Yes, but even easier than that

Quote:

Secondly, if my thinking is correct, can anyone recommend a good web cms that would suit my purposes and doesn't take a rocket scientist with 3 phds to figure out how to install, and use?

Joomla's great for folks in a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) environment; DotNetNuke is great for folks in a Windows server (ASP.NET/MS SQL) environment. Both are free and open source.

Gayana · 11-03-2008, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yhicsf

Hi

I developed many websites and make a living off two, where lawyers pay to list their firm as advertisement, and a third for my real estate investing career (my main career)

I was looking to start a web design company as many people have asked me to do a website for them in the past, but I've declined.

The main reason was I didn't want to have to be constantly maintaing sites for other people.

But I think maybe a content management system or a web cms, at that may be the answer to that problem.

Firstly, do I understand correctly when I think a cms can be deployed on an existing website built using dreamweaver, that would then allow non-technical users (the people I design sites for) to access the cms and make changes to the website?

For example, could I install a cms on my already existing website, yourhouseintocash.com and have it look exactly thesame as it does now, but let someone, or even me have the ability to make changes to the site without using/knowing dreamweaver or another program similiar to dreamweaver?

Secondly, if my thinking is correct, can anyone recommend a good web cms that would suit my purposes and doesn't take a rocket scientist with 3 phds to figure out how to install, and use?

I think opencms.org looks pretty good (and like it would suit my purpose) but the support and instructions on setting it up are written for geniuses and therefore completely 100% useless to me.

Lastly, if my thinking on a cms is not quite correct, can someone recommend something that would suit my purpose? IE, allowing non technical people to make changes to their site after I've designed it for them in dreamweaver.

Thank you so much!

CMS is good. OpenCMS is fine. But recently they talk a lot about Joomla! Try out that one. A lot of handy plugins and tools included.

FGTH · 11-05-2008, 01:49 PM

Maintenance is a service and as such it can be a steady and reliable form of revenue for you. I suggest offering clients service options as an on-demand service (pay per request) or on-retainer (x hours per month for $y). If you don't have the hr capital to support this business model, you can partner with other firms or establish a network of freelancers who would do this for your clients.

Regarding CMS, include one only if the project requires it (the client asks for one).