by Coder Geek

Created on: July 15, 2007

So you're thinking about setting up a Content Management System (CMS) to help maintain your website. Not a bad idea, using CMS software will take the responsibility for improving functionality of a website and securing it out of your hands to focus more on the website itself rather than its back-end software.

But how does one go about choosing the right CMS for them? Considering this will be the core of your website, don't paint yourself into a corner. By that I mean don't lock yourself into using a specific operating system or platform. You can do this by investigating what programming language the software is programmed in.

The language the CMS is programmed in will determine where you can run your website. Relocating your website to a new host is an inevitability, regardless of how great you think your web hosting provider is. Prepare for this now rather than panicking later. ASP.NET sounds great, but realistically this limits you to only Windows-based web hosting. Perl sounds great and Ruby on Rails is up and coming, but typically these are only seen on Linux-based web hosting. PHP is a popular programming language, and works on virtually every hosting environment you will encounter as a consumer. So to avoid painting yourself into a corner, try to find a CMS programmed in PHP as it is less likely to tie you to a specific server environment. After all, as you know with computers, what's popular today can be obscure tomorrow.

The good news is that most CMS systems (especially the popular ones) are programmed in PHP. So this search is very easy. Additionally, it isn't hard to learn what language a CMS is programmed in. Generally just look on the system requirements page and if you see PHP listed then you're good.

Now, focus on which specific system you want to use. A common mistake at this step is to choose a system based on its appearances. I've been dealing with Content Management Systems since before they had a name. Here's something to remember; virtually all of today's Content Management Systems come with a robust theming system. A theming system allows you to change the appearance of your website very easily, often with a single click of the mouse! This means you can make any CMS look like virtually any other CMS. So don't focus on appearances.

Instead, focus on functionality. What functionality is essential to your website? A common mistake by novices is to embrace feature creep. Feature creep is when you get distracted by all that you CAN do, and as a

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