Monday, May 3, 2010

How to reduce or eliminate website maintenance payments

Many small to medium sized business are taking advantage of a technology platform referred to as a Content Management System (CMS) to build their company websites. A CMS lets you update your own website with little or no technical knowledge.

There are many CMS systems to choose from starting with open source projects such as Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, DotNetNuke, to proprietary systems which may give you limited flexibility in terms of vendor choices. You can also find high-end systems such as Microsoft's SharePoint for enterprise customers.

Here's a quick one-liner on the various platforms:

* Joomla - Platform is easy to learn, has lot's of templates includinge free or inexpensive extensions. Has a large following and considered to be a fairly robust platform.

* Drupal - Similar to Joomla and offers greater flexibility in terms of customization at the expense of a slightly steeper learning curve.

* WordPress - The darling of blog sites, WordPress has now expanded to become a platform for hosting CMS solutions.

* DotNetNuke - This platform has roots in the Microsoft platform being built from Visual Basic and ASP.NET. It has a rich set of templates and modules, albeit quite expensive.

If you're building a new website or thinking of redesigning an existing one, then make sure you ask your vendor about CMS choices. At the moment, our favourites include Joomla, DotNetNuke, and WordPress.

With a CMS, you'll update your website more frequently, without the hassle of calling up your vendor or signing up for additional maintenance services.

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