If you’ve never used a Content Management System before, you may not be familiar with just how neat they are. We’ve put together a quick tour with lots of screenshots and explanations to get you “behind the screens“ to see how a CMS-run website really works.

We’ll admit, we’re happy to get a chance to show off both Astek’s beautiful new website and our killer CMS – Webany. But more than a chance to strut our stuff, we hope you find this a valuable tutorial in how user-friendly a robust and flexible custom CMS system can be.

EASY UPDATES WITH RICH TEXT BOXES
For the most part, the ”content“ handled in a content management system consists of text, images and files (like downloadable PDFs). Most CMSs, including Webany, allow you to make changes to content using rich text boxes – (sometimes referred to as a WYSIWYGs – what you see is what you get).

Here is an example of a Webany rich text box:

The reason they are called ”rich“ text boxes is because they allow you to have text with ”rich“ formating like bold, underline, hyperlinks, etc., using buttons much like you would find in Microsoft Word.

Webany can combine several rich text boxes to handle a web page with multiple content areas. Webany automatically formats the content from each rich text box with the color, font and size from your website design. This way, the person making updates to the content does not have to know any website programming.

EVEN EASIER UPDATES WITH LIST DRIVEN CONTENT
Where you see the real power of a CMS, and gain the most efficiency in your updates, is when you start using ”list driven“ content. This means that you upload information into one spot in the CMS and it populates that content to multiple places on the website. This is especially useful for information like staff biographies where you have a ”list“ of people for whom you’d like to display similar information. For example, on Astek’s biography pages we show:

• Photo
• Name
• Title
• Link to Email
• Link to Facebook Profile (if applicable)
• Link to Twitter Page (if applicable)
• Link to LinkedIn Profile (if applicable)
• Funny Quote
• Biography

We also have a ”People“ page on the site that lists all of our staff. That page shows an abbreviated version of this information for each staff member.

One list item generates the content for both of these pages.

You might notice that we use Andrew’s name 3 different times between those 2 pages, and each use has a slightly different font treatment. Webany makes all of these font adjustments behind the scenes ensuring a consistent, professional look with minimum effort on the part of the person making the updates. If Andrew decided to start going by Andy, a quick change in one field in Webany would populate the change throughout the site.

Content management systems can make a complex website easy to manage, but not all CMSs are created equal. We absolutely suggest you ”test drive“ any CMS you are planning to purchase. If your company is considering converting to a CMS we hope you will contact Astek to take Webany for a spin.

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter | Other ePiphany Articles

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Katie Hawkey Categories: How To, Technology, Web