Benefits of CMS Platforms for ecommerce Web Development Is a content management system the best choice for your business? When building your ecommerce website, you’ll need to determine how your business wants to control your content. One way to do this is a through a content management system, abbreviated as CMS. Content management systems can be used to create and maintain a wide range of websites, from personal blogs to enterprise-level ecommerce sites. Content management systems can also be integrated with your ERP or CRM software. With a variety of CMS platforms available, your B2B or B2C business can find the tool that meets most if not all of your web development needs. But as with any web solution, content management systems have advantages and disadvantages that must be explored before your business makes a decision. Benefits of Content Management Systems for ecommerce A content management system puts you in direct control of your ecommerce content. With intuitive functionality and modules, CMS platforms empower users without extensive programming experience to easily update and modify a website without unintentionally affecting the overall design of a site. With the right customization from designers and developers, you can maintain your website without ever writing a line of code. Many content management systems allow administrators to make changes in real time, decreasing the need to push out an entirely new site build for only minor changes. As a result, your B2B or B2C business can build a robust, personalized, and content-driven site much more quickly. CMS platforms often include functionality for scheduling content and multi-level administrative privileges for different users, allowing you to customize the system based on your editorial calendar and staff roles. User-friendly formatting, with clear fields for meta summaries and titles, makes it easier to optimize content for search engines. With options for multilingual sites available through many platforms, content management systems can also aid you in reaching an international audience. Responsive design features also make it simple to create sites that users can view on any device or screen size. In this way, content management systems increase your ability to reach your full customer base. Disadvantages of Content Management Systems for ecommerce Despite advantages, a content management system may not be the best choice for all companies. If you own a smaller site or do not include content creation in your marketing strategy, a content management system may be unnecessary and could weigh down your site architecture and server resources. Additionally, content management systems do require some initial training, and it’s all too easy for an administrator without proper onboarding to make large, unwanted changes to your site. Time spent on CMS initial set up and on training each new hire could increase your operating costs. Finally, in the ecommerce world, where safeguarding your customers’ sensitive billing and personal information is paramount, using a content management system could pose risks. Since anyone, including hackers, can download free or open-source content management solutions, these types of CMS platforms are particularly susceptible to security breach. You may end up spending valuable time and money on maintenance or security patches for your CMS platform. Types of Content Management Systems With so many options on the market, choosing the right CMS for your company can be challenging. Clarity has performed integrations for the a wide variety of content management systems: WordPress Drupal DNN Joomla Orchard ExpressionEngine Ektron and more! New content management systems are always hitting the market, so we’re constantly adding to this list. Don’t see your preferred CMS here? Let us know! Clarity ecommerce™: A CMS-Independent Solution The Clarity team has years of combined development experience and has worked with numerous types of content management systems. Using our intimate knowledge of CMS web development, we created an ecommerce™ platform that is compatible not only with the most popular platforms on the market, but that can run independently of a CMS. That means regardless of which CMS solution you choose for your business, Clarity can help. Have more questions about choosing a content management system? contact us today!