How to choose the right CMS: A practical guide

What to expect in a CMS

Here are the table stakes – essential properties and features any credible CMS contender should offer you:

• Core functionality: Think carefully about the core functionalities you need to manage your content right now, but also take a look at what you might need in the future. If the CMS you're considering doesn’t offer what you (will) need, there will be another out there that does. Remember, migrating between systems can eat up cycles and budgets, so it’s always good to plan for 2-3 years when selecting your CMS.
• Ease of use: An intuitive CMS is a good CMS. It should allow non-tech users to manage and customize each page without expert design or programming expertise. Your CMS needs to be as easy as filling out a form – anything more complicated, and you start losing people. Check if the less tech-savvy staff members on your team feel at home in the system – without hours of training.
• Mobile friendliness: Countless studies and statistics already confirm that mobile content consumption outpaces content consumption on the web. According to socPub, 57% of users say they won’t even recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. It’s important that your CMS provides the tools to create an optimal mobile user experience. Mobile-first is the CMS requirement, not mobile-as-an-afterthought.
• Security and access control: Your website's security risks rise with every new user given access to create, manage, edit, and audit content. Granular permissions give website administrators control and flexibility to manage each user's access and keep the site content secure. In addition to this, a CMS will allow you to put a “chain of approvals” in place to manage workflows. This means managers can oversee content edits and submissions before final approval and content are published.
• Analytics integration: Your CMS must allow you to track key metrics and analytics to gain insights into what’s working and what’s not. CMS systems do this either by integrating with analytics tools – such as Google Analytics or Mixpanel – or by providing their analytics engine. The latter can provide an initial convenience for simple sites. However, analytics products are continuously evolving, so avoiding vendor lock-in and freely changing and adopting the latest and greatest tool can offer you significant advantages down the road.
• CMS templates: Easy-to-use templates should allow editors and business users to quickly create and duplicate content as needed. Templates also help ensure a consistent experience for visitors to your site or app, maintaining the integrity and quality of your content and how it is displayed on different devices and browsers.
• Scalability: As your website grows and develops, your CMS must provide tools to accommodate that growth without impacting performance. Scale can mean lots of visitors to your site, adding interactive components dynamic content and storing a ton of data in your CMS. Look for a CMS that has been used by a business bigger than yours for an indication that it can grow as you do.
• Vendor support: Ensure your vendor’s support options are comprehensive enough to meet your needs. Do they have a 24/7 service via phone and email? What’s the response rate like (yes, take 5 minutes and ask a question)? Do your research because this is one area you don’t want to skim over.
• Search functionality: 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, so it’s safe to say that search is a crucial component of any website. However, the search functionality in content management systems is often subpar. To ensure that your CMS offers an optimal search function, check that the search engine regularly indexes your website – especially if you’re updating content quite a lot. It’s also beneficial to limit the scope of the search function within various sections of your website or refine the search results once they've been returned. In terms of ranking, you need to know how the search engine determines the ranking of the results. Can they be customized, and can you control how the results are displayed? These are things that you need to have control over.
• User interaction: To collect user feedback, you’ll need this functionality or a third-party service to provide it in your CMS. Similarly, if you want to create a community on your site, you’ll need additional functionality for chat forums and comments. At the very least, you’ll require the ability to post forms and collect responses.
• Versioning This is a really useful (arguably essential) feature of any CMS, as it allows you to revert to a previous version of a page if something is posted in error. More than just a simple “undo” of the last change, look for a CMS that allows you to roll back to a specific date or a defined state.

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The CMS market is saturated with multiple vendors offering unique features and benefits. Finding the right one can take trial and error (and patience!), but investing in proper research upfront will save you time and money.

The key is to identify the core functionality and features that you really need and not get blinded by the flashy nice-to-haves that you might never need to use. Follow this checklist, and you’ll be well on your way to the perfect CMS for you.