How to: Pick a content management platform image

Pick a content management platform

To create a loyal following, your brand needs a website that conveys your company’s personality, has quality content that entices visitors to come back, but more importantly, offers a unique and interactive experience for customers.

WP Engine’s recent CMO survey revealed 89 per cent of senior marketing decision makers recognise the importance of using digital platforms to achieve both marketing and business objectives. So, when choosing a content management system (CMS) it’s important marketers consider a platform that not only resembles their brand externally, but is flexible, fast, secure and easy to use. By doing so, brands are able to provide the exceptional experience customers demand when accessing their website.

But, in an online world full of choice, what are the five key features marketers need to address when weighing up which content management platform to choose?

1. Surpass experience expectations with speed

Page speed of a website can either make or break the user experience. According to recent studies, 47 per cent of customers expect to wait no longer than two seconds for a web page to load. After that, tolerance wears thin – 40 per cent of visitors abandon a web page if it doesn’t load in less than three seconds.

Faster sites also get an SEO boost. Google will penalise a page’s search rankings if there’s any indication of poor user experience, including slow page load time. That said, the CMS you choose will have a major impact on website speed so it’s important your CMS is designed to deliver lightning fast results, with these common website speed issues in mind.

2. Use a simple system to deliver personalised content  

It has never been more important for brands to have a voice and engage with customers, particularly online, to deliver an exceptional experience. By doing so, brands can breed loyal advocates who’ll ultimately contribute to the company’s bottom line. This need for engagement has therefore led marketers to effectively become publishers.

But marketers need to make time for both creating and publishing content, while juggling numerous other responsibilities. An easy-to-use CMS, therefore, is crucial to speeding up the publishing process.

By choosing a simple CMS that has a user-friendly interface, you can give employees of your choice access to create and publish content. This removes reliance on one technical individual with the relevant expertise, allowing almost anybody in the company to use the system with minimal training. The wider marketing team can therefore use the platform to ensure content is updated and fresh, ultimately making it attractive for new and returning visitors. It’s also beneficial to use a platform that allows for the creation of unique formats for content, such as the integration of video and imagery, which help retain user attention.

3. Achieve flexibility with new features

Businesses often believe that with out-of-the-box solutions comes no personalisation. However, thanks to the vast developer communities that now exist there are a range of plug-ins available, which offer businesses the flexibility to rearrange their CMS and allow for integration with existing legacy systems.

The best content management systems have a library of plug-ins, which brands can integrate into their existing systems, ultimately providing a solution for every brands’ need. For example, if you want a 24/7 live chat system into your website, there’s a plethora of plug-ins for that. What’s better is that many of these plug-ins are open source and freely available, removing any budget constraints.

4. Attract more customers with scalability

Being able to scale a website to cope with additional traffic during a specific time period is a feature that all marketers must consider when choosing an appropriate CMS. There will always be fluctuating traffic levels, depending on the time of day or month, and brands must be able to provide customers with a reliable website 24/7, or risk losing them forever.

5. Keep content and customers safe with security

More often than not, daily headlines reveal a new website has been hacked. Past hacks, such as the Ashley Madison fiasco, have proved a security breach can be hugely damaging to not only the company’s brand, but also to their bottom line. Thus, for agencies and marketers responsible for a brand’s website, the pressure to implement a secure CMS has never been higher.

The key is to find a CMS that offers a complete security package, protecting all web projects while integrating with existing security systems. With security being top of the agenda, the majority of platforms offer it, however businesses do need to ensure they are installing updates that fix any known vulnerabilities. There’s a growing number of specific security plug-ins and services available, such as two-factor authentication, for an extra layer of protection.

For many companies, the website acts as the most important extension of the business as a whole, while for others the website is the entire business. The right CMS platform allows small businesses to think and operate like big businesses, and gives big businesses the ability to be agile and flexible like their smaller counterparts. Through making a website personal, secure, scalable and easy to navigate, marketers have a great engagement point to customers, helping develop brand loyalty and drive company sales. 

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