How to Choose the Best CMS Architecture for Your Business

On various content management systems, you may find yourself with more confusion than clarity. This is because each business is unique and each business needs are different. Making the right architecture decision for your business will play a crucial role in future success.

Regardless of how great your content is, if you have the wrong CMS, your content won’t make even an ounce of impact on your customers.

Ultimately, your decision matters – CMS architecture for your business makes a lot of difference. But, how do you decide which content management system will work best for your business?

In this definitive guide to choosing the best architecture, we have decided to cut through all the noise to give you precise information that’ll help you make the right decision for your business.

How to choose the Best CMS Architecture

The worldwide CMS application market is projected to grow to $43 billion by the end of 2021. And 38% of the top 1 million sites run on WordPress CMS, making it the most popular technology in this category.

Many businesses are stagnating simply because their CMS cannot keep pace with their business ambitions. Moreover, the fact that you can’t change from one system to the other at the push of a button makes the decision all the more crucial.

Consider these 4 factors when choosing the right CMS architecture for your business.

1. Organizational Needs

Start your decision-making process by giving a good thought to your organizational needs. Remember that the CMS you choose will impact the content marketing team, development team to work out the technical aspects of the system, and other cross-functional teams.

While assessing the needs of various departments, make sure you weigh on factors such as:

Customization:

Your CMS of choice might have great personalization options, but remember that these features don’t implement themselves. Look for a CMS that offers easy customization for the entire marketing team so that you don’t have to rely on developers for getting the work done for you.

Ease of Use: 

Businesses, in their eagerness to pick the perfect features for their site, sometimes overlook ease of use. What difference do great features make when you can’t use them?

You should choose a system that makes the back-end experience easier for both content editors and admins. It will be helpful if the CMS decision keeps both the needs of the IT department and the end-users insight.

Technical Complexity: 

Your focus should be on running your business and not on managing the technology. Choose a content management system that allows your teams to seamlessly launch campaigns and increase sales instead of managing the CMS.

Make sure your dependence on developers is minimal and that they don’t control your business moves.

Scalability: 

This is a no-brainer. You should choose a system that can grow along with your business, allowing your business to grow. Of course, the hosting platform also plays a significant role here.

If not right now, there will come a time when you might be dealing with content in the form of AR/VR, digital assistants, and more. So, a CMS solution capable of scaling up will be a better choice in the long run.

APIs and Integration: 

You should also consider whether your website needs to integrate with third-party tools. Your website might require integration with different apps and microservices for managing the website.  

A good CMS should come with solid APIs and allow you to integrate your system with third-party microservices tools easily.

2. Traditional vs Headless CMS

These are the two most popular forms of CMS everyone is raving about. Choose the traditional CMS when all you are looking for is an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface. It comes with a set of easily downloadable templates and themes and is ideally suited to serve the needs of personal websites and small businesses. It offers an out-of-the-box publishing convenience to users and requires absolutely no coding knowledge to set up.

A headless CMS separates the front-end or the visual end of the website from the back-end content management system. Choose headless CMS if you are looking for a highly complex UI- lots of charts, visuals, and interactive features. It can streamline workflow between developers, content managers, and marketing teams. It offers enhanced security, scalability and is cost-effective too.

3. Hosting

Hosting is another factor to consider when choosing a CMS for your business. You can host the CMS in three ways – Self-hosted, Cloud-hosted, and SaaS.

A self-hosted solution means having the CMS on web servers controlled by you. It gives you the most control over the system, customization capability, and improved security. However, if you don’t have the technical knowledge or the basic infrastructure, choosing self-hosted CMS might not be the right choice.

On the other hand, Cloud-hosted gives businesses the ability to control security updates, performance monitoring, and backups while providing development options separately.

SaaS hosting services can take away much of the control you’d otherwise have in the content management process. You might have restricted control over the code that runs the CMS. Essential aspects such as security, hosting, and performance might not be in your control, but SaaS can provide faster implementation, reduce costs, and demand less technical expertise. It is best suited for small businesses that are just starting.

4. Support

After everything is said and done, a CMS is only as powerful as you allow it to be. So, give your designers and developers freedom to work and learn. Be aware of new features and developments that are hitting the market. Be wary of any new challenges and threats.

You might also consider looking up an experienced team of developers and experts to handle the technical side of the business for you. These options only work if you have the correct business roadmap ahead of you and are willing to address any challenges, issues, or even critical threats.

Wrapping Up

Let’s reiterate that there’s no perfect CMS and there’s no single solution that suits all businesses. Choosing a CMS for your business might be a daunting task – it might pay you dividends in the long run or cost you dearly. Either way, you should choose a CMS that doesn’t rely too heavily on the developer’s expertise, is scalable, supports SEO and marketing, and is a tested solution.