IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I am James Williamson.
| | 00:05 | Welcome to CMS Fundamentals.
| | 00:08 | This course is designed to
introduce anyone interested in using content
| | 00:11 | management systems to the fundamental
concepts and terminology behind what has
| | 00:16 | become the driving force for so many web sites.
| | 00:19 | First, we'll discuss just what a CMS is,
what types of CMSs are available, and
| | 00:24 | how to determine if using one is right for you.
| | 00:27 | Next, we'll explore some of the
terms and concepts that you're likely to
| | 00:31 | encounter when using a CMS.
| | 00:32 | I am also going to showcase a few of
the more popular CMSs and look at a little
| | 00:37 | deeper into platforms like Drupal
Joomla! and WordPress, and will give you a
| | 00:42 | few things that you should consider
when choosing a CMS for your own projects.
| | 00:46 | Finally, I'll discuss some best
practices involved in utilizing content
| | 00:50 | management systems and how to make sure that
you're using them to their fullest potential.
| | 00:55 | With all that in mind, let's
start exploring the world of content
| | 00:58 | management systems.
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| What CMS means for this course| 00:00 | As I am sure you would expect,
throughout this course I'll be referring to
| | 00:04 | content management systems, or CMS for short.
| | 00:08 | Content management is a bit of a
loaded term, and it's used in many systems and
| | 00:13 | many processes all over the world.
| | 00:15 | In fact, there are multiple
types of content management systems,
| | 00:19 | so to avoid causing any confusion over
that term, I want to clarify what CMS
| | 00:24 | will mean for this title.
| | 00:26 | A content management system can refer
to any process or system that allows an
| | 00:31 | individual or an organization to manage content.
| | 00:34 | These systems can be online or offline,
open source or proprietary, and focus on
| | 00:40 | a single content type or manage a
range of different types of content.
| | 00:44 | It's not uncommon to encounter the
term CMS across multiple industries or
| | 00:48 | disciplines, even if they're
referring to entirely different processes.
| | 00:52 | That's why I think it's helpful to understand
at the outset the narrow focus of this title.
| | 00:58 | Many CMSs are proprietary and are very
powerful enterprise-level systems that
| | 01:03 | are designed to manage content for
large organizations, across multiple media
| | 01:07 | types and distribution channels.
| | 01:10 | Our focus will be on the smaller,
often open-source CMSs that are primarily
| | 01:16 | focused on managing web sites and their content.
| | 01:19 | These are sometimes referred to as
web content management or WCM systems.
| | 01:25 | Although that term is probably more
accurate, most web designers and developers
| | 01:29 | simply refer to these solutions as a CMS.
| | 01:33 | Because the term is so widely used
across industry, it's the term I am going
| | 01:36 | to use for this title.
| | 01:38 | Just keep in mind that we're exploring a
very specific segment of the CMS world.
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|
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1. CMS BasicsWhat is a CMS?| 00:00 | So what exactly is a content management system?
| | 00:03 | Well, in terms of web-based content
management, it's usually defined as
| | 00:07 | server-side software that is
designed to simplify the creation and
| | 00:10 | maintenance of sites.
| | 00:12 | It does this by managing online
content, generating web pages, and allowing
| | 00:17 | users to upload and change content
without requiring technical expertise.
| | 00:22 | To help illustrate this, let's examine
the basic functionality of most CMSs.
| | 00:26 | We'll start with the content itself.
| | 00:29 | Content is typically
stored in some type of database.
| | 00:33 | This allows it to be reused,
repurposed, and published wherever needed.
| | 00:37 | The CMS typically has an administration
area that allows you to input, upload,
| | 00:42 | or edit your content as needed.
| | 00:44 | In most content management systems,
this admin area is accessible through any
| | 00:48 | browser, meaning that instead of having
to install client software, you can work
| | 00:53 | on your site anywhere that
you have an Internet connection.
| | 00:56 | Now if all that CMS did was to collect
content and store it in a database, it
| | 01:00 | wouldn't be that useful.
| | 01:02 | It's what a CMS could do with that
content that makes it really valuable.
| | 01:06 | A CMS will use its internal framework
to build a site around your content.
| | 01:11 | This is typically done by creating
pages by adding content to a series of
| | 01:14 | templates based on the site's specific needs.
| | 01:17 | Of course, there's a great deal of
variation in how different CMSs handle this step.
| | 01:22 | Many of them have pre-built templates
that you can use right out of the box,
| | 01:26 | whereas others require you to
design much, if not all, of the page
| | 01:29 | structure yourself.
| | 01:31 | Most offer varying degrees of control,
allowing you to use pre-built templates
| | 01:35 | and themes if you would like, or
allowing you to make your own if you so desire.
| | 01:40 | It's worth mentioning here that the CMS
will also handle adding site navigation
| | 01:44 | and may even be capable of automating
the process of building complex internal
| | 01:49 | applications like blogs and message boards.
| | 01:51 | As you can imagine, there's a
lot to gain from this approach.
| | 01:55 | Organizing content, building
databases, and managing that content are all
| | 02:00 | handled automatically.
| | 02:01 | CMSs also allow experienced
designers to dramatically speed up the time
| | 02:05 | required to develop sites.
| | 02:07 | Designers can build complex sites in a
fraction of the time it would normally
| | 02:11 | take them, and even allow them to build
sites with advanced functionality that
| | 02:14 | might be beyond their normal capabilities.
| | 02:17 | Another advantage to using CMS is the
ability it gives non-technical people to
| | 02:22 | create or update content.
| | 02:25 | This means a designer can use a CMS to
build the site and then train the client
| | 02:30 | to maintain and update that site on their own.
| | 02:32 | That sounds great, doesn't it?
| | 02:34 | Of course, a CMS is not right
for every site or every situation.
| | 02:38 | Later in this title, we'll focus on
both the pros and the cons of content
| | 02:42 | management systems and how to determine
if they are the right tool for the job.
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| The evolution of CMSs| 00:00 | I usually find that I understand
technology a bit better if I understand the
| | 00:03 | background behind its development.
| | 00:05 | It helps me get a handle on the
underlying technology, how it's evolved, and the
| | 00:09 | motivations behind its creation.
| | 00:11 | For example, when people discuss web-
based content management, they often talk
| | 00:16 | about things like the desire for the
separation of content structure and the
| | 00:20 | success of bringing web
publishing to non-technical users.
| | 00:23 | While both of these goals are admirable,
they're actually byproducts of the very
| | 00:27 | organic growth of online content management.
| | 00:30 | As one would expect, web content
management systems can trace their origins to
| | 00:34 | traditional content management systems,
specifically those that serve the print industry.
| | 00:40 | By the mid '90s many CMSs had sprung
up to assist large printing houses and
| | 00:45 | corporations in managing and
assembling documents from stored content.
| | 00:49 | As web sites and the content within
them became more complex, it stands to
| | 00:53 | reason that the people behind these
sites would begin the search for a similar
| | 00:57 | way to manage their online content.
| | 00:59 | At this time, the Internet was
changing in a fundamental way from what was
| | 01:03 | largely a collection of static web
sites to a growing number of dynamic sites
| | 01:08 | that stored information in databases
and updated content on a daily basis.
| | 01:13 | This change created the need for a
more sophisticated content solution,
| | 01:17 | especially for larger sites.
| | 01:18 | Now although Microsoft and Lotus both
have products that allow users to manage
| | 01:23 | online content, nothing really
existed in the way of today's CMSs.
| | 01:28 | In the mid '90s, the founders of
CNET needed a better way to control the
| | 01:32 | publishing and content management of
their wildly successful technology news site.
| | 01:37 | Inspired by advances in the
publishing field, they built a system that used
| | 01:41 | templates to assemble pages
from a relational database.
| | 01:44 | It also contained features like the
ability to personalize the resulting sites
| | 01:48 | and repurpose site content.
| | 01:50 | They name their system
Presentation of Real-Time Interactive Service
| | 01:54 | Material, or PRISM for short.
| | 01:56 | It not only made creating and
maintaining the CNET site much easier;
| | 02:00 | it attracted the attention of Vignette,
a software services company that was
| | 02:04 | attempting to develop a similar system.
| | 02:07 | Vignette purchased PRISM from CNET,
merged it with their system, and released it
| | 02:11 | as StoryServer, making it one of, if not
the first, online content management tool
| | 02:16 | to enter the marketplace.
| | 02:18 | The remainder of the '90s saw an
explosion of proprietary content management
| | 02:22 | systems that soon produce
a very crowded marketplace.
| | 02:25 | Although feature sets varied, one
of the things that the majority of these
| | 02:29 | systems have in common was
their proprietary nature.
| | 02:32 | Clients had to pay for the system and
typically had it customized to fit their needs.
| | 02:38 | For the most part CMS sites were
limited to the larger, enterprise-level clients
| | 02:42 | that could afford such services.
| | 02:44 | Around 2000 the growing popularity of
the LAMP Stack offered an opportunity
| | 02:49 | to change all of that.
| | 02:51 | LAMP is an acronym that stands
for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP,
| | 02:55 | products that when combined allowed
individuals to create powerful general
| | 02:59 | purpose web servers.
| | 03:01 | These free open-source programs
revolutionized many industries and resulted
| | 03:06 | in an explosion of hosting companies, open-
source software, and do-it-yourself solutions.
| | 03:11 | The CMS marketplace was directly
affected by this development with the release
| | 03:16 | of products like Drupal in
2001 and Joomla! in 2005.
| | 03:20 | These free open-source CMSs offered an
alternative to the growing commercial
| | 03:25 | field and quickly developed a large
support community that continues to improve
| | 03:29 | and extend those platforms.
| | 03:31 | At the same time, other CMSs were
revolving as well, usually as a result of
| | 03:36 | maturing online markets, products
like WordPress, MovableType, and
| | 03:40 | ExpressionEngine evolved out of
the blogging community and have gone onto
| | 03:44 | become powerful CMSs in their own right.
| | 03:46 | Solutions now range from free open-
source platforms to extremely customized
| | 03:51 | enterprise-level solutions with an
amazing range of features, capabilities
| | 03:55 | and subject matter focus in between.
| | 03:58 | Although the phrase gets used a lot,
there really is something for everyone in
| | 04:01 | the world of content management systems.
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| CMS types| 00:00 | In this movie, I want to take a moment
to discuss some of the different types of
| | 00:03 | CMSs that you might consider.
| | 00:06 | I don't want to break down
specific CMSs just yet,
| | 00:09 | just the different types you're
going to encounter along the way.
| | 00:12 | Believe or not, this was actually
a pretty hard section to write.
| | 00:15 | There are literally
hundreds of CMSs on the market,
| | 00:18 | and trying to pin them down within
a single category set is difficult.
| | 00:21 | You could do it by server type, industry focus,
feature sets, functionality, code bases;
| | 00:27 | all of these offer an
amazing array of possibilities.
| | 00:30 | Later in this title, I'll focus on
solution types that you might want to consider
| | 00:33 | when choosing a CMS.
| | 00:34 | So in this movie I want to start by
categorizing CMSs by types that focus on
| | 00:40 | either a specific industry or content type.
| | 00:43 | Most of the time, you can narrow a
search for a CMS by first choosing a solution
| | 00:48 | type and then looking at CMSs that
specialize in your area of focus.
| | 00:52 | Now before we start talking about the
different types of CMSs, I want to first
| | 00:56 | discuss enterprise content management systems.
| | 00:58 | Although enterprise CMSs are a bit
outside the scope of this course, I think any
| | 01:03 | characterization of CMSs has to start here.
| | 01:06 | An enterprise CMS is a robust, scalable
solution that usually contains a host of
| | 01:12 | services, including business logic,
analytics, and content services.
| | 01:17 | In many cases, a web content
management system is a part of the
| | 01:21 | overall enterprise system.
| | 01:23 | These solutions are typically used
for large organizations with complex
| | 01:27 | document and content needs.
| | 01:29 | If that sounds like you,
| | 01:30 | you may want to focus on finding
a development partner to tailor an
| | 01:33 | enterprise-level solution
specifically for your needs.
| | 01:36 | Now, probably the best place to start
when categorizing CMS types is to start
| | 01:42 | what I call the general purpose/portal CMSs.
| | 01:46 | These CMSs don't have a specific area
of focus per se, but are designed more
| | 01:50 | to give you control over site architecture,
content publishing, and site administration.
| | 01:55 | As a general rule, these CMSs are
extensible, allowing you to add blogs,
| | 01:59 | e-commerce, calendars, and other sorts
of advanced functionality to your sites.
| | 02:04 | Popular Portal CMSs or Drupal,
Joomla!, MODx, CMS Made Simple, and TYPO3.
| | 02:11 | Blogging software has evolved so much
over last 10 years that the majority of
| | 02:14 | blogging platforms can rightly be
categorized as content management systems.
| | 02:19 | Because of how these systems evolved,
they feature an emphasis on publishing
| | 02:23 | and reusing content,
| | 02:24 | and often feature a blog as a central focus
of the site--or at least the initial focus.
| | 02:30 | Popular blogging CMSs include WordPress,
Textpattern, ExpressionEngine, and MovableType.
| | 02:37 | An increasing amount of CMSs are being
built to target the field of e-learning.
| | 02:41 | Some of these systems evolve from
existing learning management systems while
| | 02:45 | others were initially based off of
popular blogging or general purpose CMSs.
| | 02:49 | Because they target the education segment,
many of these have built-in modules for
| | 02:53 | curriculums, quizzes, SCORM
compliancy, and have content modules built around
| | 02:58 | learning objectives or educational content.
| | 03:01 | This allows many of these systems to
manage a wider range of content than most CMSs.
| | 03:07 | Most will allow you to manage PDFs,
Word documents, images, video, and audio
| | 03:12 | all as content types.
| | 03:14 | Some of the more popular e-learning CMSs are
Moodle, ATutor, Dokeos, Dot Learn, and Docebo.
| | 03:21 | E-commerce CMSs are an interesting breed.
| | 03:24 | Many are not full CMSs at all;
| | 03:26 | they're really applications built
specifically to create and manage online
| | 03:29 | shopping carts or e-commerce sites.
| | 03:32 | This means that usually there used in
conjunction with other CMSs or as part as
| | 03:37 | an overall site solution.
| | 03:38 | As you would expect, they focus almost
exclusively on the very complicated and
| | 03:43 | sensitive nature of online commerce.
| | 03:46 | These solutions allow you to manage
your products, build shopping carts, and
| | 03:49 | most feature multiple ways to
handle billing and securing transactions.
| | 03:53 | Magento, Cubecart, PrestaShop, Zen
Cart, and OpenCart are some of the more
| | 03:57 | well-known e-commerce solutions.
| | 04:00 | I also want to point out here that
many of the existing CMSs have e-commerce
| | 04:04 | modules, extensions, or plug-ins that
add most, if not all, of these features to
| | 04:09 | existing installations.
| | 04:11 | A much smaller group of CMSs allow
you to create fully-featured Wikis.
| | 04:15 | By now I am sure you're familiar
with Wikipedia or any number of the very
| | 04:19 | popular Wiki's online.
| | 04:21 | Wikis are unique in that in
addition to serving as a repository for
| | 04:25 | information or content, these
collaborative sites allow users to contribute or
| | 04:29 | modify content as well, as several
CMSs have evolved that focus primarily on
| | 04:34 | creating these Wikis.
| | 04:35 | Tiki Wiki, DokuWiki, MediaWiki,
and PmWiki are all popular Wiki-creation
| | 04:41 | and management tools.
| | 04:43 | Finally, I want to discuss a relatively new
type of CMS, the social media focused CMS.
| | 04:49 | These systems allow you to create
online communities, manage user profiles, tie
| | 04:53 | in to existing social networks,
and add features such as instant messaging and
| | 04:57 | content uploading to your sites.
| | 04:59 | The term CMS is used a bit
loosely with most of these solutions;
| | 05:03 | however, content management is at
the core of much of what they do.
| | 05:07 | Probably more so than the previous
examples, these solutions tend to be a bit
| | 05:11 | more specialized within their category.
| | 05:13 | BoonEx Dolphin, Elgg, Rays, and phpFox
are popular examples of social media CMSs.
| | 05:21 | Now I am guessing that if you've had
any experience with CMSs at all, at some
| | 05:25 | point in this movie you've said, "Hey!
| | 05:26 | WordPress is more than just a
blogging platform," or "You can build powerful
| | 05:30 | e-learning sites with Joomla."
| | 05:31 | Well, this is simply
underscores the difficulty in categorizing
| | 05:35 | content management systems.
| | 05:37 | Most platforms have evolved to the point
that they're extremely flexible and can
| | 05:41 | be used for a variety of purposes.
| | 05:43 | Most platforms feature extensions, plug-
ins, and modules that help add even more
| | 05:47 | functionality to the mix.
| | 05:49 | This means that although you have an
amazing array of choices available to you
| | 05:52 | when choosing a CMS, separating the
signal from the noise can be a bit tiring.
| | 05:58 | So a little bit later on this title,
we're going to discuss some of the things
| | 06:01 | you should consider when choosing
a CMS and give you some additional
| | 06:04 | resources for doing so.
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| Basic CMS capabilities| 00:00 | One of the best ways to understand
how a CMS works is to explore the
| | 00:04 | basic capabilities that most of these systems
share, and how they fit into typical workflows.
| | 00:09 | This will give you a good idea of how
using a CMS might fit into your projects or
| | 00:14 | within your organization.
| | 00:15 | First, let's start with an
overview of a typical CMS workflow.
| | 00:20 | Content creators, editors,
and publishers access the CMS through a client, which
| | 00:25 | is usually browser based.
| | 00:27 | Content is entered into the CMS,
edited, approved, and published based on
| | 00:32 | organizational workflow.
| | 00:34 | This could range from a full team with
various roles to a single individual.
| | 00:38 | The content is in store within a
relational database, and categories and
| | 00:42 | metadata are used to help the CMS
understand the content's relevance.
| | 00:47 | Once it's approved, the content is then
added to the site based on its category
| | 00:51 | or the role that's been assigned to it.
| | 00:54 | To assemble pages, the CMS uses templates,
published content, and any modules such
| | 00:59 | as calendars, polls, and forms that
have been associated with specific pages.
| | 01:04 | Site navigation is typically built
dynamically as pages are added based on content.
| | 01:10 | That's the basic process of most CMSs.
| | 01:12 | Let's take a closer look at some of
the more common CMS capabilities and how
| | 01:17 | they might differ from one CMS to another.
| | 01:20 | Delegation is the ability to create
multiple user groups and assign privileges
| | 01:24 | based on group types.
| | 01:26 | Controls vary from allowing you
to set up complex group permissions
| | 01:29 | containing authors, editors,
administrators, and publishers, to only allowing
| | 01:34 | one or two privilege levels.
| | 01:36 | Almost all CMSs allow you to
limit privileges to some degree,
| | 01:40 | so it's important to find one that has a
group structure that fits your organization.
| | 01:45 | Some CMSs also allow you to control
the approval process through managed
| | 01:49 | workflows that define the
process of authoring, reviewing, and
| | 01:53 | publishing content.
| | 01:55 | Content editing is typically handled
through forms, or a WYSIWYG, or What You See
| | 01:59 | Is What You Get, editor.
| | 02:01 | Most WYSIWYG editors resemble word processors
and allow you to format text in a similar fashion.
| | 02:07 | Some CMSs allow in-line editing
which allows users to edit the content
| | 02:11 | directly on the page itself.
| | 02:13 | And this option is particularly
useful for non-technical users needing to
| | 02:17 | make quick changes.
| | 02:19 | How the CMS structures the content
is a vital part of its functionality.
| | 02:23 | Most systems will have an initial
structure of sections and categories.
| | 02:28 | In publishing terms, you can think
of sections as pages and categories as
| | 02:33 | identifying tags that
explain the content's relevance.
| | 02:36 | Many CMSs allow you to create section
in category hierarchies allow you to
| | 02:40 | extend the basic content
structure into a more complex model.
| | 02:44 | Others limit you to a flat structure or
limit the amount of categories you can
| | 02:48 | use per unit of content.
| | 02:50 | Although they often have different
names based on the CMS you choose, templates
| | 02:55 | serve the same purpose from system to
system, no matter what they're called.
| | 02:58 | And typically, these are basic HTML
structures that serve as placeholders for
| | 03:03 | your content and come with associated
CSS files that control the presentation.
| | 03:08 | The degree of template customization
allowed varies widely from CMS to CMS.
| | 03:13 | And some have fully exposed HTML and
CSS that you can customize or even allow
| | 03:17 | you to use your own pages.
| | 03:19 | Others have tightly controlled
templates that are difficult to customize to
| | 03:23 | one degree or another.
| | 03:24 | A very common approach to creating
pages is to assemble discrete page regions
| | 03:29 | into a finished page rather
than using a full-page template.
| | 03:33 | This flexible approach makes it easy
to build pages by swapping out regions
| | 03:37 | such as headers, footers,
and sidebars as needed, but can make customization
| | 03:41 | more difficult as it can be hard to visualize
how these elements work together in the final page.
| | 03:47 | Another common capability for CMSs is
the ability to add modules to your pages.
| | 03:52 | Here the terms vary widely,
but whether the CMS is talking about plug-ins,
| | 03:56 | extensions, or modules, they're usually
referring to self-contained applications
| | 04:00 | that extend the functionality of your site.
| | 04:03 | These could be event calendars, polls
and quizzes, forms, or ties into external
| | 04:08 | services such as Google Maps.
| | 04:10 | The power, abilities,
and functionality of these modules vary widely from one
| | 04:14 | CMS to another and often rely on the
strength of the developer community in
| | 04:18 | an open-source system.
| | 04:20 | Finally, most CMSs feature some
type of menu generation control.
| | 04:24 | Usually, they allow you to structure
sections or pages in a way similar to
| | 04:28 | building a site map.
| | 04:30 | This structure will be used to generate
menus that are placed on the page based
| | 04:34 | on your settings or the temple structure.
| | 04:36 | Now whether or not the menu's
presentation and functionality can be customized
| | 04:40 | varies largely based on the CMS itself.
| | 04:42 | Some will allow you to build your
own menus and will then update them
| | 04:45 | automatically for you, while
others restrict you to the system's
| | 04:49 | default generated menus.
| | 04:50 | Well, that's a brief look into
some of the core features of most
| | 04:53 | content management systems.
| | 04:55 | We'll take a closer look at some of
those capabilities a little bit later on,
| | 04:59 | as well as discuss the impact of these
features might have in choosing a CMS
| | 05:03 | for yourself.
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| When is a CMS right for you?| 00:00 | Before we get much further, I want to make the
point that a CMS is not right for every project.
| | 00:05 | Later on we'll talk about how to
evaluate a CMS for your specific needs, but
| | 00:09 | I think it's also just as important
to discuss whether a CMS is the right
| | 00:13 | solution for your needs.
| | 00:15 | Once you begin researching content
management systems, you're going to hear the
| | 00:19 | same marketing points over and over again:
| | 00:22 | first, that a CMS allows you to create
a web site without having to know HTML, CSS, and
| | 00:27 | server-side programming;
| | 00:28 | second, that using a CMS reduces costs
by eliminating outside technical work; and
| | 00:34 | third, that a CMS will dramatically
speed up development and deployment time.
| | 00:39 | Well, like most marketing pitches,
there is a degree of truth to all these
| | 00:43 | points, but it's important to have the
proper expectations about how a CMS will
| | 00:48 | fit into your organization or your projects.
| | 00:51 | If you're a designer or part of a
design team and you're looking at using a CMS
| | 00:56 | to speed up site development,
there are some things you should know.
| | 00:59 | First, regardless of the CMS you
choose, get ready for a pretty steep learning
| | 01:04 | curve. Many systems have their own
templating language and you need to
| | 01:08 | understand the inner workings of how
the CMS will assemble pages before you can
| | 01:12 | really start gaining control over your sites.
| | 01:15 | If the only reason you want to learn a
CMS is to avoid learning a language like
| | 01:19 | PHP, I recommend just
going ahead and learning PHP.
| | 01:23 | In most cases, you're going to end up
needing to be somewhat proficient in
| | 01:27 | whatever codes base your CMS uses anyway.
| | 01:30 | A good role of thumb is to check out
the documentation forums and the codex
| | 01:34 | of the CMS are looking at to see what's
required for the level of control that you want.
| | 01:39 | Once you're comfortable with the CMS,
you should expect to see significant gains
| | 01:44 | in development time, but be sure to
give yourself a cushion as you go through
| | 01:47 | the learning process.
| | 01:49 | If you're not a web designer and
you're hoping to use a CMS to avoid
| | 01:53 | learning HTML and CSS, now you're in
for a similar experience. While most of
| | 01:58 | the time you'll be able to build a
site based on the system's default
| | 02:01 | templating structure,
| | 02:02 | customizing or taking a high degree of
control over your site requires a working
| | 02:07 | knowledge of various technologies,
such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP.
| | 02:14 | Unless you're committed to taking the
time required to master these areas of the
| | 02:17 | CMS, you might be better off contracting
somebody to do it for you. And if you're
| | 02:22 | part of the large organization, a CMS is
often seen as a way to control costs and
| | 02:27 | streamline workflow.
| | 02:29 | Although it will typically speed up
the process of publishing content to your
| | 02:33 | site, you'll still need individuals to
set up the CMS, maintain it, and update it,
| | 02:38 | as new versions are published.
| | 02:40 | Often this updating process requires
changes to templates and the business
| | 02:44 | logic of your site.
| | 02:45 | If you don't have the technical
resources in house to handle this, you'll still
| | 02:49 | be paying for an outside consultant.
| | 02:52 | Also, just because a particular CMS
is free an open source don't assume that
| | 02:57 | they aren't significant costs involved
in setting up and maintaining the CMS.
| | 03:02 | Often the cost savings just
aren't there once everything is taken
| | 03:05 | into consideration.
| | 03:06 | So when does it make sense to use a CMS?
| | 03:09 | Well, if you are a freelance web
designer and you need to rapidly develop
| | 03:12 | complex sites for clients, finding a
CMS you're comfortable with makes sense.
| | 03:17 | You also need to be sensitive to
whether your client base actually needs a CMS-
| | 03:21 | managed site, and whether you have the
time to devote to training clients in how
| | 03:25 | to use the CMS to create and update
content once the site is finished.
| | 03:30 | You should also be prepared to spend a great
deal of time researching which CMS fits
| | 03:34 | your skill sets and than taking
additional time to learn how to properly manage
| | 03:38 | and build sites efficiently with it.
| | 03:41 | Just approach it the same way you
would approach learning any new skill or
| | 03:44 | technology and you'll be fine. And if
you're part of the larger organization, you
| | 03:48 | need to take some time to perform
a high-level evaluation of your
| | 03:51 | organization's needs and current problems.
| | 03:54 | Often the problems with larger sites
have more to do with internal workflows,
| | 03:59 | inefficient processes, and poorly
constructed site architecture than they do with
| | 04:04 | publishing platforms.
| | 04:06 | Too often a CMS is seen as a cure-all
when the real problem lies within the
| | 04:10 | organizational structure itself.
Keep in mind that many CMSs don't offer
| | 04:15 | flexible workflows, and forcing you're
organization into a specific workflow
| | 04:19 | without properly evaluating it
first is often a recipe for disaster.
| | 04:24 | In those cases, reevaluating site
architecture and internal processes is usually
| | 04:29 | a better path to success.
| | 04:31 | In the end, my advice would be to take a
moment and carefully consider your goals
| | 04:35 | and site needs before making
the decision to choose a CMS.
| | 04:39 | Having realistic expectations about
their capabilities and what's required to
| | 04:43 | implement a content management system
will help you make a better decision about
| | 04:47 | when it's appropriate to use them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Choosing a CMSComparing CMSs| 00:00 | In the previous chapter, we covered the
basics of content management systems and
| | 00:04 | when one might be right for you.
| | 00:07 | In this chapter, I want to discuss some
of the things you'll need to consider
| | 00:10 | when choosing which CMS is right for your needs.
| | 00:13 | As I mentioned before, there are
literally hundreds of CMSs on the market today.
| | 00:18 | Most sure seemingly identical feature
sets, and all of them seem to make the same
| | 00:23 | claims that they are easy to use,
extremely powerful, and that they give you
| | 00:27 | total control over creating your sites.
| | 00:30 | In fact, I'm willing to bet that if
you've spent any time at all searching for
| | 00:33 | a CMS you probably became quickly
overwhelmed by the amount of choices and
| | 00:38 | features out there.
| | 00:40 | So I want to help you focus your search
and give you a starting point for what
| | 00:44 | to look for when comparing CMSs.
| | 00:47 | First, take time to properly identify the
needs of your clients or your organization.
| | 00:52 | I'm going to talk about this in more
detail in a moment, but often people are
| | 00:57 | just guilty of saying to themselves,
"A CMS sure would make things easier,"
| | 01:01 | without really stopping to think about
what they need and how a CMS would fit
| | 01:06 | into their culture. Once those needs
are clearly defined, it's a lot easier to
| | 01:10 | start comparing systems by focusing
on the features that you really need.
| | 01:14 | Next, don't get caught up in simply
ticking off the check boxes. Often, people
| | 01:19 | start comparing CMSs by comparing only
feature sets or seeing which CMS has more
| | 01:25 | boxes checked in somebody's arbitrary list.
| | 01:28 | Now this is a bad idea.
| | 01:29 | If you don't take time to properly
evaluate a content management system in
| | 01:34 | its entirety, I can promise you that
you'll not be happy with your choice in the end.
| | 01:39 | Use feature sets as a way
to narrow down your choices;
| | 01:42 | look at them as a starting point,
not a decision-making point.
| | 01:46 | Another good way to narrow down your
choice is to start with systems whose
| | 01:49 | focus matches your needs.
| | 01:51 | Now, what do I mean by that?
| | 01:53 | Well, if you're university that needs
systems to build online curriculums,
| | 01:58 | you're probably better off starting
with a CMS that focuses on e-learning.
| | 02:02 | If you're trying to build a
community-based site, explore systems that focus
| | 02:06 | on social networks and collaboration.
And of course this is not a hard and fast rule.
| | 02:10 | Many CMSs have capabilities that put
them in a multiple categories. Just be sure
| | 02:15 | that the systems that you compare
have the same focus that you do.
| | 02:19 | In addition to comparing features,
take the time to compare support
| | 02:22 | communities as well.
| | 02:24 | If you're looking at proprietary, or
licensed, systems, research the company's
| | 02:28 | support tools, online forums, and documentation.
| | 02:32 | Read through the forums and pay
attention to response time, the type and
| | 02:36 | frequency of problems the user base
encounters, and whether support issues
| | 02:40 | are simply left open.
| | 02:42 | See if the CMS is a bug tracker and
research how diligent the developers are in
| | 02:47 | closing tickets and resolving issues.
If a forum is empty, or people seem to be
| | 02:52 | having the same problems over and over
again, this can be a big warning sign.
| | 02:57 | If you're looking at an open-source
CMS, spend a good bit of time looking into
| | 03:01 | the community. Make sure there are
lot of ways to communicate with other
| | 03:04 | users and developers.
| | 03:06 | Take a look at the help of the
development community, the types or modules of
| | 03:10 | extensions of their building, and
whether there is any means to filter through
| | 03:13 | those extensions for quality.
| | 03:15 | If a CMS is an active and engaged
community, it's going to be a lot easier to
| | 03:19 | learn how to use it, find modules that
are outside the core functionality, and
| | 03:23 | engage a professional
developer if you need custom content.
| | 03:27 | Be sure to read the forums here as well.
| | 03:29 | Reading through the forums will
often give you a very unvarnished look at
| | 03:33 | what life is like with a particular CMS.
Never ever overlook the value of the CMS community.
| | 03:40 | Finally, don't rush into anything.
Often, you feel pressure to make a choice and
| | 03:45 | start building something,
| | 03:46 | especially if you're the one making the
decision for an organization or a company.
| | 03:49 | Don't surrender to the temptation to
pick the first CMS that seems to be right.
| | 03:54 | Open-source CMSs can be downloaded
installed locally or on a test server and
| | 03:59 | tried out for as long as you like.
| | 04:01 | The developers of proprietary CMSs
will almost always be happy to set you up
| | 04:06 | with a demo site and let you try it out.
| | 04:08 | If they won't, that's not
always a good sign either.
| | 04:11 | Now look at this way: have you
ever bought a car that you didn't test
| | 04:14 | drive first? There's no better way of
knowing whether CMS is right for you
| | 04:19 | than actually using it.
| | 04:20 | So make sure you give yourself enough
time to properly explore your options and
| | 04:24 | become familiar with your top
choices before making a decision.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Core features to research| 00:00 | Although they shouldn't be the sole
deciding factor, comparing features of
| | 00:04 | content management systems are a logical place
to start when searching for the right system.
| | 00:09 | Unfortunately, people often just don't
know enough about the features of a CMS
| | 00:13 | to make an informed
decision about what to research.
| | 00:16 | In this movie, I'm going to take a
closer look at the core features of a CMS
| | 00:20 | that you should explore when comparing systems.
| | 00:23 | First, explore how a CMS
controls page management.
| | 00:27 | One of the most important tasks of a
content management system is the creation,
| | 00:32 | organization, and management of pages.
| | 00:34 | Sometimes it's easy to read through a
system's feature set and just assume that
| | 00:38 | the capabilities that you
need for page management exist.
| | 00:41 | For example, if you're looking at a CMS
that's primarily a blogging system, you
| | 00:46 | may have a hard time separating
content into a page structure beyond the
| | 00:50 | automated structure of a blog.
| | 00:52 | In other cases, it might be hard
to archive pages or restructure page
| | 00:56 | hierarchies outside the default site structure.
| | 00:59 | Think carefully about how your site
will need to organize pages, manage them,
| | 01:02 | and evolve over the life of the site.
| | 01:04 | Any CMS you choose should be able to
do this in an organized intuitive way
| | 01:09 | that still fits your specific needs.
| | 01:12 | You also want to take a close look at
how easy it is to add and modify content.
| | 01:17 | How intuitive is the content editor?
| | 01:19 | Is it something that clients of other
team members can use intuitively. Or will
| | 01:23 | it require a good deal of training
before people can comfortably add content?
| | 01:28 | If you need to upload content, such as
images, media, HTML snippets, or other
| | 01:32 | documents, how are those processes handled?
| | 01:35 | Now, ideally they should be simple
and should always give you options for
| | 01:39 | organizing or structuring
the content as it's added.
| | 01:43 | That leads me to another
important feature, asset management.
| | 01:46 | If your site has specific needs
regarding images, video, audio, or multiple
| | 01:52 | document types, you need to carefully
research how a CMS manages those assets.
| | 01:58 | In some cases, asset management is
either rudimentary or nonexistent.
| | 02:02 | Now for some sites, that's fine.
| | 02:04 | However, if you need to manage PDFs,
Word documents, or other document types,
| | 02:09 | and make those files available to users,
make sure your CMS can do this in a way
| | 02:14 | that meshes with your requirements.
| | 02:16 | If you can upload assets, can you also
add metadata and categorizations that
| | 02:21 | make those assets easier to find and manage?
| | 02:23 | Does the system have the ability
to add alt tags and address other
| | 02:27 | accessibility concerns?
| | 02:29 | If you're building image galleries,
are there automated processes for creating
| | 02:32 | thumbnails and organizing images by
type. Digging into these capabilities
| | 02:37 | will help you ensure that you won't be
working with a system that limits your abilities.
| | 02:40 | Now from a design standpoint, explore
how the CMS works with templates or themes.
| | 02:46 | If you're a designer, you're going to
want a system that allows you to easily
| | 02:49 | customize the presentation of your pages.
| | 02:52 | In a larger organization, it might be
more important to limit the amount of
| | 02:55 | access users have to the presentation layer.
| | 02:58 | In some cases, CMSs make it difficult
to have multiple layouts or to switch
| | 03:02 | from one layout to another.
| | 03:04 | Look for systems that separate the
presentation layer and generate clean,
| | 03:08 | well-structured HTML that
you can access and change.
| | 03:12 | If you're not a designer, look for a CMS
that has a large number of customizable
| | 03:16 | templates or themes, and for a system
that makes it simple to migrate from one
| | 03:19 | theme or template to another.
| | 03:22 | If you're going to have a team of
content creators working on your site, take a
| | 03:25 | good look at the CMS's ability to
create user groups and assign roles and
| | 03:29 | permissions to them.
| | 03:30 | Now, too often, CMS implementations fail
because organizations have to fit their
| | 03:35 | workflow into a system's limited abilities.
| | 03:38 | Make sure that you pick a CMS that
allows you to work as your organization
| | 03:42 | will work naturally.
| | 03:43 | In many cases, this might be as simple
as having authors and editors, in others,
| | 03:48 | this may require staging points where
content is approved before publishing and
| | 03:52 | includes complex roles
that control this process.
| | 03:55 | In short, know your team, know your processes,
and find a CMS that can make them seamless.
| | 04:02 | Finally, you may want to explore whether
the system you're looking at can handle
| | 04:06 | multiple web sites from a single installation.
| | 04:08 | For a designer, this would allow you to
run and manage client web sites without
| | 04:12 | needing to do a new install for every site.
| | 04:14 | This can make updating installations,
adding modules, and extending capabilities
| | 04:18 | for your sites much easier,
since you'd only have to do it once.
| | 04:22 | In the case of an organization, you
may want to run the company's intranet,
| | 04:26 | mobile site, or a smaller branded web
site from the same CMS installation.
| | 04:31 | This feature is not as
common in CMSs as other features,
| | 04:34 | so you should carefully consider whether
or not this is something that you might
| | 04:38 | need now or in the future.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Commonly overlooked issues| 00:00 | In the last movie, I talked about
some of the core features that you should
| | 00:03 | consider when picking a CMS.
| | 00:05 | In this movie, I want to talk about a
few equally important features that are
| | 00:09 | often overlooked until a
CMS is installed and in use.
| | 00:12 | Now unfortunately, that's usually
the wrong moment to realize you have a
| | 00:15 | problem on your hands.
| | 00:17 | So be sure to pay close attention
to these when comparing systems.
| | 00:21 | First, take a close look at
the security offered by your CMS.
| | 00:25 | Having your site hacked is the last
thing you want, especially if e-commerce is
| | 00:29 | a component of your site and you're
storing sensitive client information.
| | 00:32 | Now the main problem here is that
accurately judging the security features of a
| | 00:37 | CMS can be pretty difficult.
| | 00:39 | Now I'm betting you won't find a single
CMS that doesn't list security as one of
| | 00:43 | their important features.
| | 00:45 | If you lack the technical expertise to
test this yourself, read the user forums
| | 00:50 | carefully to see if security issues are common.
| | 00:53 | This is also one area where bringing in a
professional will pay off in the long run.
| | 00:58 | Hiring a consultant to evaluate the
security level of your candidate systems,
| | 01:02 | and even assisting you in setting up the
security settings of your install is a good idea.
| | 01:07 | Be sure to closely examine
your CMS's search capability.
| | 01:10 | Search is one of the most awesome
baked-in features of any CMS, and it's often
| | 01:15 | the most overlooked as well.
| | 01:18 | If your web site is driven by content,
people need to be able find it in an
| | 01:22 | intuitive manner and through multiple options.
| | 01:25 | While demoing a CMS, pay attention
to how well the search feature works.
| | 01:30 | Is the search fast and responsive?
| | 01:33 | Can you perform basic searches as well
as more advanced filtered searches to help
| | 01:37 | narrow down the results?
| | 01:39 | How well those results
displayed, and can you customize this?
| | 01:43 | Dig into the documentation, and find
out how the CMS indexes your content.
| | 01:49 | Does it index the entire
page or just the categories?
| | 01:52 | Do you need external documents like
PDF and Word files indexed, and if so, do
| | 01:56 | those capabilities exist?
| | 01:59 | Another thing that you want to
carefully explore is the code that the CMS
| | 02:02 | generates when creating pages.
| | 02:05 | Is it lean, standards-compliant, and accessible?
| | 02:08 | Often people will look carefully at a
system's feature set but pay no attention
| | 02:13 | at all to the code that
the CMS actually generates.
| | 02:16 | Bloated code, inaccessible links and
content, and coding errors can result in
| | 02:20 | poor site performance, and lower
page rankings on search engines.
| | 02:25 | Make sure the links are search engine
friendly and don't end in long string of
| | 02:29 | generating characters.
| | 02:31 | At this point, there is simply no
excuse for a CMS not to output clean,
| | 02:35 | well-structured, standards-based HTML.
| | 02:38 | If you don't see this,
consider using another CMS.
| | 02:42 | You should also closely examine the
license you agreed to when selecting a CMS.
| | 02:47 | If you're paying a license fee,
this fee is often per seat,
| | 02:50 | so make sure you understand how this
can impact your overall cost upfront.
| | 02:55 | Proprietary CMSs also often limit what
you can do with the system in terms of
| | 03:00 | extending or changing the internal code.
| | 03:03 | If you have a development team that
plans to make changes to the system, you
| | 03:07 | might be agreeing to a license
that prevents you from doing that.
| | 03:10 | You should also explore the license even
if you're using a so-called open-source CMS.
| | 03:15 | Well, many of these are covered under the
very generous new General Public License,
| | 03:20 | there are many, many licenses that are
considered open source that have varying
| | 03:24 | degrees of restrictions.
| | 03:26 | Bottom line, understand what you are
and what you're not allowed to do under
| | 03:30 | your license agreement
and find one that works for your needs.
| | 03:35 | Finally, don't overlook the
documentation available for a CMS.
| | 03:39 | Documentation can be sparse or often
unorganized, especially with open-source
| | 03:44 | content management systems.
| | 03:45 | Find one that has detailed
documentation that is organized and written in a
| | 03:49 | style that's clear to you, or
whoever will be implementing your system.
| | 03:54 | Look for install or quick-start guides
that will walk you through the process of
| | 03:58 | becoming familiar with the system.
| | 03:59 | No matter which CMS you choose,
you're going to have a learning curve that
| | 04:03 | will take some time.
| | 04:04 | Well-written documentation can
greatly lower this learning curve and make it
| | 04:08 | easier for you to handle any
problems that might crop up down the line.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Properly assessing needs| 00:01 | I know this sounds kind of silly, but I'm
going to make a pretty bold statement here:
| | 00:04 | most people choose a CMS without
ever really assessing their needs.
| | 00:08 | Here is what typically happens.
| | 00:10 | Within a larger organization, a push
might come along to update the web site
| | 00:14 | and related processes, or to reduce
the costs associated with the site.
| | 00:18 | Nine times out of ten, a CMS
is the recommended solution.
| | 00:22 | By contrast, designers and design
firms often need to build sites faster and
| | 00:27 | with more advanced features
than they can code manually.
| | 00:30 | Again, a CMS is usually
the arrived-upon solution.
| | 00:34 | At this point, instead of taking a
moment to stop and properly assess their
| | 00:38 | needs, both parties usually rush off
and pick the CMS that seems to offer the
| | 00:43 | most power, or that the majority
of their peers recommended them.
| | 00:46 | Now as you can imagine, this approach
leads to a lot of problems and a lot of
| | 00:51 | dissatisfied clients.
| | 00:53 | In my opinion, the most important
thing you can do to help you choose the CMS
| | 00:57 | that's right for you is to
properly understand what you need it to do.
| | 01:03 | Now that usually involves stopping the
process for a moment and being honest
| | 01:06 | about what your needs are now
and what they're likely to be in the future.
| | 01:11 | The first thing to do is take time
to assess what isn't working now.
| | 01:15 | Now obviously if you're
considering a CMS, there is a reason for it.
| | 01:19 | Identify these problems by writing them
out, talking about them as a team, and
| | 01:24 | then prioritizing them by
the severity of the problem.
| | 01:27 | Now usually, this is going to help
identify issues in your workflow or processes
| | 01:31 | that can be corrected before
a CMS is brought into the mix.
| | 01:36 | Adding a CMS rarely solve broken workflows.
| | 01:39 | These systems all have their own inherent
processes, and some of those are pretty complex.
| | 01:45 | Introducing an added layer of
complexity before you've worked out your internal
| | 01:48 | processes is a recipe for disaster.
| | 01:51 | Next, take some time to make a list of all
the things that you need a CMS to do for you.
| | 01:56 | Now prioritize this list, and avoid
making what I call the kitchen-sink list.
| | 02:01 | Notice, for example, that I said, 'need'
instead of 'want', and it's easy to get a
| | 02:07 | need and a want confused once you
start looking at all the CMS features.
| | 02:11 | For example, you might need to have
sites that you build be editable by your
| | 02:15 | clients once you're finished with development.
| | 02:17 | Now you might also want to occasionally
tie in other services, like Google Maps.
| | 02:22 | Now when comparing systems, you might
come across a CMS that has a Google Map
| | 02:26 | plug-in but not quite a strong an
editor as maybe some of the other systems
| | 02:30 | that you've looked at.
| | 02:32 | It's easy to rationalize choosing this CMS
by saying that it makes you stronger overall.
| | 02:37 | However, in this case, you would have
ignored your primary need in favor of a
| | 02:42 | feature that really
won't be used by all clients.
| | 02:44 | That is not a wise move.
| | 02:47 | Now by having a list of carefully
considered priorities, you can eliminate the
| | 02:51 | distractions and stay
focused on what really matters.
| | 02:55 | You also want to consider what your
needs are likely to be in the future, and
| | 02:59 | will the needs of your clients change over time?
| | 03:02 | How will is your organization going to
grow, and how will this affect the needs
| | 03:05 | of your web sites and the
capabilities that you need from your CMS?
| | 03:08 | Now while you want to avoid picking the
CMS that has too many features that you're
| | 03:12 | never going to use, you do want to try
and predict how your needs are going to
| | 03:16 | scale up in the future. And it's
impossible to predict everything,
| | 03:19 | but having a CMS has room to grow in
the areas that you think you'll need is
| | 03:24 | just as important to your overall success
as picking a CMS that fits you right now.
| | 03:29 | You're going to want a CMS that scales
with you and not one that forces you to
| | 03:34 | go through another search
in two to three years time.
| | 03:37 | Finally, be brutally honest in your
abilities and the abilities of your team.
| | 03:41 | Content management systems come in
many different flavors and many different
| | 03:45 | degrees of complexity.
| | 03:46 | Don't bite off more than you chew by
choosing a system that's outside of
| | 03:50 | your technical comfort zone. Unless
you have the time and focus required to
| | 03:55 | expand your skill set,
| | 03:56 | a CMS that requires more technical
knowledge than you or your team possesses
| | 04:00 | can often actually do more harm
than good, and end up costing you a lot of
| | 04:04 | money in consultants or lost work.
| | 04:07 | Be honest about how much time you'll
need to put into learning a new system and
| | 04:10 | whether you're really going to need to
hire new team members to manage that CMS.
| | 04:15 | By doing an honest skill assessment,
you are more likely to pick a CMS that
| | 04:18 | you can be productive in right away rather than
one that you're constantly struggling with.
| | 04:23 | Occasionally, this might mean
bringing in outside help or finding a hosted
| | 04:27 | solution to do a lot of
the technical work for you.
| | 04:30 | Now, that's a larger discussion.
| | 04:31 | In our next movie, we're going to
talk about how to assess when to consider
| | 04:35 | outside development help
versus handling a CMS on your own.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Knowing when to seek assistance| 00:00 | One of the most common questions
people ask themselves as they begin
| | 00:03 | researching content management systems is, can I
do this myself or am I going to need some help?
| | 00:09 | Now bringing in outside consultants or
developers can be extremely helpful in
| | 00:12 | migrating to a CMS, and in many
cases can ease the time required for the
| | 00:16 | transition to a CMS-based workflow.
| | 00:19 | It's also quite possible that you or
your organization can adopt a CMS on
| | 00:23 | your own without the
additional expense of a developer.
| | 00:26 | So how do you know which category you fall in to?
| | 00:29 | Let's take a look some of the things
that you should consider when deciding on
| | 00:32 | whether or not to use outside help.
| | 00:34 | Now obviously your technical skills or
the skills of your team are going to be
| | 00:38 | the main thing to consider when
deciding whether to seek assistance or not.
| | 00:42 | If you're the type of developer that's
comfortable in the code base environment
| | 00:46 | of the CMS you choose--now whether
that's .NET, PHP, Perl or any other
| | 00:50 | scripting language--and you're
equally comfortable with HTML, CSS and
| | 00:54 | JavaScript, you should be able to
handle setting up and administering your CMS
| | 00:58 | with no problem at all.
| | 01:00 | Of course if you're rather technophobic,
the initial install and set up of your
| | 01:04 | CMS might be something that
you won't to seek help with.
| | 01:07 | This is going to vary greatly
based on the CMS that you choose.
| | 01:10 | Now some systems are designed to be
easy to set up and administer, even for
| | 01:14 | those that don't have a high degree of
technical proficiency; others require a
| | 01:18 | bit more attention to detail and require
specialized skills in order to get them
| | 01:22 | working the way that you intend.
| | 01:24 | In the end balance your technical
skills against the requirements of your CMS.
| | 01:29 | This will give you a pretty good idea of
whether or not you're going to need some help.
| | 01:32 | You also want to consider how long you have
before you need to be productive in the CMS.
| | 01:37 | If you have the luxury of learning at
your own pace or setting up an internal
| | 01:41 | site that you can perfect before going
live with it, you might have the time
| | 01:45 | required to get up to speed on the
CMS before using it commercially.
| | 01:49 | Just be sure to be honest about how
long it's going to take you to become
| | 01:52 | proficient in the CMS.
| | 01:53 | Always allow for more time and expect
there to be some bumps along the way.
| | 01:57 | Now if on the other hand, you have a
client or a management staff that needs
| | 02:02 | the functionality right away, you
shouldn't hesitate to hire an outside
| | 02:05 | developer to help you set up and walk you
through the proper way to configure and use the CMS.
| | 02:10 | If you have the budget, this approach
can greatly lower the learning curve
| | 02:14 | required when adopting a CMS, and it
ensures that you're doing things the right way.
| | 02:19 | Paying a professional to help you
learn your way around the CMS and make sure
| | 02:23 | it's set up correctly can save
you a ton of money in the long run.
| | 02:27 | This is also a perfect time to dispel
one of the most persistent myths about
| | 02:31 | content management systems.
| | 02:34 | Over and over and over I've heard
that a CMS is a perfect way for a
| | 02:38 | non-technical person to set
up and run a complex site.
| | 02:42 | This type of marketing spin is the
direct reason that so many organizations turn
| | 02:47 | to a team of content creators, buy or
download them a CMS, and then express
| | 02:53 | disappointment when the
outcome is less than ideal.
| | 02:56 | The fact of the matter is that you
need to be a web professional in order to
| | 03:00 | properly configure, customize, or manage a CMS.
| | 03:03 | If you work in an organization
with content creators, editors, and
| | 03:07 | administrators, but really no web
professionals, you are either going to need to
| | 03:12 | hire web designers and developers to
manage your CMS or contract a development
| | 03:16 | team to oversee the
technical part of the process.
| | 03:19 | Of course, instead of going that route,
| | 03:21 | you can always choose a hosted
solution, or a proprietary CMS that has a
| | 03:25 | dedicated development team
behind it to assist you along the way.
| | 03:28 | We're going to talk more about
those options a little bit later on.
| | 03:32 | It's also up to you to decide at what
stage of your CMS development that you
| | 03:35 | want to bring in assistance.
| | 03:37 | You could engage a consultant to assist
you in your search for the proper CMS,
| | 03:41 | help you set it up once you have
selected it, or help to extend or customize it
| | 03:46 | once it's installed.
| | 03:48 | If you bring in a consultant to assist
you in your search, make sure that you
| | 03:51 | select one that has a broad range
of experience with various content
| | 03:54 | management systems.
| | 03:56 | You will want to make sure someone is
giving you a recommendation based on your
| | 03:59 | needs rather than the way
they just prefer to work.
| | 04:02 | Now just as it's important to take the
time to assess your needs before choosing
| | 04:06 | a CMS, you should also honestly assess
your internal skill sets in order to make
| | 04:11 | the correct call when
deciding on engaging outside help.
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| Choosing a CMS for designers| 00:00 | So far we've covered a lot of
ground in regards to choosing a CMS.
| | 00:05 | Of course, not everyone's needs are
the same, and so in this movie I want
| | 00:09 | to talk directly to designers and discuss some
of their unique needs when considering a CMS.
| | 00:14 | Now as a general rule, designers are
great at HTML and CSS but maybe not so
| | 00:20 | great at server-side
software such as PHP or Perl.
| | 00:23 | Now I feel pretty safe saying
that myself since I'm a designer.
| | 00:26 | As such, one of the key features
you'll be looking for in a CMS is a simple
| | 00:31 | installation, and one
that's really easy to maintain.
| | 00:34 | As you're looking around, browse
the documentation and forums carefully.
| | 00:38 | If you try out a demo, make sure that
you download it and install it yourself.
| | 00:43 | If you're able to install it the first
time and the process seems intuitive, you
| | 00:47 | definitely have a candidate.
| | 00:49 | Next, closely examine
the code that the CMS uses.
| | 00:53 | Look for CSS that is separated
from the structure and easy to access.
| | 00:58 | Explore the structure of the template HTML
and the way that the associated CSS controls it.
| | 01:03 | If the code is bloated or
contains errors, stay away.
| | 01:07 | Look for clean, concise code that won't
require a ton of work to rewrite for your own designs.
| | 01:13 | The point of using a CMS is to
help you speed up development.
| | 01:16 | If you have to work around clunky
CSS, you're not helping yourself.
| | 01:21 | Now speaking of templates, explore how the
CMS builds pages and handles site structure.
| | 01:27 | Some CMSs use complex themes that are
mixture of templates, CSS, server-side
| | 01:33 | scripting, and page fragments to build a
page; others use stripped-down HTML and
| | 01:38 | CSS files with placeholder scripts
that determine where the content will go.
| | 01:44 | While you're demoing a CMS, try to
customize the template structure and page layout.
| | 01:49 | This is an area that you're to want
total control over, so verify that you can
| | 01:53 | handle the visual aspect of the
CMS before you make a decision.
| | 01:57 | Another reason that content management
systems are attracted to designers is the
| | 02:01 | advanced functionality that they
can help you add to your sites.
| | 02:05 | Many CMSs come with a large extension
or plug-in base that will allow you to
| | 02:09 | add mapping features, message boards,
blogs, event calendars, and more, without
| | 02:14 | really having to build them yourself.
| | 02:17 | When you're researching a CMS, don't
just look at the number of plug-ins and
| | 02:21 | assume that's your needs are going to be met.
| | 02:23 | Read through the forums, find examples
of them in use, and see what type of
| | 02:27 | documentation exist on them.
| | 02:29 | Find out how difficult it is to modify
or customize the design of the plug-ins
| | 02:33 | to match your sites.
| | 02:35 | Often these plug-ins are built by
members of the community, so they do have
| | 02:39 | varying degrees of quality.
| | 02:40 | Look for a CMS community that gives
users the ability to rate and give
| | 02:44 | feedback on plug-ins.
| | 02:45 | That way you at least have some idea
of the quality of those plug-ins and how
| | 02:49 | easy they are to customize.
| | 02:51 | If you're a freelance designer, you're
probably hoping a CMS can make your life
| | 02:55 | easier by enabling your clients to
administer and update their sites after
| | 03:00 | you're finished with the project.
| | 03:01 | Well, that's not an unreasonable
expectation, but there are a couple of things
| | 03:05 | that you will need to keep in mind.
| | 03:07 | First, choose a CMS that has a
simple and straightforward content editor.
| | 03:12 | Your clients are likely to not be
very web savvy and a complicated editing
| | 03:17 | environment will be really frustrating for them.
| | 03:19 | I recommend looking for a WYSIWYG editor
that has a similar interface to a word processor.
| | 03:25 | These usually make clients feel a lot more
comfortable and prompt fewer support calls.
| | 03:29 | Now speaking of support, don't make
the assumption that you can install it
| | 03:33 | and forget about it.
| | 03:34 | If you use a CMS to build your
client's site, you're also responsible for
| | 03:38 | maintaining that installation and then
upgrading it to new versions when they're released.
| | 03:43 | At the very least, be prepared to
spend an appropriate amount of time, train
| | 03:47 | your client into the
basics of how to use the CMS.
| | 03:50 | Now earlier, we discuss multisite capabilities.
| | 03:54 | Keep this in mind if you're going to be
handling hosting for your clients. Being
| | 03:57 | able run multiple sites from a
single installation makes updating and
| | 04:01 | troubleshooting a lot easier.
| | 04:03 | Now of course, be aware that if a
problem crops up with an install it's going
| | 04:06 | to affect all your client sites, not just one.
| | 04:10 | If you're planning on offering
hosting for your clients, you may want to
| | 04:13 | consider using a hosted solution.
| | 04:15 | Now we're going to talk more about
those solutions a little bit later, but they
| | 04:18 | offer a wide array of bundled services,
including content management, and some
| | 04:23 | even have reseller plans that will pay you
based on the number of sites you host through them.
| | 04:28 | I know I've mentioned this before,
but make sure that you take the time to
| | 04:31 | carefully consider what services you're
going to offer your clients, what degree
| | 04:36 | of control you need over the content
management system, and then go out and find
| | 04:40 | the CMS that gives you those
solutions in the most efficient way possible.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choosing a CMS for organizations| 00:00 | Just as I did with designers, I want to
focus for a moment on the specific needs
| | 00:04 | of organizations when choosing a CMS.
| | 00:07 | Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, start
by looking at systems that share your focus.
| | 00:12 | If you're a university, look for a
CMS that is either integrated with
| | 00:16 | a learning management system or includes
tools that allows you to build curriculums.
| | 00:20 | If you're a large corporation, look for
a CMS that has built-in business logic,
| | 00:24 | or one that can integrate
into your existing systems.
| | 00:27 | Reviewing your current workflow
is critical for the success of CMS
| | 00:31 | implementations within organizations.
| | 00:34 | Not only will it highlight current
problems, but it will also give you templates
| | 00:38 | to use when comparing systems.
| | 00:39 | Now, for example, if your content
needs to go through an editorial and legal
| | 00:44 | review before it's published, you need
a system with robust groups, permissions,
| | 00:48 | and notifications as part
of the publishing process.
| | 00:52 | You also have a better idea of the team
members that are going to be involved in
| | 00:55 | using the CMS and what type of
time commitment that will take.
| | 00:59 | At some point you'll making a decision to
either use an open source CMS or hire a
| | 01:05 | vendor to implement a CMS for you.
| | 01:06 | Now, often cost is the deciding factor
for many organizations, so I want to give
| | 01:11 | you a few things to think
about when making such a decision.
| | 01:15 | First, don't assume that an
open-source CMS is cheaper.
| | 01:18 | Now sure, free seems to be cheaper,
but the truth is for larger organizations
| | 01:23 | you're still likely to need to hire
an outside developer to customize and
| | 01:27 | integrate the CMS for your system.
| | 01:29 | On the flip side, don't assume
that a proprietary CMS is better just
| | 01:33 | because it's expensive.
| | 01:35 | Often, the exact same features can be
found in an open-source CMS and then
| | 01:38 | customized for less money.
| | 01:40 | In the end, I recommend making
decision based on which CMS is going to meet
| | 01:45 | your needs the best and letting cost drive the
decision when all the other factors are equal.
| | 01:50 | When an organization engages outside
vendors and contractors, you're likely
| | 01:55 | to draft a request for proposal or other
document that's going to outline your needs.
| | 02:00 | Make sure that you've properly
reviewed your needs prior to drafting this, and
| | 02:04 | you want to use clear concise language.
| | 02:06 | Don't just ask if the CMS supports a
publishing workflow; be specific about your
| | 02:11 | workflow and what you expect from the CMS.
| | 02:15 | If you need to repurpose content,
don't just ask if you can share content;
| | 02:19 | frame the request based on your
specific needs, such as, can you repurpose add
| | 02:24 | content using multiple delivery methods?
| | 02:26 | Ask the vendors to detail how their
system will perform the tasks you need, and
| | 02:31 | request a demo of that functionality.
| | 02:34 | Also, make sure that any vendor or
contractor is a good fit culturally.
| | 02:38 | Whatever system you choose is likely
to need to integrate with other systems
| | 02:42 | within your organization.
| | 02:44 | Make sure that the code base is going
to allow this and that the vendor or
| | 02:47 | contractor you choose communicates
well with both you and your IT department.
| | 02:52 | You need to think of the
vendor as an extension of your team.
| | 02:55 | If you wouldn't add them to your team,
don't add their CMS to your organization.
| | 03:01 | Make sure also that you pay
attention to things that might matter to your
| | 03:04 | organization but are really easy to overlook.
| | 03:06 | For example, do you need multilingual support?
| | 03:09 | If the answer is yes, does the
CMS need to automate the process of
| | 03:13 | generating multiple versions of
your site, or are you going to do that
| | 03:16 | manually for a targeted audience?
| | 03:18 | Don't just assume that if a CMS says it
has multilingual support that it's going
| | 03:22 | to do what you need it to do.
| | 03:23 | Look deeper into the
features and see how they work.
| | 03:27 | Finally, make sure that the CMS
can scale the way you need it to.
| | 03:30 | If you are a large organization and
are going to have thousands, if not millions,
| | 03:34 | of individual pieces of content, you need to
make sure the CMS you choose can handle that.
| | 03:39 | A CMS might look fast demoing a small
dataset and then actually turn out to be
| | 03:44 | really sluggish once you
plug all your content into it.
| | 03:47 | The same goes for the amount of
visitors that you're expecting.
| | 03:50 | High-traffic web sites need more robust
capabilities from their systems, so make
| | 03:54 | sure you choose a CMS that can
scale to the limits that you need.
| | 03:59 | The needs of an organization are vastly
different from the needs of an individual.
| | 04:03 | Make sure you properly assess your
organization, your workflow, and your
| | 04:07 | technical needs, so that you can choose
a CMS that satisfies all of those areas.
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| The pros and cons of hosted solutions| 00:00 | A little earlier we talked about
some of the different types of content
| | 00:03 | management systems you can choose from.
| | 00:06 | Starting with this movie, I want to
talk about some of the different solutions
| | 00:09 | available to you when implementing a
CMS, and I want to start with an option
| | 00:13 | that we haven't talked
about much, hosted solutions.
| | 00:17 | A hosted solution is an all-in-one,
site-creation and hosting service that
| | 00:21 | usually has a CMS as one of
the components of its services.
| | 00:25 | Most hosted solutions have a tremendous
amount of features, including advanced
| | 00:30 | web analytics, site-building tools,
marketing campaign tools, and more.
| | 00:35 | They're designed to give individual
designers, small teams, or small to
| | 00:39 | medium-size organizations tools that
would normally be out of their reach.
| | 00:43 | Like most options, there are pros
and cons to using a hosted solution.
| | 00:47 | First, most offer a ton of features
and tools, far beyond what most content
| | 00:52 | management systems offer individually.
| | 00:55 | Many offer blogs, e-commerce solutions,
marketing campaigns, and web analytics, in
| | 01:00 | addition to normal CMS tools.
| | 01:03 | Usually they're extremely easy to set
up and manage as you don't need to worry
| | 01:07 | about installations or
setting up your own servers.
| | 01:10 | Almost all hosted services include
site-building tools as part of their CMS.
| | 01:15 | Although these tools differ from service
to service, they're usually designed to
| | 01:19 | give non-technical people the
ability to design and structure their sites
| | 01:23 | without having to deal with code.
| | 01:25 | One of the more attractive offerings
for designers is the reseller option that
| | 01:30 | many of these services offer.
| | 01:31 | Now these allowed designers to set up
storefronts using the hosted service
| | 01:36 | build sites and then earn commissions
based on the number of sites that they
| | 01:39 | host through the service.
| | 01:41 | Some of the reseller services go so
far as to allow the designer or design
| | 01:45 | firm to create their own branded
portal so their clients have no idea they're
| | 01:49 | using the hosted service.
| | 01:51 | And of course, there are some
cons to using these services as well.
| | 01:55 | First, as you would expect from such a
feature-rich solution, these services can
| | 01:59 | be a little bit pricey, with monthly
subscription costs usually different based
| | 02:04 | on the level of service that you need.
| | 02:06 | Most hosted solutions do have
cheaper or even free plans, but these can
| | 02:10 | include ad services, lack of custom domains,
or restrictions on the tools that you can use.
| | 02:16 | Another thing to consider is that once
you've begun to use one of these services,
| | 02:20 | you're tied to their hosting plan.
| | 02:22 | Any changes in plans or services must
be accepted, or you're going to be forced
| | 02:27 | to try to migrate to another hosting service.
| | 02:29 | Now that can you leave another
problem with hosted solutions.
| | 02:32 | Because of the closed nature, it can be
very difficult to migrate content from a
| | 02:37 | hosted solution to a new host.
| | 02:39 | Also, while there is a wide range of
hosted services available, there's no
| | 02:43 | guarantee that you're going to find one
that shares the same focus that you have.
| | 02:47 | So that's a brief introduction
into what a hosted solution is.
| | 02:50 | In our next movie, we're going to
take a look at a few examples of hosted
| | 02:53 | solutions, so that you can get a
better idea of the types of hosted
| | 02:57 | solutions available.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Hosted solution examples| 00:00 | Now that we have discussed what a
hosted solution is, let's take a look at a
| | 00:04 | few examples so that you can get a feel for
what types of services that you are going to find.
| | 00:09 | There are so many CMSs on the market
that it simply isn't possible for me to
| | 00:13 | show you all of the options available, or
even give you a comprehensive overview of them,
| | 00:17 | to be honest.
| | 00:19 | What I have done is to select a few
examples that's going to give you an idea
| | 00:23 | of the types of solutions that you are going
to come across as you begin comparing them.
| | 00:27 | By no means am I saying that these
solutions are better than any of the other
| | 00:31 | ones that you are going to see, or
that I'm recommending one over another.
| | 00:35 | I first want to talk about
enterprise-level hosted services.
| | 00:38 | These are comprehensive, full-service
solutions that offer highly scalable
| | 00:43 | services, industry standard
analytics, and often offer you the ability to
| | 00:48 | integrate with other systems.
| | 00:50 | Now typically, these solutions will
offer turn-key services from site planning,
| | 00:56 | development, all the way through the deployment.
| | 00:58 | Now these services usually are going
to want to speak with you about your
| | 01:01 | specific needs before giving you a quote.
| | 01:05 | The Compass web publishing
system is a good representative of an
| | 01:08 | enterprise-level service.
| | 01:10 | A much larger and more diverse group
of hosting solutions are available that
| | 01:14 | offer subscription-based plans.
| | 01:16 | Now this is by far the largest group
of hosted plans, and you are going to
| | 01:20 | find offerings that range all the way
from enterprise-level services down to
| | 01:23 | small boutique services.
| | 01:25 | Adobe's Business Catalyst is an
example of a larger full-service solution.
| | 01:30 | They offer some of the best
features in the business, with comprehensive
| | 01:34 | e-commerce solutions, powerful web
analytics, and built-in marketing tools.
| | 01:39 | The site-creation and management tools
are constantly evolving, and they offer a
| | 01:43 | tiered pricing plan based
on the services that you use.
| | 01:47 | Business Catalyst is targeted towards
designers and agencies, and there is a
| | 01:51 | one-time partner fee and options that
are designed to assist you in branding and
| | 01:55 | reselling Business Catalyst-powered sites.
| | 01:58 | Learn more about their
services at businesscatalyst.com.
| | 02:02 | Verb is another subscription-based
plan that features robust CMS capabilities
| | 02:07 | with a focus on e-commerce.
| | 02:09 | Like many other services, Verb allows
reselling, and also gives you the option of
| | 02:13 | billing either you or your clients directly.
| | 02:17 | Verb also gives you a sandbox where
you can develop sites for free to try
| | 02:20 | out their service and then upgrade
the site to a subscription-based plan
| | 02:24 | when you want it to go live.
| | 02:26 | Many subscription-based plans do this,
and it is a great way to try out their
| | 02:30 | services before you commit.
| | 02:32 | You can check out what Verb
has to offer at verbcms.com.
| | 02:36 | One of the more popular
hosting solutions is Squarespace.
| | 02:40 | Squarespace is a full-featured hosted
solution that presents designers with a
| | 02:44 | modular way of building web sites.
| | 02:45 | You can choose from templates and then
drag and drop the features you want onto
| | 02:51 | your pages to build your sites,
plug in your content, and you are done.
| | 02:55 | Of course if you're looking for little
bit more control, you can design your own
| | 02:59 | templates in CSS. Check
them out at squarespace.com.
| | 03:04 | Webvanta is a full-service hosted CMS
solution that offers a few twists on
| | 03:09 | traditional services in that they have
a range of services that are packaged to
| | 03:13 | target designers,
agencies, and businesses directly.
| | 03:17 | In addition to the hosted service plans,
they also offer full web design and
| | 03:21 | development services for your site,
| | 03:22 | even offering to create sites directly
from your Photoshop comps for those who
| | 03:26 | want to custom design but lack coding skills.
| | 03:29 | For designers, Webvanta has a partner
program that allows you to create your own
| | 03:33 | branded portal for your clients.
| | 03:35 | You can learn more at webvanta.com.
| | 03:39 | Osmek is a different kind of hosted solution.
| | 03:42 | While not a CMS in its own right,
Osmek allows you to store content for
| | 03:46 | your sites in the cloud.
| | 03:48 | They have a robust API that can serve
content in a number of ways, including XML,
| | 03:53 | JSON, PHP, and even
directly into your own templates.
| | 03:57 | Once Osmek is hosting your content,
you can easily update, create, or manage
| | 04:02 | your content through their consul.
| | 04:04 | The pricing, although tiered, is a
little different than most plans as well, as
| | 04:08 | it is based on how many sections in
your sites you are storing content, for not
| | 04:12 | the entire site itself.
| | 04:14 | Check it out for yourself at osmek.com.
| | 04:17 | Now both CushyCMS and PageLime are
similar to Osmek in that they don't
| | 04:21 | actually host your site.
| | 04:23 | What both of these, and similar content
hosting services, do is allow you to mark
| | 04:28 | up your sites where you would like
to have control over the content.
| | 04:31 | From there, the services allow you to
access and manage your ongoing content
| | 04:36 | directly through their portal.
| | 04:37 | These content-hosted solutions offer an
impressive array of services, including
| | 04:42 | image management, image editing,
branded portals, and page creation.
| | 04:46 | See more at cushycms.com and pagelime.com.
| | 04:51 | Finally, I want to mention a
growing trend among hosted solutions.
| | 04:55 | While many people want the power of
open-source communities and platforms,
| | 04:59 | there's a large number of people who
don't want the trouble of setting up or
| | 05:03 | hosting the CMS themselves.
| | 05:05 | Sites like Drupal Gardens and
WordPress.com allow you to use both of these
| | 05:09 | powerful open-source solutions while
still relying on a hosting platform to
| | 05:13 | extend services and handle the installs.
| | 05:16 | You can learn more about these at
drupalgardens.com and wordpress.com.
| | 05:20 | I feel that I should also mention that
most hosting companies are adding CMS
| | 05:24 | and site-building options to their
services as well that go way beyond the
| | 05:28 | single click install.
| | 05:29 | A quick search on Google will
result in dozens of high-quality hosting
| | 05:33 | companies with these options.
| | 05:34 | Well, thanks for hanging in there with me.
| | 05:36 | Honestly, we've barely scratched the
surface of the available hosted solutions.
| | 05:40 | Take a look at some of the services
that I have mentioned here, test-drive them
| | 05:44 | and then search the web for other options;
| | 05:46 | you just might find that a hosted
solution is the right option for your CMS needs.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The pros and cons of open source solutions| 00:00 | By far the subject in the CMS world
that has gotten the most attention over the
| | 00:03 | last five years is that of
open-source content management systems.
| | 00:08 | Now currently, these systems dominate
the market and account for more CMS-driven
| | 00:12 | web sites than any of the
other categories combined.
| | 00:16 | The popularity of open-source content
management systems is pretty easy to
| | 00:20 | understand once you examine their pros and cons.
| | 00:23 | One of the first things that attract
people to open source systems is their price.
| | 00:28 | Most open source CMSs are free to download
and install, with no licensing fees whatsoever.
| | 00:34 | Even better, most hosting companies
offer single-click installs of the most
| | 00:38 | popular open-source CMS.
| | 00:41 | This means that you can go from
nothing to a fully managed web site in just
| | 00:45 | a matter of minutes.
| | 00:46 | Another huge draw for open source CMSs
is the extensive developer communities
| | 00:51 | that have evolved to support most platforms.
| | 00:54 | Because the software is free and open
source, the number of developers that
| | 00:58 | actively work on improving and
extending the software is exponentially larger
| | 01:02 | than that of those closed proprietary systems.
| | 01:05 | This community gives a number of
benefits to the users of the CMS.
| | 01:09 | Well, first the software is updated
frequently, and security upgrades, bug fixes,
| | 01:15 | and code improvements are constantly issued.
| | 01:17 | Second, developers are continually
creating modules, plug-ins, and extensions
| | 01:23 | that increase the power flexibility and ease of
adding advanced functionality to manage sites.
| | 01:29 | And of course having such a large
community of developers means that anybody
| | 01:33 | needing custom platform development or
consulting can choose from a deep pool of
| | 01:37 | developers at competitive rates.
| | 01:39 | I also want to make the point that by
definition the majority of open-source
| | 01:43 | content management systems allow you
to access their source code and reuse it
| | 01:48 | any way that you would like.
| | 01:50 | Now the vast majority of users will
never need to be concerned by this, but when
| | 01:54 | you need to have somebody perform an
advanced degree of customization to your
| | 01:58 | CMS, it is comforting to know that you
don't have any restrictions on what you
| | 02:02 | can and can't do with the source code.
| | 02:05 | That doesn't mean that open-source
solutions aren't without their faults however.
| | 02:09 | Although they are free, that doesn't
mean that there won't be significant
| | 02:12 | implementation costs.
| | 02:14 | As I have mentioned before, that whole
'install it and use it with no technical
| | 02:17 | experience' line, that's a marketing pitch.
| | 02:20 | To properly implement almost all open-
source CMS, you'll need to invest the time
| | 02:25 | to learn how to properly manage the
platform or hire somebody to do it for you.
| | 02:28 | Not only that, if you're working in a
large organization, you will need to have
| | 02:33 | somebody on staff who is a dedicated
development specialist for the CMS, or
| | 02:38 | contract an outside agency to
provide the service for you.
| | 02:41 | Now the real problem here is that
for our more complex needs those
| | 02:45 | implementation costs can
become rather open ended.
| | 02:48 | Now too often people choose an open
source CMS because it's free and only
| | 02:53 | gradually come to the realization that
they need help perfecting the system for
| | 02:57 | their needs after many false starts and stops.
| | 03:01 | Now this type of rather clumsy approach
has given open-source solutions what I
| | 03:06 | feel personally is a rather
undeserved reputation, for being okay for small
| | 03:10 | organizations and individuals, but not
up to the task of delivering large or
| | 03:14 | enterprise-level solutions.
| | 03:16 | As we'll see, there are many open
source solutions that can handle any scale or
| | 03:20 | any level of complexity required.
| | 03:23 | Usually the failure is due to improper
planning or researching, not in the CMS itself.
| | 03:29 | Now another con that people often list
when discussing open-source CMSs is support.
| | 03:34 | Since an open-source software is often
based around a community, direct support
| | 03:38 | can be hard to come by.
| | 03:40 | Often you are going to have to rely on
user forums, existing documentation, or
| | 03:45 | community-created knowledge bases for answers.
| | 03:48 | This can make it time consuming to deal with
issues that might arise when using a platform.
| | 03:53 | It is worth noting, however, that the
open-source CMS market is a very mature
| | 03:57 | market, and you should be able to find
a development firm that specializes in
| | 04:01 | your CMS that can handle
any of your support needs.
| | 04:04 | It is also not surprising that the
sheer size of the open-source CMS market is
| | 04:09 | often seen as a negative.
| | 04:11 | The market is so crowded that often
finding the CMS that's just right for your
| | 04:15 | needs can be hard to do.
| | 04:18 | If you're opting for an open-source
CMS and you're going to do the search
| | 04:21 | without the benefit of a consultant,
you should prepare yourself for a long and
| | 04:25 | exhaustive search process.
| | 04:27 | Now with that in mind, it would be
helpful to discuss some of the options that
| | 04:31 | you are going to find when looking at
open-source content management systems, and
| | 04:34 | we will do that in our next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Open source CMS examples| 00:00 | Without a doubt, the open-source CMS
market is the most crowded of all the CMS
| | 00:05 | categories, with literally hundreds of open-
source content management systems to choose from.
| | 00:10 | There is simply no way possible for
me to perform an overview of all of the
| | 00:14 | different types of open-source CMS solutions.
| | 00:17 | So for this movie, I'm going to give
you a brief introduction into a few of the
| | 00:21 | types of open source content management
systems you have available to you and
| | 00:25 | present some of the more popular
choices in the open-source space.
| | 00:29 | I'm going to go ahead and get these
three out of the way: Drupal, Joomla!
| | 00:34 | and WordPress are far and away the most
popular open-source systems on the market today.
| | 00:39 | In fact, many articles on comparing
content management systems only mention
| | 00:43 | these three choices.
| | 00:45 | The truth is these three solutions are
so popular and so powerful that almost
| | 00:50 | any search for an open-source CMS
will start by comparing these three and
| | 00:54 | weighing their pros and cons.
| | 00:56 | Because of their popularity and
community size, I'm going to tackle each of
| | 01:00 | these systems in their
own movies in just a moment.
| | 01:03 | For now, just keep in mind that these
solutions currently rank as three of the
| | 01:07 | best available on the market today.
| | 01:10 | Okay, now that those guys are out of the
way, I want to discuss some of the more
| | 01:13 | popular and powerful choices that you
have when looking for an open-source CMS.
| | 01:18 | Just as before, when I preview some of
the hosted solutions, keep in mind that
| | 01:22 | I'm in no way even scratching
the surface of what's available.
| | 01:27 | TYPO3 is an open source, enterprise-
level content management framework that's
| | 01:31 | built to provide really solid content
tools right from the install, as well as
| | 01:37 | providing a larger framework for
architecting customized management solutions.
| | 01:41 | The feature list is too long to
mention, but includes things like audit
| | 01:45 | trails and versioning for content,
digital asset management tools and user
| | 01:50 | permissions, and content approval tools that
can be adjusted to suit almost any workflow.
| | 01:55 | TYPO3 has a long history,
| | 01:57 | being first developed in 1998 and
released as an open-source software in 2000.
| | 02:03 | This long product life has led to an
extremely mature community that supports
| | 02:07 | and extends the TYPO3 core.
| | 02:09 | Learn more at typo3.org.
| | 02:13 | Alfresco is another enterprise-level
CMS that brings an amazing amount of power
| | 02:17 | and flexibility to medium-
and large-size organizations.
| | 02:21 | There are actually two
versions of the Alfresco CMS:
| | 02:25 | an Enterprise version that you
received through a support subscription, and a
| | 02:29 | Community version that is open
source and released to the public.
| | 02:32 | This kind of puts Alfresco in both the
open source and proprietary categories,
| | 02:37 | although the license is
exactly the same for both platforms.
| | 02:41 | The difference is in how the
code is actually supported.
| | 02:45 | Versions of Alfresco are first
released on the Community platform.
| | 02:49 | After a Community release has
considered stable, it's then moved into
| | 02:52 | the Enterprise level.
| | 02:54 | Enterprise-level subscribers therefore get
solid tested code, and a full range of support.
| | 03:00 | Community members can turn to the
community itself for support, but this is
| | 03:03 | certainly not a CMS for novices to start with.
| | 03:06 | It's recommended for developers who
have the time and the chops to manage
| | 03:10 | this CMS individually.
| | 03:12 | Alfresco can be hosted through
Amazon's cloud servers or installed on a wide
| | 03:16 | array of stacks locally.
| | 03:18 | Check them out at alfresco.com.
| | 03:21 | Hippo CMS is an
enterprise-class CMS built in Java.
| | 03:25 | It has an incredibly powerful feature
set that includes multisite support,
| | 03:29 | multilingual support, and editing
workflow tools that allow easy comparison
| | 03:34 | between earlier versions of content.
| | 03:36 | It targets medium- to large-size
organizations, and focuses on the educational,
| | 03:42 | financial, publishing,
governmental, and manufacturing fields.
| | 03:45 | As with most enterprise-level
systems, support contracts are available.
| | 03:50 | Find out more at onehippo.com.
| | 03:53 | Now not all open-source
CMSs are built on PHP or Java.
| | 03:57 | Umbraco is an open-source CMS
that is built on the .NET framework.
| | 04:02 | It is extremely powerful, but is geared
towards developers familiar with .NET.
| | 04:07 | I also need to point out that
although open source, Umbraco features an
| | 04:12 | a-la-carte option for purchases that
enhance its functionality and ease of use.
| | 04:16 | Check it out at umbraco.org.
| | 04:19 | One of my favorite content
management systems is my MODX.
| | 04:22 | MODX features two open-source platforms:
| | 04:26 | the older evolution platform and the
new, rebuilt-from-the-ground-up revolution.
| | 04:30 | MODX's focus on allowing users to
have total control over the sites that
| | 04:35 | they design allow it to stand out against some
of the other systems with similar feature sets.
| | 04:40 | You can use any HTML and CSS you
like and then use MODX tags to inject
| | 04:45 | management features wherever
you need them in your sites.
| | 04:49 | It's worth noting, too, that MODX is
more of an application framework that has
| | 04:53 | some CMS capabilities,
rather than just solely a CMS.
| | 04:57 | As a result, MODX is highly customizable,
and allows developers to quickly build
| | 05:01 | applications through the extensible framework.
| | 05:04 | One note of caution, however: MODX uses
its own terminology, and those that are
| | 05:09 | familiar with other systems may be
confused by terms that are similar to what
| | 05:13 | they're used to but have
different meanings in MODX.
| | 05:16 | You can learn more at modx.com.
| | 05:19 | If you're looking for something smaller,
CMS Made Simple is a lightweight, easy-
| | 05:23 | to-use CMS, designed to help you
build and run small- to medium-sized sites.
| | 05:29 | CMS Made Simple is focused on creating
simple corporate or organizational web
| | 05:33 | sites, and creating them quickly.
| | 05:35 | Although you can certainly create
blogs or portals with CMS Made Simple, it's
| | 05:40 | not the focus, or their strong point.
| | 05:42 | Some of the more notable features
include SEO capabilities, simple group
| | 05:46 | management and permission controls,
and an advanced menu creation structure.
| | 05:51 | There is a sizable and active
development community and a large number of
| | 05:55 | modules that you can install to
extend the system's functionality.
| | 05:58 | You can try it out at cmsmadesimple.org.
| | 06:01 | One CMS that gets a lot of attention
from professional designers is Textpattern.
| | 06:07 | Textpattern is a simple CMS that's
built with an amazing amount of focus on
| | 06:10 | the site's content.
| | 06:12 | Textpattern has a robust tagging and
content management system and is
| | 06:16 | dedicated to the concept of
separating content from presentation and structure.
| | 06:21 | As such, the flexibility with which you
can reuse and repurpose your content is
| | 06:26 | almost unmatched among other
small- to medium-size systems.
| | 06:30 | Learn more about it at textpattern.com.
| | 06:33 | I know that's a lot to digest, but we
really haven't even scratched the surface
| | 06:37 | of what's available in the
world of open-source CMSs.
| | 06:41 | In addition to the specific examples
I've given here, I also recommend checking
| | 06:45 | out Radiant CMS, Contao, Moodle for
those that need a learning management
| | 06:50 | system as well, and Plone.
| | 06:53 | The really great thing about the
open-source CMS marketplace is that there
| | 06:57 | really is something for everyone.
| | 06:58 | If you take your time, do the research,
and try out various solutions, you're
| | 07:03 | bound to find the perfect fit for your needs.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Proprietary CMSs| 00:00 | In addition to hosted and open-source
solutions, you have content management
| | 00:05 | systems that are either closed systems
or available through licensing fees.
| | 00:10 | These are often called
proprietary systems, and just like other CMS
| | 00:13 | solutions, there is a huge number of choices
available and a wide range of types and options.
| | 00:19 | In fact, in the early days of web-
based content management, the overwhelming
| | 00:23 | majority of systems were proprietary.
| | 00:26 | Now the debate between whether open-
source or proprietary solutions are better
| | 00:31 | has been raging for years now, and I
seriously doubt that I'm going to add
| | 00:35 | anything new to the discussion.
| | 00:37 | Instead, I want to simply outline the
perceived benefits and shortcomings of
| | 00:42 | proprietary systems, so that
you can make up your own mind.
| | 00:45 | Now first, many proprietary systems are
architected by a single company who is
| | 00:50 | solely responsible for updating
the software and providing support.
| | 00:54 | Proponents of this approach point out
that this gives you a working partner
| | 00:58 | that's dedicated to making
the CMS the best it can be.
| | 01:02 | In larger implementations, this
allows you to engage the vendor throughout
| | 01:06 | the entire process, from needs assessment
to systems integration and asset training.
| | 01:10 | Now critics of this approach point
out that most license agreements are
| | 01:15 | restrictive in terms of what you can
do with the software, that migrating to
| | 01:19 | another system in the future is much
harder from closed systems, and that the
| | 01:23 | maturity of the open-source market has
created a marketplace of vendors who can
| | 01:28 | offer the same set of services while
building on open-source, non-license-
| | 01:33 | restricted platforms.
| | 01:35 | Critics are also quick to point
out that while even the largest of the
| | 01:38 | proprietary vendors might only have like
a dozen or so developers working on the
| | 01:42 | system at any one time, open-source
solutions have literally hundreds of
| | 01:47 | developers within the community
contributing continually to the process.
| | 01:52 | Now, proprietary proponents are also
fond of pointing out that the true cost of
| | 01:56 | implementing open-source systems is
often actually higher than their end systems
| | 02:01 | due to the lack of documentation and
support and the cost of customizing open
| | 02:05 | source system to integrate
with existing business systems.
| | 02:09 | Well, with all those points of view
in mind, let's take a brief look at the
| | 02:12 | proprietary marketplace.
| | 02:13 | I want to start by exploring some of
the enterprise-level proprietary systems.
| | 02:19 | These systems are often the choice
of larger corporations, organizations,
| | 02:23 | and governmental agencies, and the range of
product offerings and services is staggering.
| | 02:28 | Since the proper vendor in this space
usually depends on your individual focus,
| | 02:33 | and not really out-of-the-box features,
I'm going to give you a list of some of
| | 02:37 | the larger vendors out there, so that
you can research them on your own to see
| | 02:40 | if they meet your needs.
| | 02:42 | First, I want to mention OpenText.
| | 02:44 | OpenText is a huge vendor that has
a wide array of products focusing on
| | 02:49 | publishing, content
management, and business services.
| | 02:52 | Over the years, they've acquired many
web-based content management systems, and are
| | 02:56 | one of the industry leaders in building
management platforms that integrate into
| | 03:00 | existing corporate business logic.
| | 03:02 | Check them out at opentext.com.
| | 03:05 | Next up, I want to list a few more
of the enterprise-level CMS vendors.
| | 03:10 | Now these vendors offer solutions
based on various platforms and focus-
| | 03:14 | driven feature sets,
| | 03:15 | so you'll really need to dig into them
a little bit more to see if they offer
| | 03:19 | solution that's right for you.
| | 03:21 | Most of these don't offer direct pricing
on their sites, but will create a quote
| | 03:25 | based on your organizational needs.
| | 03:27 | Also, be sure to take advantage of the fact
that almost all of them offer a free demo.
| | 03:32 | This allows you to try out the
system before making a purchase.
| | 03:35 | I recommend taking a look at Atex web
CMS; Ingeniux CMS, which supports many
| | 03:41 | higher education sites; Ektron's
.NET-based web CMS; Sitecore CMS, which can
| | 03:48 | integrate with their online marketing
suite and e-commerce solutions; Telerik's
| | 03:53 | Sitefinity CMS, which is another
.NET-based solution; Amaxus CMS, which is built
| | 03:59 | on PHP and features an open-source
license; and eZ CMS, which looks at first
| | 04:05 | glance like one of the smaller open-
source systems, but it's actually a powerful
| | 04:09 | CMS framework in its own right that
includes really cool features like built-in
| | 04:13 | HTML 5 video support.
| | 04:15 | As you can imagine, I haven't even
begun to list all of the different
| | 04:18 | enterprise-level proprietary CMSs available.
| | 04:21 | As I have mentioned before, be sure to
dig into the market yourself and compare
| | 04:25 | those systems closely.
| | 04:27 | You just might find what you're looking for.
| | 04:28 | Now in addition to the large-scale,
call-us-for-a-quote type of CMS, there is
| | 04:33 | also a number of medium-size vendors
that offer powerful platforms that are
| | 04:37 | available in a range of options, from
tiered licensing plans, to one-time
| | 04:42 | fees, to even allowing you to download and
install open-source versions of their platforms.
| | 04:46 | ExpressionEngine is one of the
leading web-based CMSs on the market today.
| | 04:51 | It has a range of license fees that stretch
from freelancer all the way to commercial.
| | 04:55 | Each of these plans has its own licensing
agreement, usage restrictions, and feature sets.
| | 05:00 | ExpressionEngine is based on PHP
and boasts a robust feature set and a large
| | 05:06 | ecosystem of developers and community members.
| | 05:08 | You can learn more at expressionengine.com.
| | 05:10 | MovableType is another extremely popular CMS.
| | 05:15 | It started as a blogging platform, and much
like WordPress, maintains a lot of that focus.
| | 05:20 | There are tiered licensing and usage
plans with the developer edition being
| | 05:24 | free and open source.
| | 05:26 | As you can imagine, this option is
designed for people who want to get in and
| | 05:30 | get their hands dirty and dive in to
getting it set up and working themselves.
| | 05:34 | Other fee-based plans offer
solutions for bloggers, businesses, and
| | 05:38 | enterprise-level clients.
| | 05:40 | You can learn more at movabletype.com.
| | 05:42 | DotNetNuke, another .NET CMS, is
similar to MovableType, and there is a free
| | 05:49 | open-source version available to
developers and tiered license editions
| | 05:53 | available to purchase.
| | 05:55 | It's worth noting that the community
edition is only recommended for people
| | 05:58 | who have strong .NET skills, and it lacks
many of the features found in other editions.
| | 06:04 | Learn more about it at dotnetnuke.com.
| | 06:07 | Finally, I want to mention two options
that are on the other end of the scale.
| | 06:11 | Small design firms, individuals
that are creating their first sites, and
| | 06:14 | freelancers wanting to speed up
workflow often don't need the complexity or the
| | 06:18 | cost of the previously mentioned systems.
| | 06:21 | There is a growing marketplace of
content management systems that target this
| | 06:25 | audience, and I want to
talk about two of them here.
| | 06:28 | Perch is a really cool little CMS,
and its low-cost one-time fee allows you to
| | 06:34 | associate it with any site you'd like.
| | 06:36 | Perch is really easy to use, and it
doesn't require any extensive technical skills.
| | 06:41 | You simply mark the content that you
want to be editable, and then Perch
| | 06:45 | allows you to log in and edit the content.
| | 06:47 | It is brilliantly simple, and allows
you to hand off web sites to clients with
| | 06:51 | the confidence that they're going to be
able to manage their sites on their own.
| | 06:54 | Check it out at grabaperch.com.
| | 06:56 | Now one solution that almost never gets
mentioned in the CMS discussion is Apple's iWeb.
| | 07:01 | Now iWeb is a low-cost web design and
management tool that allows anyone to
| | 07:07 | build a site visually, plug in their
content, and then manage the site.
| | 07:11 | Now professionals might not have quite
the toolset that they're looking for,
| | 07:15 | but individuals or small businesses
will often find that iWeb allows them to
| | 07:19 | build exactly what they're looking in
a short amount of time--and without a
| | 07:22 | tremendous amount of cost.
| | 07:24 | Learn more about it at apple.com/ilife/iweb.
| | 07:30 | Well, I hope you've enjoyed our
brief tour of proprietary solutions.
| | 07:34 | In the end, I recommend keeping an
open mind and exploring all options
| | 07:38 | regarding CMS solutions.
| | 07:40 | Focus on your own specific needs, do
extensive research, and try out as many
| | 07:45 | options as you can before making a decision.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| A closer look at Drupal| 00:00 | Currently, Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress
are the most popular web-based content
| | 00:05 | management systems on the market.
| | 00:07 | As such, I want to discuss each of them
in a little more detail, so that you can
| | 00:11 | decide for yourself if one of them
is a potential fit for your projects.
| | 00:15 | I want to start with Drupal.
| | 00:17 | Now that first thing I want to mention
about Drupal is it's actually more of
| | 00:20 | a content management framework rather than a
content management system. So what's the difference?
| | 00:26 | Mostly CMSs are built with an assumption
about how the site's content should be managed.
| | 00:31 | For example, WordPress and Movable Type
are designed with blogging in mind, and
| | 00:37 | the majority of their functionality
is focused on the needs of a blog.
| | 00:40 | A framework, on the other hand, makes
no assumptions about how the content is
| | 00:45 | going to be used--or even what the content is.
| | 00:48 | It simply provides a basic framework of
capabilities that can then be structured
| | 00:53 | any way that the user wishes.
| | 00:56 | While this is the platform an
amazing amount of flexibility,
| | 00:58 | it also means that it requires more
technical chops than some of the other systems.
| | 01:02 | Let's break down how
Drupal works to illustrate this.
| | 01:05 | At the very core of any
Drupal-driven site is the content itself.
| | 01:10 | The content is stored in what's called a node.
| | 01:12 | Now, it doesn't matter if it's a
blog post, an article, or an ad;
| | 01:16 | to Drupal, it's just another node of content.
| | 01:19 | Above the content layer you have modules.
| | 01:22 | Modules are a functional plug-ins that
build on the system's core functionality
| | 01:26 | and control what you can do with the content.
| | 01:29 | If you needed to create a blog, an
event calendar, or even an image gallery,
| | 01:33 | modules are what you'd use.
| | 01:35 | In fact, two of the functions that
you use to build pages in Drupal--
| | 01:38 | views and features--are themselves modules.
| | 01:41 | Now, two other core features--blocks
& menus--round out the foundational
| | 01:46 | elements of your pages.
| | 01:48 | Blocks are ways to sort smaller
sections of dedicated content that you can then
| | 01:52 | just plug anywhere that you like.
[00:01:53.79
For example, you could create a block
to display a Twitter feed or a smaller
| | 01:58 | upcoming events calendar and then
place that block on any page in your site
| | 02:02 | and in any location that you'd like.
| | 02:05 | Menus control navigation and
are incredibly flexible in Drupal.
| | 02:09 | You can have as many as you want, allow
them to reference any path you want and
| | 02:13 | then lay them out on any
page as a block of content.
| | 02:16 | On top of all of this is a theme
that consists of templates and a set of
| | 02:20 | functions that control not only the
look of the site, but aspects of the site's
| | 02:24 | functionality as well.
| | 02:26 | If this looks a little like
stacking blocks, then it should.
| | 02:29 | Drupal has a very modular workflow that
gives you a high degree of control over
| | 02:33 | the sites architecture and functionality.
| | 02:36 | In addition to its basic workflow,
Drupal has a pretty impressive feature list.
| | 02:40 | So it's certainly longer
than what I can list here.
| | 02:43 | However, some of the more notable
features include multilingual support,
| | 02:47 | multisite support, SEO-
friendly links, and taxonomy tools.
| | 02:52 | Drupal also has a very powerful user
management capability allowing you to
| | 02:57 | define roles that govern the creation,
editing, publishing, or deletion of
| | 03:01 | content based on content type.
| | 03:04 | One of the things you'll hear over and
over about Drupal when a core feature is
| | 03:08 | being described is that 'there
is a module that extends this functionality'.
| | 03:13 | It seems like there's a module
for almost any desired capability.
| | 03:17 | In fact, using modules is
such an integral part of Drupal,
| | 03:21 | it's helpful to imagine a Drupal
install as one where the Drupal core is
| | 03:24 | installed first, followed by the
modules that you'll need for the site's
| | 03:28 | specific functionality.
| | 03:29 | For example, the core Drupal
install doesn't feature a WYSIWYG editor.
| | 03:33 | If you want one for your project, you are
going to have to install it as a module.
| | 03:37 | As you can imagine, this means that when
creating a new site with Drupal, you'll
| | 03:40 | need to spend some time thinking about
the best way to configure Drupal for your
| | 03:44 | site's specific needs.
| | 03:46 | So what type of sites
are best managed by Drupal?
| | 03:49 | Well, although Drupal can handle
just about anything you throw at it,
| | 03:52 | it's best suited for larger complex
sites that need the flexibility and
| | 03:56 | functionality that Drupal provides.
| | 03:57 | Drupal can be a bit of a pain to set
up and configure, enough so that it
| | 04:02 | probably wouldn't be worth the effort if
you are doing a simple small site or a blog.
| | 04:06 | However, when you're working with larger
high-traffic sites with complex content
| | 04:10 | requirements, Drupal really shines.
| | 04:13 | That leads me to my final
two points about Drupal.
| | 04:17 | Drupal is definitely targeted more
towards developers than designers or
| | 04:21 | non-web professionals.
| | 04:22 | That doesn't mean that a non-developer
couldn't install and configure a Drupal site;
| | 04:26 | just that Drupal requires more technical
chops to operate than some of the other
| | 04:30 | open-source CMSs and that it might be
wise to have an experienced professional
| | 04:35 | help you, at least with your first Drupal site.
| | 04:37 | Drupal's focus on developers has
paid off in creating one of the largest
| | 04:42 | communities of any CMS.
| | 04:43 | There are hundreds of community-
contributed modules that allow you to extend and
| | 04:48 | improve Drupal's capabilities,
| | 04:50 | a large base of developers working to
improve security and performance, and a
| | 04:54 | deep pool of developers that you can
engage to implement a Drupal site for your
| | 04:58 | organization if you
don't want to do it yourself.
| | 05:00 | If you want to learn more about the
Drupal community and the CMS itself,
| | 05:05 | visit drupal.org.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| A closer look at Joomla!| 00:00 | Joomla! is another very popular open-source CMS.
| | 00:04 | It's extremely powerful, and it's
capable of creating and managing large,
| | 00:08 | heavily trafficked sites.
| | 00:09 | What's really nice about Joomla!
| | 00:11 | is that despite its power it's
straightforward enough to be used for pretty
| | 00:15 | much any site, regardless of size or complexity.
| | 00:19 | Although having prior web design and
development experience will help you get
| | 00:22 | the most out of Joomla!,
| | 00:24 | a novice web designer could use Joomla! to
get a site up and running fairly quickly.
| | 00:29 | To give you a better idea of what
Joomla! is capable of, let's take a closer
| | 00:33 | look at how it works.
| | 00:34 | For most people, Joomla!'s content
system takes a little time getting use to.
| | 00:39 | The default structure has three tiers
to it: sections, categories, and articles.
| | 00:45 | Articles are the actual pieces of
content and are associated with categories
| | 00:50 | when added to the site.
| | 00:51 | This is a little easier to
visualize if you think of sections as a file
| | 00:55 | box, categories as folders inside the box,
and articles as pieces of paper in the folder.
| | 01:03 | For more complex sites, this rigid
structure can make some tasks more
| | 01:07 | difficult than you'd like.
| | 01:08 | The most recent release of Joomla!
| | 01:10 | allows you to merge sections and
categories, which should give you a little bit
| | 01:14 | more flexibility when
needing to display related content.
| | 01:18 | Once the content has been structured,
pages within the site are built using
| | 01:22 | Joomla's menu system.
| | 01:23 | This is another concept that can
be a little confusing at first.
| | 01:27 | Basically, to add content to the site,
| | 01:30 | you create a new menu item, associate
that with a menu item type, which can be
| | 01:36 | anything from custom pages like a
contact page or a blog layout, to an
| | 01:40 | individual article of content.
| | 01:42 | Now, that might seem a little obtuse at
first, but trust me, after you do it once
| | 01:46 | or twice, it becomes pretty straightforward.
| | 01:48 | The page layout and customization is
handled through templates. A Joomla!
| | 01:53 | template is a mixture of
static HTML that controls layout,
| | 01:57 | modules that add functionality like
menus, search boxes, or other functional
| | 02:02 | plug-ins, and a content component.
| | 02:05 | Although templates can have
as many modules as you'd like,
| | 02:08 | you can only have one component per page.
| | 02:11 | Components hold the main areas of
content on the page, and they can be anything
| | 02:15 | from a single article, to
a blog or a message board.
| | 02:18 | Much like Drupal, Joomla!
| | 02:20 | Has a huge feature set that is
further extended by modules. Joomla!
| | 02:24 | has a fairly robust roles and
permissions, with nine built-in user groups
| | 02:29 | and extensions that let you have
even more granular control over those
| | 02:33 | roles and permissions. Joomla!
| | 02:35 | also has a media manager that assists in
managing images and any other file type
| | 02:40 | that you need on your site.
| | 02:42 | It also supports multiple sites and has
multilingual support, although it isn't
| | 02:46 | as powerful as some of the other systems.
| | 02:49 | One of the more intriguing features of Joomla!
| | 02:51 | is that every Joomla! install also contains a Moodle
installation, meaning that in addition to its
| | 02:56 | powerful content management tools, you
can also handle complex e-learning tasks.
| | 03:01 | Now I've often heard that Joomla!
| | 03:03 | is targeted more towards designers than
say Drupal, but I'm not sure that's true.
| | 03:07 | Joomla! is certainly is easier to set up and
administer than Drupal, but the templating
| | 03:12 | system is often seen as
restrictive and hard to update.
| | 03:15 | Now I simply see Joomla! as a
powerful alternative to Drupal.
| | 03:19 | It might not be quite as flexible, but it makes
up for that by being easier to set up and use.
| | 03:24 | You can build almost any site
you can imagine using Joomla!.
| | 03:27 | And it handles large sites
and heavy traffic just fine.
| | 03:31 | Some of the more complex sites
that have really complicated content
| | 03:34 | relationships can sometimes
be hard to build in Joomla!.
| | 03:37 | But for the most part, if you can
dream it up, Joomla! can build it.
| | 03:42 | The development community for Joomla! is
also a quite strong, and there is a huge
| | 03:45 | amount of modules available to
extend at Joomla's core feature sets.
| | 03:49 | Much like Drupal, it's quite easy to find
a developer if you need a custom module
| | 03:53 | or help developing your site.
| | 03:55 | Learn more about Joomla!
and even test-drive the demo at joomla.org.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| A closer look at WordPress| 00:00 | Although it started off as primarily
a blogging platform, WordPress has grown
| | 00:05 | into a rather robust CMS that is now
driving an estimated 25 million web sites.
| | 00:11 | This huge number, which dwarfs
estimates for Drupal and Joomla!,
| | 00:15 | is more the result of the types of
sites that WordPress is used for rather than
| | 00:19 | any clear functional
advantage over the other two.
| | 00:21 | Now, I'll come back to that point in a
minute, but for now I want to examine
| | 00:25 | WordPress a little closer by taking a look
at how it manages content and builds sites.
| | 00:31 | WordPress allows you to organize
content by using categories and tags.
| | 00:36 | Categories can be arranged in
hierarchies and allow you to develop the overall
| | 00:40 | structural organization of your content.
| | 00:43 | Tags, on the other hand, are single level
and offer you a way to add more meaning
| | 00:48 | and organization to articles and content.
| | 00:51 | WordPress also allows you to assign
multiple categories and tags to an
| | 00:54 | individual piece of content, making
it easy to establish relationships and
| | 00:58 | create highly descriptive content.
| | 01:01 | Building sites and structuring
pages in WordPress is based heavily on
| | 01:05 | its blogging nature.
| | 01:07 | WordPress assembles pages in a modular
way, with sidebars, footers, and headers
| | 01:12 | existing as external files that are
called and assembled into the finished
| | 01:17 | page as it is requested.
| | 01:19 | These files are called templates,
and they are the building blocks of
| | 01:22 | any WordPress site.
| | 01:23 | You can create multiple template
files and then assemble pages using the
| | 01:27 | templates that you need
for that particular page.
| | 01:31 | The content of the page is created using
something called the WordPress loop and
| | 01:35 | the template hierarchy.
| | 01:37 | The WordPress loop is a PHP function
that loops through the site's content and
| | 01:41 | displays things like the appropriate
number of posts or a specific article.
| | 01:46 | The template hierarchy helps
WordPress determine which loop is appropriate.
| | 01:50 | For example, if you're on the index
page, the index.php file has a loop that
| | 01:56 | displays multiple posts.
| | 01:58 | If a user clicks on one of those posts
to read more about it, the single PHP
| | 02:03 | page is called, which contains a loop
that displays only the requested article.
| | 02:07 | If that confuses you, don't worry.
| | 02:10 | I don't want it to seem like you can't
control content in a more direct way.
| | 02:14 | You can also create as many pages as
you want manually and add and edit content
| | 02:18 | directly on that page.
| | 02:20 | This entire process, as well as the
design and additional site functionality, can
| | 02:25 | be controlled through a theme.
| | 02:27 | WordPress themes are much more than
just a way to change the layout and design
| | 02:31 | of a WordPress site.
| | 02:32 | They are collection of templates,
functions, and CSS files that drive the way
| | 02:39 | a site operates, and allows theme
developers to extend the functionality of WordPress.
| | 02:44 | The complexity of creating themes and
understanding the WordPress loop well
| | 02:49 | enough to modify its behavior
illustrates what is--at least to me--one of the
| | 02:53 | more intriguing things about WordPress.
| | 02:56 | Although to successfully build a theme
and customize WordPress's behavior takes
| | 03:00 | a fair amount of technical skills,
| | 03:02 | it hasn't slowdown the
adoption of WordPress one bit.
| | 03:05 | Well, this is because of how easy
it is to install and change themes.
| | 03:10 | A well-built theme allows a user to
simply install it, plug in content, and have
| | 03:16 | a fully functioning site up
and running in mere minutes.
| | 03:19 | Changing not only the look and the
feel of the site, but the functionality as
| | 03:22 | well, can be as simple as installing
and in activating a new theme or just
| | 03:26 | tweaking the existing theme's CSS.
| | 03:29 | So even though the vast majority of
WordPress users have no idea how to modify
| | 03:34 | the inner workings of their sites,
| | 03:35 | they don't have to.
| | 03:36 | They can simply change to a new
theme whenever they would like.
| | 03:40 | In addition to the convenience that
themes provide, WordPress has a number of
| | 03:44 | other features that
users find really attractive.
| | 03:47 | First, like Drupal and Joomla!,
| | 03:49 | there's a huge number of plug-ins
available that make it simple to add more
| | 03:52 | advanced functionality.
| | 03:54 | The roles and permissions in
WordPress are really broad, with five
| | 03:57 | predefined rules available for users
of the site, including three that are
| | 04:01 | dedicated to editing content.
| | 04:03 | You can also find plug-ins that allows
you to build custom roles and permissions.
| | 04:07 | WordPress also tracks content
revisions and makes it really simple to revert
| | 04:11 | to an earlier version.
| | 04:12 | Simple multilingual support is
available through a plug-in, and starting with
| | 04:16 | version 3.0, WordPress has supported
multiple sites through a single install.
| | 04:21 | With its emphasis on blogging,
WordPress is a fantastic choice for smaller web
| | 04:25 | sites that have a fairly simple structure.
| | 04:28 | The hundreds of available themes and
large development community make it easy to
| | 04:32 | find a custom theme that
fits the needs of your site.
| | 04:35 | There is a wide range of high-quality
themes available for free, as well as a
| | 04:39 | very robust aftermarket for
professionally designed themes.
| | 04:42 | WordPress's development community is
a very mature, active community, making
| | 04:46 | it easy to find people to create plug-ins
and help with site development when necessary.
| | 04:51 | Now for simple sites, I doubt
you are going to need outside help.
| | 04:54 | In fact, I would say with no hesitation
at all that non-technical people would
| | 04:58 | find WordPress relatively
simple to set up and use.
| | 05:01 | The millions of WordPress sites that
are active today are a testament to that.
| | 05:05 | However, the complexity of creating
themes and the limitations enforced by
| | 05:09 | WordPress's reliance on the loop means
they are trying to scale up a WordPress
| | 05:13 | site or build a site that has content
rules driven by complex business logic,
| | 05:17 | can be rather frustrating.
| | 05:19 | Yes, WordPress sites can handle heavy
traffic and contain as many pages as you
| | 05:23 | want, but using it for larger
complex sites might not be the best choice.
| | 05:28 | Learn more about WordPress and
download it, try it out for yourself
| | 05:31 | at wordpress.org.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Resources for comparing CMSs| 00:00 | At some point, you're going to start the
process of comparing content management
| | 00:03 | systems on your own.
| | 00:05 | One of the things that you're going to
realize fairly quickly is that the CMS
| | 00:08 | marketplace is extremely crowded.
| | 00:11 | Making comparisons between feature sets,
platforms, and other requirements can
| | 00:15 | be very difficult, if not downright tedious.
| | 00:18 | That's why I want to show you a
couple of sites that can really help you
| | 00:21 | refine your search and give you some
tools to help you focus on the systems
| | 00:24 | that best meet your needs.
| | 00:27 | So the first site I want to show is
CMS Matrix, and you can find this at
| | 00:31 | cmsmatrix.org. And this is a really
cool site that will give you some idea as
| | 00:36 | to how many different CMSs are out
there and then give you some tools to
| | 00:40 | compare these CMSs.
| | 00:41 | Now the list oldest of CMSs here
isn't comprehensive, but it is huge.
| | 00:47 | So let's say I want to compare two
relatively similar CMSs, like CMS Made
| | 00:51 | Simple and Textpattern.
| | 00:53 | So what I want to do is I would just
go ahead and scroll down and find the
| | 00:59 | ones I'm looking for.
| | 01:00 | So the first one I'm
looking for is CMS Made Simple,
| | 01:02 | so I'm just going to put a little check
mark beside that, and then I want to go
| | 01:05 | all the way down and find Textpattern.
| | 01:07 | Okay, and sometimes it take a while to get
all the way down to the bottom of this list.
| | 01:12 | Now that I have selected the two that I
want to compare--and you're not limited
| | 01:15 | to two; you can certainly do more than that.
| | 01:16 | I'm going to scroll back up to the
top and click on the Compare button.
| | 01:22 | Now after a little bit of time, I
get a comparison window that comes up.
| | 01:25 | Notice that it gives me a
list of system requirements.
| | 01:27 | So it tells me what type of
application server these need to be hosted on.
| | 01:30 | It gives me a sectional security,
| | 01:33 | so I get to see what types of security
features these have, what type of support
| | 01:38 | features they have, ease of
use, performance, management.
| | 01:42 | This is really cool.
| | 01:43 | You get to compare features such as
web statistics, and you can see also here
| | 01:48 | if the feature isn't a part of the core,
you'll notice that it'll list if it's
| | 01:52 | a free add-on or not.
| | 01:53 | Now if you want to know a little bit
more about these features and exactly kind
| | 01:56 | of what they are, just hover over them.
| | 01:58 | So Online Administration, for example,
it says, "Can the system be completely managed
| | 02:02 | through a web browser?"
| | 02:03 | It's not going into a lot of detail here.
| | 02:05 | We're not getting drilldown menus
about what makes this feature different
| | 02:09 | from this feature or how it
executes this specific feature.
| | 02:12 | But it gives you a nice idea as to
exactly what type of feature sets both of
| | 02:17 | these have, and the feature sets are exhaustive.
| | 02:20 | Notice that we're not even a
quarter of the way through it yet.
| | 02:22 | You've got Interoperability,
Flexibility, Built-in Applications, Commerce.
| | 02:27 | So that means there is a ton of
features that are being compared here when
| | 02:31 | you want to check out these different
CMSs and see what features they share,
| | 02:34 | that sort of thing.
| | 02:35 | Now also notice here that CMS Made
Simple was last updated in 2009, Textpattern
| | 02:40 | last updated in 2007.
| | 02:42 | Now, I don't think that's entirely accurate.
| | 02:44 | So again, some of this
information might be a little dated.
| | 02:46 | So if you're interested in a CMS,
don't just trust exactly what you see here.
| | 02:50 | Go out to CMSs web site
and verify the information.
| | 02:53 | Now another site that I wanted to show
you was opensourceCMS, which is a great
| | 02:57 | place to go to find demos for some of
these CMSs that you might want to try out.
| | 03:01 | It's a relatively odd URL.
| | 03:03 | It's php.opensourcecms.com.
| | 03:08 | Now what I like about this is
they have just a full list of demos.
| | 03:11 | Some of them are available right here
on the site; other ones are available on
| | 03:15 | the CMSs web site itself.
And some of them are just live demos,
| | 03:18 | you can just jump right in and start
using them; some of them you need to
| | 03:21 | download and install to use the demo.
| | 03:23 | What I really like is notice that for
the CMS demos over here, they have them
| | 03:27 | separate by categories.
| | 03:28 | So if you needed eCommerce, if you
needed e-Learning, you can go ahead and
| | 03:32 | filter by those categories.
| | 03:33 | I'm just going to say CMS / Portals,
and notice it has 131 different demos.
| | 03:38 | Now in terms of the CMSs themselves,
notice that they also have user-generated
| | 03:43 | ratings, which sometimes you can
find those to be fairly valuable.
| | 03:46 | And let's just say I go down and I
want to check out a different CMS, maybe
| | 03:51 | Concrete this time or Contao Open Source.
| | 03:54 | So I'm going to go to Contao.
| | 03:55 | So now I get a little bit
more information about the CMS.
| | 03:58 | Notice that I get user ratings.
| | 03:59 | I get a screenshot of it. Sometimes
it's just a promo shot like you're seeing
| | 04:03 | here. Other times you'll
actually see the admin interface.
| | 04:06 | It gives us an overview of when it
was started, when it was last updated,
| | 04:10 | languages that might be available,
whether or not it has a description. Some of
| | 04:15 | them have lengthier descriptions than others.
| | 04:16 | One of my favorite features is
right down here on the bottom.
| | 04:19 | We get a section dedicated to user comments.
| | 04:21 | So you can read comments from people
who've actually used the CMS, and this
| | 04:26 | really presents the CMS in
sort of warts-and-all look.
| | 04:29 | Some of the comments are going to be
favorable obviously, some of them not so favorable.
| | 04:33 | You just need to filter them out
with the expectation that these are user-
| | 04:35 | generated comments, and some of them
are going to be valuable to you, some
| | 04:38 | of them not so much.
| | 04:40 | So I'm going to scroll back up,
because this is what we really came for.
| | 04:44 | Notice that we have a
link to the open-source demo.
| | 04:46 | So we have a demo, and it's available
offsite, and you just click to follow a link.
| | 04:50 | It'll take you to where the demo is,
and in some cases, as I mentioned before,
| | 04:54 | you're going to have to
download and install demos.
| | 04:56 | In other cases, it'll take you right to
a live demo where you can start plugging
| | 04:59 | stuff in, playing around with the
system, seeing how the admin panel works.
| | 05:02 | So this is a really cool resource if
you want to delve deeper into a CMS that
| | 05:07 | you might be interested in and you want to
see if there is a demo available for that CMS.
| | 05:12 | Now finally, I want to show you another
comparison web site, and this one is cmsmatch.com.
| | 05:17 | It's a lot like the CMS Matrix in
that it compares multiple CMSs to one
| | 05:22 | another, but it's a little different
in terms of how it compares the feature
| | 05:25 | sets and how it displays them.
| | 05:27 | Now first, you don't have
to just compare something.
| | 05:29 | If you want, you can just browse.
| | 05:31 | If you know you want to browse for a
specific content management system, you can
| | 05:35 | go up to the menu, go to Browse >
Content Management, and you get a full list of
| | 05:38 | all of the content management
systems that are reviewed on this site.
| | 05:41 | So let's say I want to learn a
little bit more about say Joomla!
| | 05:44 | So if I click on the J, I'm going to
have to scroll through all of the CMSs that
| | 05:50 | are available. And again going to
these sites gives you an idea as to how
| | 05:54 | extremely broad the CMS market is,
and how crowded a marketplace it is.
| | 05:58 | So here we have Joomla!
| | 06:00 | Notice that each of the CMSs receive
a score, and they receive a percentage.
| | 06:04 | This is based on their ratings.
| | 06:05 | This is based on user feedback.
| | 06:06 | So there is lot of information available here.
| | 06:08 | If I click on the name, I get a little bit
more of an in-depth review of the actual CMS.
| | 06:13 | So we get a little overview of it.
| | 06:15 | It gives us a cost.
| | 06:17 | If I scroll down, I can see that I get
ratings on individual aspects of the CMS.
| | 06:22 | So Core Applications, Content Management,
I'm getting ratings based off of 100.
| | 06:28 | And if you scroll down, you
get a lot more information.
| | 06:31 | You get some screenshots,
functionality, page editing.
| | 06:35 | So here we have a more sort of a
deeper drill-down into all the feature sets
| | 06:40 | available for this particular CMS.
| | 06:43 | Now if you want to compare two CMSs to
each other, we just go to Compare section.
| | 06:48 | In this case, it allows us
to compare up to ten CMSs,
| | 06:51 | and what's really about this is it
allows us to export this data in a CSV file,
| | 06:56 | so that you can pull this back
and place this information in a spreadsheet.
| | 06:59 | So let's say again I want
to compare oh! I don't know,
| | 07:02 | let's say Drupal and Joomla!
| | 07:04 | So if I remove the CMSs that are
already in the list, all I have to do is
| | 07:09 | scroll down and find the ones that I
want. And again, this time we're going
| | 07:13 | to do Drupal and Joomla,
| | 07:14 | so I'm going to add Drupal, and then
I'm going to scroll down a little bit
| | 07:17 | further and find Joomla! Here it is.
| | 07:20 | We'll add that, and we'll go
ahead and compare those two.
| | 07:23 | So here we have a graph showing the
respective ratings in different sections.
| | 07:29 | It's a lot like the bar graph we saw earlier.
| | 07:31 | It's just comparing different scores.
| | 07:33 | This is very helpful when you have multiples.
| | 07:35 | you don't want to get more than two on here,
because that can get crowded pretty quickly.
| | 07:38 | So I kind of like having the line graph.
And then you get to see their rating,
| | 07:43 | user feedback, and all
sorts of different information.
| | 07:46 | Again, it goes through all the feature sets.
| | 07:48 | It kind of gives you information
about whether it's available as a core
| | 07:52 | feature, whether it's available as a plug-in,
or add-on, or weather it's not available at all.
| | 07:56 | It's a nice way of sort of going
and comparing these CMSs head to head.
| | 08:01 | Whenever you see a little question mark
here, you can hover over that, and you
| | 08:04 | can get some more
information on that particular feature.
| | 08:06 | So if you need a little bit additional
background on a feature and you're not
| | 08:09 | got quite sure what it is,
that can help you out.
| | 08:11 | Again, all you have to do is come right
down on the bottom and you can export
| | 08:15 | that out as a CSV file.
| | 08:18 | So these sites are great resource,
and they're going to help you find, review,
| | 08:21 | and compare all of your
candidate content management systems.
| | 08:25 | Now don't forget that no matter how good
the review is on one of these sites, or
| | 08:29 | how impressive its feature
list is as you scroll through it,
| | 08:32 | you can never really properly evaluate
a CMS without first trying it out, and
| | 08:36 | that's why I really like the
opensourceCMS site that took you to where you
| | 08:40 | can go find some demos.
| | 08:41 | I really recommend using sites like the
one I'm showing you to compare them to
| | 08:45 | narrow down your choices, and then go
to the opensourcecms.com to see if there
| | 08:49 | is an available demo.
| | 08:50 | Then go ahead and download
and install that demo, or just try it out online,
| | 08:54 | and make sure you try out all of your
candidate, so that you get a real feel for
| | 08:57 | which of these CMSs is going to
right for you and your workflow.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. CMS TerminologyWhat is an open source CMS?| 00:00 | In this chapter, I am going to
discuss many of the terms and concepts that
| | 00:03 | you'll come in contact with while
researching or working with content
| | 00:07 | management systems.
| | 00:08 | Being familiar with these terms will
make it easier to compare CMSs and give you
| | 00:13 | a greater understanding of how they work.
| | 00:15 | I want to start with a term that you
here a lot as you'll be working with
| | 00:18 | content management systems, 'open source'.
| | 00:21 | Open-source CMSs are often listed as a
separate category and even have entire
| | 00:26 | web sites dedicated to the latest
open-source CMS news and reviews.
| | 00:31 | So what exactly makes a CMS open source?
| | 00:35 | To understand that, let's take a moment
to go back and revisit the evolution of
| | 00:39 | CMSs that we discussed earlier.
| | 00:41 | In the mid to late '90s, an
explosion a proprietary content management
| | 00:45 | systems joined the market.
| | 00:46 | A proprietary CMS is one that's
developed by a single corporation and then
| | 00:51 | licensed to clients that wish to use it.
| | 00:53 | In many cases, the CMS would be
customized specifically for that client
| | 00:58 | and their workflow.
| | 00:59 | As you can imagine, this type
of service was not cheap.
| | 01:02 | At that time CMSs were seen as a
powerful solution that was restricted to
| | 01:06 | organizations with larger budgets.
| | 01:08 | Now that's where open-source software comes in.
| | 01:11 | While the term 'open source' gets
thrown around a lot, there really is an
| | 01:14 | organization, the Open Source
Initiative, that is dedicated to promoting and
| | 01:19 | codifying what open source means.
| | 01:21 | Basically, open-source software is
software that is released with licenses that
| | 01:25 | allows the software to be distributed
for free and without any royalty fees.
| | 01:30 | Open-source software really began to
take hold of the web with the release
| | 01:33 | of PHP in the mid-90s.
| | 01:35 | Finally, a free general-purpose scripting
language was available for web development.
| | 01:40 | This dramatically lowered the cost of
hosting dynamic web sites and set the
| | 01:44 | stage for an explosion
open-source web applications.
| | 01:47 | It's only natural then the
developers would soon turn their attention to
| | 01:49 | content management systems.
| | 01:51 | This democratized the world of
web-based content management and made it a lot
| | 01:55 | easier for individuals and smaller
organizations to bring content management to their sites.
| | 01:59 | It's no accident that
Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress,
| | 02:04 | all free open-source content management
systems, are the three most popular CMSs
| | 02:08 | on the market today.
| | 02:10 | So, does that mean that open-source
CMSs are really free? Yes and no.
| | 02:14 | If you're technically savvy,
you can download the CMS for free,
| | 02:18 | install it on your server, and
begin using it to set up your site
| | 02:21 | without spending a dime.
| | 02:23 | Even better, many hosting companies
offer a one-click install that will install
| | 02:27 | the CMS on your server for you, freeing
you from having to do that on your own.
| | 02:31 | However, open-source software
isn't without its drawbacks.
| | 02:34 | As a general rule, a community of volunteer
programmers develops open-source software.
| | 02:39 | That means that updates are frequent,
interfaces aren't always user friendly,
| | 02:42 | and documentation can
occasionally be hard to come by.
| | 02:45 | If you use open-source software, you
should be prepared to either put in the
| | 02:48 | time yourself to learn how it works or
pay for a resource on staff or an outside
| | 02:53 | consultant to make sure your
install is handled properly.
| | 02:56 | You'll also need to keep up with its
development, so you can be aware of any
| | 03:00 | major revisions and how
they might affect your site.
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| What is a LAMP stack?| 00:00 | Occasionally, you are going to come
across a term or two that everyone just
| | 00:03 | seems to automatically assume you know.
| | 00:06 | When you're learning more about content
management systems, you're bound to hear
| | 00:09 | the term LAMP, especially when
dealing with open-source CMSs,
| | 00:14 | and you're usually never really given a
definition for what exactly a LAMP CMS is.
| | 00:19 | LAMP is actually an acronym that
represents a stack of open-source software
| | 00:24 | that when used in conjunction with
one another create application servers.
| | 00:28 | LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL,
and PHP, although the scripting languages
| | 00:34 | Pearl and Python often
replace PHP in a LAMP stack.
| | 00:38 | So let's take a look at what each of
these do within the stack and then discuss
| | 00:42 | how this relates to content management systems.
| | 00:45 | Linux is an open-source operating
system that is commonly used to run servers.
| | 00:50 | Due to the fact that it's free, open
source, and really powerful, hosting
| | 00:55 | companies frequently use it
as their platform of choice.
| | 00:58 | Linux isn't the only offering system used in
conjunction with Apache, MySQL, and PHP however.
| | 01:04 | When used with the Mac OS, the
stack is referred to as MAMP.
| | 01:08 | And when used with Windows, the
stack is referred to as WAMP--
| | 01:12 | logically enough, of course.
| | 01:13 | Now the Apache HTTP server makes up
the next part of the LAMP stack and is a
| | 01:19 | free, open-source web server that has
revolutionized the web since its release in 1995.
| | 01:25 | It is by far the most popular web
server in use today, and it's used to serve
| | 01:29 | over 60 % of all web sites.
| | 01:33 | MySQL, the next part of the LAMP stack, is
often referred to as a type of database.
| | 01:37 | That's not technically correct as
MySQL is actually a relational database
| | 01:42 | management system, and as the name implies,
helps to create and manage relational
| | 01:46 | databases as part of the LAMP stack.
| | 01:49 | Now whether the P in LAMP stands
for PHP, Pearl, or Python, it represents
| | 01:55 | a server-side scripting language that
can be used to create web applications
| | 01:59 | or dynamic web sites.
| | 02:01 | Many open-source CMSs, including Drupal, Joomla!
| | 02:04 | and WordPress, were built in PHP and are
designed to work using the LAMP stack.
| | 02:09 | For the most part, you won't need to
understand exactly what the LAMP stack is
| | 02:14 | in order to take advantage of it.
| | 02:15 | Most of time, it's totally
transparent to the end user.
| | 02:18 | However, if you'll be configuring or
setting up your own installations, it's
| | 02:23 | helpful to understand how all
the components fit together.
| | 02:26 | In many cases, you can download and
install bundled servers for the LAMP, MAMP,
| | 02:31 | and WAMP stacks based on the
operating system that you're using.
| | 02:35 | For more information on LAMP,
check out www.lamphowto.com.
| | 02:42 | If you're interested in installing
the stack on other operating systems,
| | 02:45 | check out wampserver.com and mamp.info
for Windows and Mac respectively.
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| What are WebDAV and FTP?| 00:00 | If you start comparing content
management systems, eventually you're going to
| | 00:03 | come across the phrase
'support for WebDAV and FTP'.
| | 00:07 | While you're more likely to be
familiar with FTP, both of these terms can be
| | 00:12 | confusing to new users,
| | 00:13 | so let's take a closer look at them,
how they're related, and why they matter.
| | 00:17 | WebDAV and FTP are both used to upload
files to your sites, and usually at least
| | 00:22 | one of these methods, if not both,
are integrated directly into your CMS.
| | 00:27 | FTP stands for file transfer protocol
and is the most widely used protocol for
| | 00:32 | sending and receiving files over the web.
| | 00:34 | It's incredibly common, and it's very
easy to find FTP clients to transfer your
| | 00:38 | files if your CMS
doesn't come with one built in.
| | 00:41 | WebDAV stands for web-based
distributed authoring and versioning.
| | 00:46 | It's a bit of a different animal then FTP.
| | 00:48 | First, it's an extension of the HTTP
protocol that allows both the reading and
| | 00:53 | writing of documents on a web server.
| | 00:55 | In practical terms, WebDAV provides you
with a way to manage files on your web server
| | 01:00 | that's very similar to
using a local network drive.
| | 01:02 | Most operating systems have WebDAV
built into them, and even allow you to mount
| | 01:06 | web servers just like any other disk.
| | 01:09 | Depending upon the client you're using,
using WebDAV is as simple as dragging
| | 01:12 | files from one folder to another.
| | 01:14 | Of course, it's not always as simple
as that, and not all CMSs handle file
| | 01:18 | management the same.
| | 01:20 | Most of the time, you'll simply set up
your server information and username and
| | 01:23 | password combination, and the CMS will
use whichever protocol it supports or
| | 01:28 | that you've set as a preference.
| | 01:30 | In other instances, WebDAV is
integrated directly into the CMS interface to
| | 01:34 | handle versioning and file management.
| | 01:36 | It's also not uncommon for a CMS to have
a WebDAV extension or plug-in that will
| | 01:41 | allow you to add this
functionality to the system.
| | 01:44 | If no FTP or WebDAV integration is
present, or if the CMS places a limit on the
| | 01:48 | number or size of files that you
need to upload, you may have to find and
| | 01:52 | configure an FTP or WebDAV client yourself.
| | 01:55 | Even though if you already have a
means of transferring files, you might want
| | 01:57 | to consider this option if available, as you
can greatly simply managing files in your CMS.
| | 02:02 | If you're looking at stand-alone
transfer clients, some, like FileZilla, are pure
| | 02:08 | FTP clients, while others, like
Cyberduck, allow you to use either protocol.
| | 02:13 | You could also use the clients
built into most web authoring tools, like
| | 02:17 | Dreamweaver or Aptana Studio.
| | 02:19 | There are literally hundreds of file
management clients available, and most
| | 02:23 | are free or low cost,
| | 02:24 | so you're bound to find
something that works for you.
| | 02:28 | Either way, it's best to spend some
time checking out the file management and
| | 02:31 | transfer options for any CMS before
making a decision as it's such an important
| | 02:36 | part of the content management process.
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| What is MySQL?| 00:00 | Earlier when we discussed the LAMP
stack, I mentioned MySQL as an important
| | 00:04 | part of the open-source software stack
used to power most open-source content
| | 00:08 | management systems.
| | 00:10 | At the time, I mentioned how
MySQL helps us create and manage
| | 00:13 | relational databases.
| | 00:15 | Let's take a closer look at databases
and their role in content management
| | 00:19 | systems and then discuss why MySQL is such
a popular means of managing those databases.
| | 00:24 | A database is little more than a
collection of data and can usually be
| | 00:28 | represented as a table.
| | 00:30 | Relational databases, like those created
by MySQL, store data in multiple tables
| | 00:35 | that have the ability to relate to
each other in some way, usually by sharing
| | 00:39 | data keys or properties.
| | 00:41 | In the case of content management
systems, using relational databases allows
| | 00:45 | them to easily store and organize
content in an efficient way while linking
| | 00:50 | that content together.
| | 00:51 | This makes it simple to find all the
articles written by a particular author or
| | 00:55 | all articles written about a specific subject.
| | 00:58 | This type of functionality can be used
to power searches, display comments, or
| | 01:02 | to construct pages that need
a particular type of content.
| | 01:05 | This of course is where MySQL comes in.
| | 01:08 | MySQL is an open-source SQL database
management system that was released
| | 01:12 | publicly in 1998 by the company MySQL AB.
| | 01:16 | Although MySQL AB was acquired by Sun in
2008, MySQL remains available as a free
| | 01:22 | and open-source solution under the
GNU General Public License, although
| | 01:26 | enterprise-level licenses are available.
| | 01:28 | Since it's release, MySQL has emerged as
the most widely used SQL database on the web.
| | 01:33 | As the name suggests, MySQL uses SQL
or structured query language to create,
| | 01:39 | manage, and retrieve information from databases.
| | 01:42 | Although SQL is a fairly simple
language to learn, for the most part you won't
| | 01:46 | need to know it to use MySQL with your CMS.
| | 01:49 | Most content management systems
handle the creation and upkeep of their
| | 01:53 | databases automatically,
requiring very little input from you.
| | 01:57 | However, there are times that you may
need to tweak your database manually or
| | 02:01 | create a new one, especially if
you plan on doing your installs.
| | 02:04 | For that you'll either need to learn
the basics of SQL or use one of the
| | 02:08 | popular graphical interfaces for MySQL,
such as phpMyAdmin, as MySQL does not
| | 02:14 | come with a user interface.
| | 02:16 | To learn more about MySQL, check out
Oracle's MySQL site at dev.mysql.com.
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| WYSIWYG editors| 00:00 | One of the most consistent features
among all types of CMSs is a WYSIWYG editor.
| | 00:06 | In most cases, the WYSIWYG editor
forms the core of almost all CMS
| | 00:10 | content-editing interfaces.
| | 00:12 | This ubiquity tends to make people
overlook these editors when researching a
| | 00:16 | CMS, and that's a shame because they
are such an important part of how teams
| | 00:20 | and clients work with a CMS, they should be
examined closely as part of the selection process.
| | 00:26 | A WYSIWYG, or What You See is What You
Get, editor allows users to add, edit, and
| | 00:33 | format content without
having to code HTML or CSS.
| | 00:37 | Most of the time, they look and
feel very similar to a word processor,
| | 00:42 | making it simple for anyone with
basic word processing skills to add or
| | 00:46 | edit content on a CMS.
| | 00:49 | Here, for example, is the
WYSIWYG editor for WordPress.
| | 00:52 | Notice that it has a toolbar, and it
allows me to do things like bolding my text
| | 00:56 | and maybe italicizing it.
| | 00:58 | I can format links.
| | 01:00 | I could change the color of the text.
| | 01:02 | All sorts of things.
| | 01:03 | Really, all I have to do is type in my
text, format it the way I want it using
| | 01:07 | the toolbar, and simply publish it.
| | 01:10 | This simplicity leads people to believe
that all WYSIWYG editors are the same, or
| | 01:14 | at least produce the same results.
| | 01:16 | That of course is simply not true.
| | 01:18 | Perhaps the most obvious difference
them is simply the amount of things
| | 01:21 | they allow you to do.
| | 01:22 | Some, like this one, are very minimal and
only give you basic formatting options.
| | 01:27 | Others offer a huge range of
formatting options as well as advanced
| | 01:32 | functionality like allowing users to
print content, create tables, insert images,
| | 01:37 | video, and other media
directly into your content.
| | 01:40 | Looking for an editor that gives users
the formatting options they need is a very
| | 01:44 | important consideration when choosing a CMS.
| | 01:47 | Keep in mind that you'll need to train your
clients or your team members to use the editor.
| | 01:52 | If you have too many options up
there or a WYSIWYG toolbar populated with
| | 01:57 | features that you don't need, that
can prove difficult for non-technical
| | 02:00 | users to grasp, or worse, result in pages
that aren't formatted to your site's standards.
| | 02:06 | Too few options could result in
frustrated users who simply can't format content
| | 02:11 | to match the rest of the site.
| | 02:13 | There's another capability that you
need to examine when looking at a CMS's
| | 02:16 | WYSIWYG Editor, and it's one that's
really actually pretty easy to miss.
| | 02:20 | Although they look and act like a
word processor, they are in fact still
| | 02:25 | generating code and then
inserting that code into your site.
| | 02:29 | Because of this, it's very important
that you examine the code created by the
| | 02:33 | WYSIWYG editor to make sure it
generates clean code and meets the level of
| | 02:37 | standards compliancy
that you need for your site.
| | 02:40 | Many of the editors give you the
ability to switch from formatting text to
| | 02:44 | writing code, and this allows you to see
the code that's being generated and then
| | 02:48 | tweak it if necessary.
| | 02:49 | If you are demoing or trying one of
these editors out, format some text and
| | 02:54 | then switch over and take a look at the code.
| | 02:56 | Depending upon the editor, some of
the formatting options will result in
| | 02:59 | structuring the text with HTML, while others
might result in the creation of inline styles.
| | 03:06 | If your site has strict rules about the
use of inline styles or strict guides on
| | 03:10 | when and how structural tags should
be used, you need to understand how the
| | 03:15 | WYSIWYG editor formats your text and
then train your clients or staff to use it
| | 03:19 | in a way that generates clean
code with the formatting that you need.
| | 03:23 | In many cases, CMSs use the same WYSIWYG editor.
| | 03:27 | If you want to take a closer look at
some of the more popular editors and
| | 03:31 | their capabilities, go check out
TinyMCE, CKEditor, Open WYSIWYG, and
| | 03:39 | InnovaStudio WYSIWYG editor.
| | 03:42 | These sites will give you insight into
the features and functionality behind
| | 03:46 | the WYSIWYG editors found in some of the
more popular content management systems, and hey,
| | 03:50 | if you are a developer, give you
some great options for integrating a
| | 03:53 | WYSIWYG editor into your own projects.
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| Understanding users, groups, and permissions| 00:00 | One of the most important aspects of
the management part of content management
| | 00:04 | is controlling how that
content is accessed and changed.
| | 00:08 | Users, groups,
and permissions allow you to do just that.
| | 00:12 | In a typical CMS, there are dozens of
tasks that can be performed by users.
| | 00:17 | This could be anything from
posting or editing a blog post, uploading
| | 00:21 | images, adding metadata, adding dates to
upcoming events, or even moderating user comments.
| | 00:27 | If your site is a one-person operation,
then controlling access to all those
| | 00:30 | tasks isn't that important.
| | 00:32 | You are just going to be
doing them all yourself.
| | 00:34 | However, in a team-based environment
or in a situation where you want to
| | 00:38 | separate the administration of a site
from working with the content, groups and
| | 00:42 | permissions allow you to do just that.
| | 00:45 | The basic premise behind using
groups and permissions is pretty simple.
| | 00:48 | Typically, an administrator will create
groups that include various permissions.
| | 00:52 | An authors group, for example, might
contain permissions that allow members to
| | 00:57 | write and edit specific ranges of content.
| | 01:00 | Another group might have a
broader set of permissions
| | 01:02 | to allow members to publish articles,
add metadata, and decide which marketing
| | 01:06 | campaigns to run in the sidebar each month.
| | 01:09 | After groups have been created, users of
the site are then added to these groups
| | 01:13 | which then control what the
user can do within the system.
| | 01:16 | As is the case with all functions
within a CMS, the levels of control you have
| | 01:21 | with users groups and permissions
vary depending upon the CMS itself.
| | 01:25 | Some have very broad and rather
limited ranges of permissions, while others
| | 01:29 | offer an incredibly granular amount of
control over what users are allowed to
| | 01:33 | control or do within your site.
| | 01:35 | Within these systems, you can restrict
access to whether users can modify the
| | 01:39 | site's CSS, assign templates to pages,
communicate with other team members, start
| | 01:44 | email campaigns, or I mean
a host of other features.
| | 01:48 | Other content management systems take
that control even further, by introducing
| | 01:52 | the concept of what we call workflows.
| | 01:54 | Now, workflows are groups and
permissions that are kind of bundled together to
| | 01:58 | control how content is created,
managed, and published within a system.
| | 02:03 | By assigning workflows, you can
set these permission levels across
| | 02:06 | multiple groups at once.
| | 02:08 | In addition to managing team members,
permissions give you the ability to control
| | 02:12 | how visitors of your site can
view and interact with it as well.
| | 02:15 | If your CMS allows you to manage site
memberships, you could create multiple
| | 02:19 | user experiences based on member permissions.
| | 02:21 | Here, for example, we see a guest of
a site that can only see two pages.
| | 02:25 | Well, you could, if you wanted to,
restrict some pages or content to
| | 02:29 | registered members only.
| | 02:31 | I'll restrict who can
respond to a post through comments.
| | 02:34 | You can even use permissions to decide
which content to show a member based on
| | 02:37 | what type of member they are.
| | 02:39 | The amount of control you have over
groups and permissions does vary widely
| | 02:43 | among different CMSs,
| | 02:44 | so before you begin looking for a CMS,
you need to carefully consider what types
| | 02:49 | of users, groups, and permissions you
or your clients are likely to need.
| | 02:54 | Getting a CMS that allows fine granular
control over permissions when you really
| | 02:58 | only need one or two user types is
pretty much overkill, and it's going to
| | 03:02 | result in inefficient
administration of the site.
| | 03:04 | Likewise, a CMS that has very
simple user and permission capabilities
| | 03:08 | will likely be too restrictive to a team
that needs various user roles and capabilities.
| | 03:13 | Be sure to map out the needs of your
team to decide what level of control that
| | 03:17 | you're going to need from your CMS.
| | 03:19 | If you're researching a CMS and find
that it doesn't contain the necessary
| | 03:23 | permissions and groups, don't
assume that it won't work for you.
| | 03:26 | First, carefully examine how
users and groups are created.
| | 03:30 | Often, you can create exactly the
system you need through a little extra work.
| | 03:34 | Second, take a look at the
available modules and extensions.
| | 03:37 | Many open-source CMSs have custom user
group and permission extensions that add
| | 03:42 | more granular level of
control to the core functionality.
| | 03:45 | If you're going to be creating
multiple sites for various types of clients,
| | 03:49 | you'll want to find a CMS with really
flexible groups and permissions that you
| | 03:52 | can modify depending upon
the needs of your client.
| | 03:55 | Regardless, pay close attention to
how users, groups, and permissions are
| | 04:00 | handled by the CMS that you choose.
| | 04:02 | Working efficiently within the CMS
requires you to control how content is
| | 04:06 | managed in a way that's suitable for
your team or the clients that are going
| | 04:10 | to be using it.
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| What is metadata?| 00:00 | Have you ever tried to
find a needle in a haystack?
| | 00:02 | If you try to do it manually by
sifting through the entire haystack by hand,
| | 00:07 | unless you're incredibly lucky, you're
bound to get frustrated, tired, and quite
| | 00:11 | frankly, sick of the haystack
by the time that you've done.
| | 00:14 | But what if you had a giant magnet, one
that could hover over the haystack and
| | 00:18 | based on it's metallic properties
instantly retrieve the needle? Aha!
| | 00:23 | Much better user experience, right?
| | 00:25 | Well, in the case of your CMS, metadata
gives you the ability to allow users to
| | 00:30 | retrieve the exact content they're
looking for, even from hundreds or thousands
| | 00:35 | of other pieces of content--
| | 00:37 | the real-life equivalent, if you
will, of finding a needle in a haystack.
| | 00:41 | Metadata is simply data that helps
to define or describe other data.
| | 00:46 | It's data about data, if you prefer.
| | 00:48 | In terms of the CMS, it's used to
classify the content, so that it can be
| | 00:52 | identified, categorized,
retrieved, and related to other content.
| | 00:56 | Now the term 'metadata' certainly is not new.
| | 00:59 | It was first coined in 1968 and is
loosely used to describe many different means
| | 01:05 | of categorizing and identifying
information, usually on the web.
| | 01:09 | Its typical structure includes the
object being described, the attribute the
| | 01:13 | data is describing, and the
value of the attribute itself.
| | 01:17 | If that's a little
confusing, consider this example.
| | 01:20 | Here, a blog post is being described.
| | 01:23 | The author's name, or in this case
the creator, is attribute, and Simon
| | 01:27 | Allardice is the value.
| | 01:29 | Now this post could be categorized,
retrieved, and displayed based on this value.
| | 01:34 | By adding additional metadata, you
allow the CMS to know quite a bit about the
| | 01:38 | content and then use that information
to determine where it should be used, who
| | 01:43 | can see it, answer requests for
it, and a host of other functions.
| | 01:46 | Since so much of the management of
content within a CMS is dependent upon
| | 01:50 | this type of data, the ability to
define and add metadata is a critical
| | 01:55 | function of any CMS.
| | 01:57 | Adding metadata is often referred to
as tagging and is done in a number of
| | 02:01 | different ways depending
upon the CMS that you're using.
| | 02:04 | In some cases, the CMS will add
metadata for you automatically.
| | 02:08 | This could include things like the time
an article was published, the author's
| | 02:13 | name, the title of the article or
content segment, or the content's data type.
| | 02:18 | For the most part, a CMS will
automatically add the metadata it needs to perform
| | 02:22 | its core functionality.
| | 02:24 | So if the system has the ability to
sort or display content based on date,
| | 02:28 | you can be sure that the publishing date and
time are going to be added for you automatically.
| | 02:32 | Now if on the other hand you want
additional ways to describe your content,
| | 02:36 | you'll need to add metadata manually.
| | 02:40 | This is typically done as the
content is being added to the CMS and is
| | 02:44 | usually the responsibility of either the author,
editor, or in some cases a system librarian.
| | 02:50 | One of most common metadata
workflows involves creating a series of tags,
| | 02:55 | sometimes referred to as keywords,
in the CMS's administration panel.
| | 02:59 | Users can then select the tags,
often by simply selecting a check box, to
| | 03:04 | associate that keyword with the content.
| | 03:06 | For tags that need more information, a
custom text field is typically used to
| | 03:10 | allow the user to add data.
| | 03:12 | This would allow a blog post to add a short
description or summary as metadata, for example.
| | 03:16 | Now the majority of CMSs have simple
tools like this that allow you to add
| | 03:20 | metadata to your content.
| | 03:22 | In most cases, the supplied metadata
tools or all you will need to properly add
| | 03:26 | metadata to your sites, but in some
cases--such as retrieving metadata from
| | 03:31 | ingested media--you may need
additional metadata tools.
| | 03:34 | Fortunately, there are a large number of
plug-ins and modules available for most
| | 03:38 | systems they will extend your
power to add metadata to your content.
| | 03:42 | Be sure to explore these features
in addition to a CMS's core metadata
| | 03:45 | capabilities when you're researching now.
| | 03:47 | Although most people see metadata as a
way to assist the CMS in searching for,
| | 03:52 | retrieving, displaying, filtering,
and generally managing the site's content,
| | 03:55 | there are other uses for metadata as well.
| | 03:58 | Properly structured metadata can be
used to help search engines find and rank
| | 04:02 | content, and assistive technologies can
often use metadata to help users access
| | 04:07 | greater information about your site's content.
| | 04:10 | Because of the importance of metadata
to your CMS, it's critical that every
| | 04:14 | project has a clear and
organized metadata strategy.
| | 04:17 | If one author created a keyword of
'cars' and other another created a keyword
| | 04:21 | 'automobile', you would have two
different authors creating similar content that
| | 04:25 | the CMS might or might not
associate with one another.
| | 04:28 | Poorly planned metadata can result in
you finding yourself once again looking
| | 04:32 | for the needle in the haystack, just
as fast as not using metadata at all.
| | 04:37 | The goal for any metadata structure
should be to describe the content as
| | 04:40 | thoroughly and as efficiently as possible.
| | 04:43 | When creating metadata for your site,
you should first assess and inventory
| | 04:47 | your site's content.
| | 04:48 | Try to anticipate what terms your
users are likely to use when searching for
| | 04:52 | content and list any related
terms that can help categorize it.
| | 04:56 | It's very easy to let this process get out
of hand and result in hundreds of keywords
| | 05:00 | that simply add unnecessary
complexity to your site instead of the
| | 05:04 | desired organization.
| | 05:05 | Because of this, the process of
identifying terms and defining metadata is often
| | 05:10 | best done when planning taxonomies.
| | 05:13 | Taxonomies are an entirely different
subject and one that we are going to
| | 05:16 | tackle in our next movie.
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| Understanding taxonomy| 00:00 | In our last movie, we talked about
metadata and how it can help add organization
| | 00:04 | to your content and assist the CMS in managing it.
| | 00:08 | Taxonomy is another tool for organizing
content and assisting CMS functionality.
| | 00:14 | Essentially, taxonomy is a way to
classify information in a specific,
| | 00:18 | hierarchical structure.
| | 00:19 | This is a little bit easier to
understand when it's visualized.
| | 00:23 | Let's say that you're
creating a blog about healthy eating.
| | 00:26 | The content on the blog is likely to
reflect that focus. Making it easier to
| | 00:30 | categorize the site's content,
| | 00:31 | you might come up with terms like
'lunch', and 'chicken', 'vegetables', 'recipes',
| | 00:35 | 'dinner', 'meat', 'eggplant', and all
the rest of these words we've got here.
| | 00:39 | Now while these are descriptive,
they're not really doing much for you in
| | 00:42 | terms of organization.
| | 00:44 | However, what if you rearranged these terms?
| | 00:47 | At the top you could put Recipes, and under
that add categories for Dinner and Lunch.
| | 00:54 | Each of those could have
subcategories, such as Meat and Vegetables.
| | 00:58 | Inside those, you could go even
deeper with individual meat and
| | 01:01 | vegetable ingredients.
| | 01:02 | In addition to the defined structure,
you could have an optional descriptive
| | 01:05 | terminology, like low-calorie.
| | 01:08 | This organizational structure is
often referred to as a taxonomy, and it's
| | 01:13 | the backbone of how a CMS organizes
and structures sites. In most cases, when
| | 01:18 | building a site a CMS will allow you to
create at a minimum sections and categories.
| | 01:24 | The sections are often used to create
or describe pages or sections within
| | 01:28 | the site, and categories are often used to
identify the content within a page or section.
| | 01:34 | Although it's tempting to confuse
metadata and taxonomies, think of it like this:
| | 01:38 | metadata allows you to assign
descriptive data to content, while taxonomies give
| | 01:43 | you the controlled vocabulary to do so.
| | 01:46 | For smaller sites or sites with a
limited focus, it probably won't be too
| | 01:50 | difficult to create a taxonomy.
| | 01:53 | However, for larger sites or sites with
multiple areas of focus, you're going to
| | 01:57 | need to put in some time to create
the necessary taxonomy, or in some cases
| | 02:02 | taxonomies, to help properly organize the site.
| | 02:06 | For large organizations, it's actually
quite common to have an individual or
| | 02:09 | a whole team that's responsible for the
creation and maintenance of site taxonomies.
| | 02:14 | It is much easier to create
taxonomies now than it has been in the past.
| | 02:19 | Most larger content management systems
now come with taxonomy-building tools or
| | 02:24 | plug-ins that allow you to access the
content management system's default
| | 02:27 | taxonomy, then help you create your own.
| | 02:29 | There are also many outside vendors and
tools that you can use to help automate
| | 02:33 | the process of generating vocabularies,
or reviewing them to ensure that your
| | 02:38 | taxonomies are structured in a way
that assists your site's mission.
| | 02:41 | Most of the automated services rely on
data mining, and that's the process of
| | 02:45 | indexing your site's content to
then create associated vocabularies.
| | 02:49 | If you want to research some of these
outside tools, check out the list of tools
| | 02:53 | and services at the Taxonomy
Community of practice site.
| | 02:57 | These will give you a good idea of
some of the tools and services available.
| | 03:01 | The Dublin Core Initiative also has a
list of open-source taxonomy and metadata
| | 03:05 | tools, and you can find
that at dublincore.org/tools.
| | 03:09 | These are open-source tools that you
can use or integrate into your CMS to help
| | 03:13 | build taxonomies and create metadata.
| | 03:16 | Finally, I want to mention that often
the hard work of categorizing an industry
| | 03:19 | or vertical market has already been done for you.
| | 03:22 | There is lot of common vocabularies
already on the web that you can use as a
| | 03:26 | logical starting point for your own projects.
| | 03:29 | A great site to learn more about
some of these is taxonomywarehouse.com.
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| What is version control?| 00:00 | The larger and more complex a site is,
the harder it is to properly keep
| | 00:04 | track of its content.
| | 00:06 | At some point, tracking revisions,
maintaining previous versions, and restoring
| | 00:10 | files becomes impossible to do manually.
| | 00:13 | This is where version control comes in.
| | 00:16 | Version control, sometimes referred to
as revision control or versioning, is the
| | 00:21 | process of managing changes to content
across various systems and workflows.
| | 00:26 | In terms of working with content
management systems, this often means tracking
| | 00:30 | changes to content, assisting with
collaborative workflows, and storing older
| | 00:35 | versions of articles and files.
| | 00:37 | Not all systems have version control
built in, and truthfully not all workflows
| | 00:42 | or CMSs need version control.
| | 00:45 | To help you to decide if version control
is something you need for your projects,
| | 00:49 | let's examine some of the ways the
version control can be used in a CMS.
| | 00:53 | One of the first and most obvious
uses of version control is to store older
| | 00:57 | versions of content.
| | 00:58 | Version control tracks
content as it's added to a CMS.
| | 01:02 | If the content is changed or edited in
any way, an older version of the content
| | 01:08 | is saved and stored within the database.
| | 01:10 | This can then be accessed,
restored, or reused as necessary.
| | 01:15 | Version control also helps to add
complexity to many author/editor workflows.
| | 01:21 | Check-in/check-out
workflows are great example of this.
| | 01:25 | Imagine that you have multiple authors
and editors working on the same article.
| | 01:29 | If one of the collaborating authors
added new content, at the same time that one
| | 01:35 | of the editors was making changes,
they would both run the risk of overriding
| | 01:40 | the other one's work.
| | 01:41 | By using version control, the editor
could check out the article, which would then
| | 01:46 | inform the author that the
article was currently being edited.
| | 01:50 | The author would have to wait for the
editor to check the content back in before
| | 01:54 | she can proceed to add her changes to it.
| | 01:57 | In addition to check-in and
check-out many versioning systems allow
| | 02:01 | administrators to track the editing
process, issue communications based
| | 02:06 | on changes, and review content by enabling
side-by-side comparisons with older content.
| | 02:11 | If you've ever used the Track Changes
option for a word processor document,
| | 02:15 | you're familiar with how this
type of workflow might work.
| | 02:19 | Several version control systems also
allow branching, which enables you to create
| | 02:23 | a separate version of content
once changes have been made.
| | 02:26 | This allows you to easily create
multiple versions of content that share a
| | 02:30 | common starting point.
| | 02:31 | These branched files then can be either
merged, repurposed, or deleted once a final
| | 02:37 | decision on the content version has been made.
| | 02:40 | As I mentioned earlier, not all
content management systems feature
| | 02:44 | version control, and those that do
often vary widely in their capabilities
| | 02:49 | and integration levels.
| | 02:51 | Most open-source CMSs will offer
multiple version control extensions or plug-ins
| | 02:56 | that will give you options on what type
of version-control features you want or
| | 03:00 | that you need to use.
| | 03:01 | There are also many stand-alone version
control clients that's you can integrate
| | 03:05 | with your CMS as well,
| | 03:07 | so you're certainly not without options
if you decide to add version control to
| | 03:11 | a system at a later date.
| | 03:12 | Now the two most common version
control systems are Subversion and CVS.
| | 03:19 | CVS, or Concurrent Version Systems, has
been around the longest and is still used in
| | 03:25 | many CMS integrations.
| | 03:26 | Subversion is an open-source Apache
product aimed at extending and replacing CVS.
| | 03:32 | It boasts the widest adoption of all
version-control systems and offers a lot of
| | 03:37 | flexibility when setting up
version control for a project.
| | 03:40 | Before we move on, I think it's also
important to mention that while version
| | 03:44 | control can be an important part
of any workflow, careful thought and
| | 03:47 | preparation needs to go into making
the decision as to whether to use it not.
| | 03:52 | As I discussed previously, version
control isn't necessary for every project,
| | 03:55 | and you should be aware of the layer of
complexity that it's often adding to your workflows.
| | 04:01 | Also, while great in theory, version
control can limit workflow flexibility and
| | 04:06 | can be subverted if all participants
don't follow their roles rigorously.
| | 04:11 | As with most CMS features, I recommend
trying it out before making huge changes
| | 04:15 | to the way that you work to assure that
it gives you the capabilities you need
| | 04:19 | without negatively affecting your production.
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| What are themes and templates?| 00:00 | One of the most attractive things about
using a CMS is not having to build every
| | 00:05 | single page in your site by hand.
| | 00:07 | Basically, the CMS can
automatically generate pages based on your site
| | 00:11 | organization and content.
| | 00:13 | This is primarily done through
the use of themes and templates.
| | 00:17 | So what are templates and themes?
| | 00:18 | Well, I have to admit, the
terminology used to describe page generation in
| | 00:23 | content management
systems can be a bit confusing.
| | 00:26 | The terms 'templates' and 'themes' are
used frequently across multiple content
| | 00:31 | management systems, but they
don't always mean the same thing.
| | 00:35 | In a general sense, a template refers to a
single file that contains generic content.
| | 00:42 | Themes, on the other hand, are usually a
collection of templates, or presentation
| | 00:46 | rules, that control how sections
or even entire sites are displayed.
| | 00:51 | To help add some clarity to these terms,
I want to talk about some of the basic
| | 00:55 | methods that various CMSs use to
generate pages and site structure and then how
| | 01:00 | templates and themes come
into play within those systems.
| | 01:04 | In some cases, templates, which can
either be the system's default templates or
| | 01:08 | templates that you've created, are
tagged with dynamic regions indicating where
| | 01:13 | content should go and
what type of content to use.
| | 01:17 | These templates are often
labeled in the CMS as a page type.
| | 01:21 | When a user generates a new page, they
simply choose a template they want and a
| | 01:25 | new page is created using the template's layout.
| | 01:28 | In some cases, these templates operate
independently of each other, while in
| | 01:32 | others the templates can be grouped
or controlled through use of themes.
| | 01:36 | In those cases, themes can control not
only which templates are being used, but
| | 01:41 | options like color
schemes and typography as well.
| | 01:45 | Drupal is a really good
example of a CMS that works this way.
| | 01:48 | Another common means of building pages is to
assemble pages from a collection of page regions.
| | 01:54 | This modular approach allows users to
have multiple headers, footers, content
| | 01:59 | regions, and sidebars to choose from.
| | 02:01 | In these situations, the page regions
themselves are often referred to as templates.
| | 02:07 | You might have four sidebar templates and two
footer temples to choose from, for example.
| | 02:11 | In this system, themes often
describe the dynamic files and the complex
| | 02:15 | logic they contain
| | 02:16 | that's used to create pages
from the various template modules.
| | 02:20 | WordPress is a really good example
of a CMS that builds pages this way.
| | 02:24 | From just those two examples, it's easy
to see that the terms 'template' and 'theme'
| | 02:28 | are not interchangeable from one CMS to another.
| | 02:32 | In some cases, you'll be able to access and
modify the template or theme code directly,
| | 02:37 | while in others you'll need to
understand how the themes are assembling pages to
| | 02:41 | accurately modify the template files.
| | 02:43 | Regardless, it's important to
understand how templating and theme-based
| | 02:47 | architecture works in
whatever CMS you decide to use.
| | 02:51 | You'll also want to make sure when
you're selecting a CMS you carefully explore
| | 02:55 | how it uses templates and themes.
| | 02:57 | You should research how easy it is to
customize templates, change or apply themes,
| | 03:02 | or modify the logic of default themes.
| | 03:05 | It's easy to get frustrated with a
CMS if it doesn't give you the amount of
| | 03:08 | control over the layout and
presentation of your site that you require.
| | 03:12 | What's more, designers, developers,
and non-technical users are likely to have
| | 03:16 | dramatically different goals regarding how
they're going work with templates and themes.
| | 03:21 | Explore this carefully so you can
make sure that you have a CMS that uses
| | 03:25 | templates and themes in a way that
makes it easy to achieve your own goals.
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| What is SEO?| 00:00 | Another term that you're likely to
encounter again and again when working with
| | 00:03 | content management systems is SEO.
| | 00:06 | SEO stands for search engine
optimization, and it is a method of structuring
| | 00:10 | sites and site content in a way that
improves a web site's relevance and
| | 00:15 | visibility to search engines.
| | 00:17 | Now theoretically this allows your site
be listed higher in a search engine's
| | 00:21 | result list, which is the
goal of almost every site owner.
| | 00:25 | In reality, SEO is one of the most
abused terms on the web, with so many
| | 00:29 | different marketing firms and vendors
selling tools and strategies that the term
| | 00:34 | has almost been diluted to little
more than appear marketing cliche.
| | 00:37 | Looking at the term practically, however,
in order to optimize a site for search
| | 00:41 | engines, you need to understand
how those search engines work.
| | 00:45 | Although most search engines guard
their methodology quite closely, there are
| | 00:49 | some almost universally accepted
techniques that will assist in helping your
| | 00:52 | site become more search engine friendly.
| | 00:55 | First, your site should contain clean,
well-structured HTML code that doesn't
| | 01:00 | present any barriers to
search engines indexing the site.
| | 01:04 | Site content, including pages, should
be tagged with metadata that extends the
| | 01:08 | meaning of the content and
explains the page's relevance.
| | 01:11 | Sites can also increase the amount of
inbound and outbound links to make sure
| | 01:15 | the links themselves use terms
relevant to the subject matter.
| | 01:19 | Finally, the site should focus on
creating consistent, clear content that is
| | 01:23 | relevant to the focus of the site.
| | 01:25 | Now, oddly enough, you would think
that that last point would take care of
| | 01:28 | itself, but it's usually one of the
techniques that organizations fail to stress
| | 01:33 | when discussing search engine optimization.
| | 01:36 | In the early days of content
management systems, the SEO of CMS-managed sites
| | 01:41 | was not really that great.
| | 01:43 | Links were automatically generated with
numeric identifiers instead of relevant text.
| | 01:48 | Page code was messy, non-standards
compliant, or needlessly complex, and tagging
| | 01:53 | structures didn't accurately
reflect the focus of the site's content.
| | 01:58 | While some systems still produce non-
search engine friendly sites, for the most
| | 02:02 | part these glaring errors
are a thing of the past.
| | 02:05 | There are, however, some things that
you want closely monitor when choosing a
| | 02:08 | CMS to make sure that the sites generated
with it produce the best SEO results possible.
| | 02:13 | First, examine the HTML code the
CMS generates as it creates pages.
| | 02:18 | Make sure it uses clean,
standards-compliant code that's not weighed down
| | 02:23 | with extraneous markup.
| | 02:24 | Also, make sure you can customize
tags and categories to reflect your
| | 02:28 | site's content and focus.
| | 02:30 | Good taxonomies and consistent content
tagging will go a long way to describing
| | 02:35 | to search engines what your site's focus is.
| | 02:37 | Second, check to see what level of URL
customization you're allowed to perform.
| | 02:42 | In some CMSs, when pages are dynamically
generated, the page URL is created with
| | 02:47 | numeric identifiers that does not
describe the page content at all.
| | 02:52 | Being able to customize URLs so that
a link contains descriptive text is
| | 02:57 | very important to SEO.
| | 02:58 | This is also true for
CMS-generated internal links.
| | 03:02 | Another thing to check out is how a
CMS generates descriptive text for site
| | 03:06 | media, like alt text for images.
| | 03:09 | By making sure that you can control
these, you not only create more accessible
| | 03:12 | sites, but one that provides more
information to search engines as well.
| | 03:16 | Perhaps the biggest SEO problem
regarding content management systems is the idea
| | 03:21 | of duplicate content.
| | 03:22 | If a search engine finds more than
one copy of content on your site, it
| | 03:26 | generally decides which one is the
most important one, indexes it, and then
| | 03:31 | throws away the references to the other copies.
| | 03:34 | In a CMS-driven site, blog posts,
marketing campaigns, and related content
| | 03:39 | frequently result in duplicate content.
| | 03:41 | Now often, you can modify pages and links
with attribute values, such as no follow
| | 03:47 | or no index, to prevent this problem,
but understanding how and when to use these
| | 03:52 | requires a good bit of research into
how search engines actually operate.
| | 03:56 | Due to these specialized nature of
SEO site requirements, many content
| | 03:59 | management systems have SEO tools
either built in to the core of the CMS or
| | 04:04 | available as plug-ins or extensions.
| | 04:07 | When researching a CMS, check out what
types of tools it offers and the type of
| | 04:11 | control they give you over how
your site is indexed and optimized.
| | 04:15 | If SEO is critically important to you,
you might want to consider bringing in an
| | 04:19 | outside contractor to assist you. Just
be really careful about the claims that
| | 04:23 | some vendors make when promoting SEO.
| | 04:26 | Look for a reputable vendor who stresses
site optimization over the page rankings.
| | 04:32 | Regardless of whether you're using a
CMS or not, this is a great document to
| | 04:36 | read to make sure that all of your
sites are structured properly for search
| | 04:40 | engine optimization.
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| What are web analytics?| 00:00 | Many content management systems,
especially hosted solutions, will mention
| | 00:04 | offering web analytic tools in
addition to their basic CMS capabilities.
| | 00:09 | So what are web analytics?
| | 00:11 | Basically, these are tools that collect
data about your web site, site visitors,
| | 00:15 | and how your visitors use your site.
| | 00:18 | This data can then be analyzed to make
sure your site is organized correctly,
| | 00:22 | gauge the effectiveness of content or
marketing campaigns, and whether or not
| | 00:26 | people are interacting with your
site in the way that you envision.
| | 00:29 | As with most features, the web
analytic features of each CMS vary widely.
| | 00:34 | Some offer no analytic tools at all,
while others offer robust sets of tools
| | 00:39 | integrated directly into the CMS.
| | 00:42 | When examining a CMS it's a good idea
to see what type of tools are available,
| | 00:46 | especially if you have very specific
requirements, such as monitoring the return
| | 00:51 | on investment of specific product specials.
| | 00:53 | I would add that to me these
features aren't as much of a deal breaker as
| | 00:57 | other CMS features.
| | 00:59 | There are so many third-party
analytic tools available that the presence or
| | 01:04 | absence of these features shouldn't be
a deciding factor, unless you have some
| | 01:07 | very specific needs that
are tied directly to the CMS.
| | 01:11 | So what are some of the web
analytic features that you should look for?
| | 01:15 | Well, first examine what type
of visitor data is being tracked.
| | 01:19 | Some tools simply report back the
number of visitors to your site, which pages
| | 01:23 | they visited, and which links they clicked.
| | 01:26 | Other tools contain an amazing
degree of data, such as how long visitors
| | 01:30 | stayed on a certain page, which
actions they took, where the visitors came
| | 01:34 | from, whether there were any referring
links, so which browser they were using, and more.
| | 01:39 | Some tools even let you
monitor this data in real time.
| | 01:43 | Collecting the raw data is one
thing and analyzing it is another.
| | 01:47 | Many web analytic tools allow you to
create rules or goals based on how your
| | 01:52 | site should be used.
| | 01:54 | Using the data, these tools can then
gauge the effectiveness of your site and in
| | 01:58 | some cases even offer suggestions on
where to improve the site organization to
| | 02:03 | help you meet your goals.
| | 02:05 | For those of you with e-commerce
requirements, many tools allow you to track
| | 02:08 | items such as marketing campaigns,
conversion rates, and product views.
| | 02:13 | Some of the more complete solutions
also allow you to evaluate your product
| | 02:16 | effectiveness through setting goals and
comparing them to the available stats.
| | 02:21 | So if you decide that web analytics
are necessary for your CMS-driven site, I
| | 02:25 | want to suggest a few options for you.
| | 02:27 | First, explore the available
analytic tools for the CMS that you choose.
| | 02:31 | If the core CMS doesn't contain the
tools you're looking for, there will often
| | 02:36 | be an extension or plug-in
available that will do what you need.
| | 02:40 | Hosted solutions are usually
especially powerful in this regard.
| | 02:44 | You might also want to check with your
hosting company, as many of those offer
| | 02:47 | basic web analysis tools
as part of the hosting plan.
| | 02:51 | There's also an abundance of third-
party analytic tools available online.
| | 02:54 | A quick search will give you
dozens of options to choose from.
| | 02:59 | If you're looking for an open-source
or free option, I recommend looking at
| | 03:03 | Open Web Analytics, SlimStat, TRACE
WATCH, Piwik, or one that you've probably
| | 03:11 | heard of, Google Analytics.
| | 03:13 | Each of these options feature powerful
analytic tools and are simple to set up
| | 03:18 | and deploy for your sites.
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|
|
4. CMS Best PracticesContent management as a process| 00:00 | So far, we've take a look at the basic
features, terminology, and functionality of
| | 00:04 | a CMS, some of the things that you
should consider when selecting one, and
| | 00:08 | examined a few of the systems in
a very crowded web CMS marketplace.
| | 00:13 | In this chapter, I would like to
explore the overall process of content
| | 00:16 | management in a little bit more detail.
| | 00:19 | Jeffrey Veen once said "Content
management isn't a software problem at all.
| | 00:23 | It's a process problem."
| | 00:25 | I couldn't agree more with that.
| | 00:26 | Having a content management strategy in
place prior to selecting a CMS is more
| | 00:30 | important than most people realize.
| | 00:32 | Often, people or organizations will
pick a CMS with the expectation that it's
| | 00:37 | going to automatically
solve all their workflow issues.
| | 00:40 | This approach almost always leads to
disappointment, or in the worst case a
| | 00:44 | decision to scrap the CMS and
go with an alternative solution.
| | 00:48 | In most cases this is not a failure
of the CMS; rather, it's a failure to
| | 00:52 | recognize that content management is
a process that needs to be examined,
| | 00:57 | planned for, and executed in a way
that fits the organization and the nature
| | 01:02 | of the content itself.
| | 01:03 | It doesn't matter if you're a single
individual needing to find a more efficient
| | 01:06 | way to reuse an update content or
large organization needing to create, track
| | 01:12 | and repurpose content over multiple channels.
| | 01:14 | If you don't have a plan in place prior
to selecting a CMS, you allow the CMS to
| | 01:20 | dictate your process, not the other way around.
| | 01:23 | With that in mind, let's take a
look at the overall process of content
| | 01:26 | management before we discuss some of
the individual concepts in greater detail.
| | 01:30 | Since we're going to be looking at a
general overview, not all the steps are
| | 01:34 | going to apply to your individual needs.
| | 01:36 | So, examine the process closely and
determine for yourself which aspects of it
| | 01:40 | applies to your situation.
| | 01:42 | The first step, and the one that's
most often overlooked or ignored, is
| | 01:46 | assembling a multidisciplinary team to
review or oversee the content management
| | 01:51 | for your organization.
| | 01:52 | Now this usually happens because
people will either just assume they know how
| | 01:56 | the process should work, assume that
the person in charge of web development
| | 01:59 | will handle it, or perhaps worst of all,
simply fail to see the importance of it.
| | 02:04 | That's a shame, because without this
step the content management process tends
| | 02:07 | to lack direction and clear purpose.
| | 02:10 | For smaller organizations, this could
be a single individual, but in medium- or
| | 02:14 | larger-size organizations, this should
be a small team that is populated with
| | 02:18 | members from across the organization.
| | 02:20 | This should include people that will
work day to day with the systems along
| | 02:24 | with decision makers.
| | 02:26 | The team should audit the
current content management policies and
| | 02:29 | workflows, identify problems, and
then structure a content workflow that's
| | 02:33 | ideal for the organization.
| | 02:35 | One of the best ways to do that is
identifying and then consulting with any
| | 02:38 | department that creates, works with,
approves, or touches the content in any way.
| | 02:44 | While this could be a one-time
assessment, it's a better idea to keep this team
| | 02:48 | as a living body, to the monitor
and oversee workflow over time.
| | 02:51 | This makes it easier to identify
inefficiencies before they crop up or predict
| | 02:55 | how needs might change.
| | 02:57 | Once the internal processes are
reviewed, the team can then begin to craft
| | 03:01 | strategies for content workflow.
| | 03:03 | The team should focus on both the
content itself, as well defining the workflow
| | 03:07 | for how internal teams are going to
create, publish, and organize the content.
| | 03:12 | The content strategy should focus on
identifying all types of content that
| | 03:16 | will be created and managed by the
internal teams and how this should be
| | 03:20 | organized and categorized.
| | 03:22 | It's at this stage that categories,
tags, and other types of metadata should
| | 03:26 | be identified and structured, as well
as how relationships between content
| | 03:30 | types should be defined.
| | 03:33 | The workflow strategy should focus
on the path of the content as it moves
| | 03:37 | through the organization.
| | 03:38 | Content should be tracked from
creation to injection to editing, approval
| | 03:43 | and finally, publishing.
| | 03:44 | Flowcharts should also track how content is to
be edited, versioned, archived, or repurposed.
| | 03:51 | Defining this process will help
identify all the teams that are part of the
| | 03:54 | management process and help
to clearly define their roles.
| | 03:59 | All of this should then be analyzed through the
filter of what's achievable in your organization,
| | 04:04 | taking into consideration factors
like manpower, corporate culture, and the
| | 04:08 | commitment level to building
an efficient constant workflow.
| | 04:11 | It's at this point that you
should start architecting your CMS.
| | 04:14 | This could be something that you build
internally, the result of customizing an
| | 04:18 | existing solution, or the result of
searching for and finding a CMS that's going
| | 04:23 | to enable your workflow.
| | 04:25 | By seeing content management as a
process and then identifying how this
| | 04:29 | process should work within your
organization, you can find a CMS solution that
| | 04:33 | enables your organization to work
the way that it should based on its
| | 04:36 | structure and content needs.
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| Properly defining roles| 00:00 | Often, a CMS implementation will fail
not because the CMS itself is bad, but
| | 00:05 | because it doesn't support the roles
and permissions that the organization
| | 00:08 | needs for its workflow.
| | 00:10 | Many CMSs ship with only a handful of
limited user types, and if those roles
| | 00:15 | don't fit your organizational needs, there is
always going to be deficiencies in your workflow.
| | 00:19 | That's why it's important to
properly define roles within your content
| | 00:23 | management workflow very early in the process.
| | 00:26 | This way you can identify the roles and
responsibilities you'll need the CMS to
| | 00:30 | support and anticipate how those
might evolve as the organization grows.
| | 00:36 | As you identify these roles, think
about how they need to interact with the CMS
| | 00:40 | and the types of permissions
they'll need in order to be effective.
| | 00:43 | You want to create an efficient, well-
defined series of users and permissions
| | 00:47 | that's going to result in an effective CMS.
| | 00:50 | While no two organizations are the
same, there are user types that are
| | 00:54 | consistent across most
content management workflows.
| | 00:58 | When evaluating roles within your own
organization, it's helpful to start with these,
| | 01:02 | identify which of them that you'll
need, where roles might overlap would
| | 01:06 | be combined, and whether new roles
need to be established to improve the
| | 01:10 | content management process.
| | 01:12 | First, most content management workflows have
content creators, often referred to as authors.
| | 01:18 | These individuals are responsible for
writing articles and blog posts, injecting
| | 01:22 | content into the system, or
updating previously written content.
| | 01:26 | The responsibilities and permissions
required by this group are going to depend
| | 01:29 | largely on their role within your organization.
| | 01:32 | Do you have authors that are outside of
your organization, such as freelancers
| | 01:36 | or contractors? Or are all of your authors
in the same department or will they
| | 01:40 | come from multiple departments?
| | 01:41 | Should your authors' access be
restricted to only their content or should they
| | 01:45 | be allowed to access other
authors' content as well?
| | 01:48 | You may find that in asking these
types of questions that you have multiple
| | 01:52 | author types that require different
degrees of permissions within the CMS.
| | 01:57 | Editors are users who will review, edit,
approve, or mark up content for revisions.
| | 02:03 | In some cases, editors will need to
have the ability to publish content, while
| | 02:07 | in others there might be another layer of
approval between the editor and the live content.
| | 02:11 | The editorial process is a frequent
bottleneck in publishing workflows, and you
| | 02:16 | should evaluate the needs and
permissions of this position carefully in an
| | 02:19 | attempt to prevent that from happening.
| | 02:22 | Understanding the types of tools your
editors will need to properly communicate
| | 02:25 | with authors and other team members
is also an important part of helping to
| | 02:29 | define the necessary
capabilities within your CMS.
| | 02:33 | Publishers are in control of
getting approved content live on the site.
| | 02:38 | Probably because not every workflow
needs publishers, this group is among the
| | 02:41 | most overlooked group in terms of
properly anticipating the needs and
| | 02:45 | permissions required to make them effective.
| | 02:48 | The roles of publishers will vary widely
from organization to organization, so if
| | 02:53 | publishers are required in your workflow
you really need to put a lot of thought
| | 02:56 | into how this group is going to operate.
| | 02:58 | For example, will publishers act as
project managers in your workflow,
| | 03:02 | overseeing the progress of individual
projects from start to finish? Will they
| | 03:06 | act more as traffic managers making
sure that content is always on time and
| | 03:10 | routing content from step to step?
Or will publishers act more as content
| | 03:14 | assemblers, routing approved content
to the proper location and template
| | 03:18 | structure within your site?
| | 03:19 | About the only thing that is consistent
with any of these approaches is that
| | 03:23 | publishers are responsible for having
the final say for when content moves from
| | 03:27 | draft status to live content.
| | 03:30 | In addition to the Author, Editor,
Publisher workflow model, it's not uncommon
| | 03:35 | to need user groups that are important
to the process but don't fit neatly into
| | 03:38 | any one of these boxes.
| | 03:40 | This might be something like an asset
manager who is responsible for collecting
| | 03:44 | and managing digital assets and
documents that support your content.
| | 03:48 | You might also have an approval
process that requires legal or
| | 03:51 | marketing approval.
| | 03:52 | These might be brand managers or legal
advisers that act in a manner similar to
| | 03:56 | editors, but require a very
narrow set of permissions.
| | 04:00 | In some organizations, a translator or a
continuity manager might be required as well.
| | 04:05 | The fact is, without understanding an
organization's needs, there's no way to
| | 04:09 | accurately predict exactly what user
types and permissions will be required.
| | 04:13 | So, once you've taken the time to
review your workflow and content path, you
| | 04:17 | should be able to identify all the
different types of users you'll need and the
| | 04:21 | tools and permissions they'll require.
| | 04:24 | At that point, you'll be able to
accurately evaluate whether a content management
| | 04:27 | system's user group and permissions
will give you the level of control you
| | 04:31 | need to properly manage your workflow.
| | 04:34 | In some cases, you'll be able to use the
preset user types, while in others you'll
| | 04:38 | need a greater level of granular control.
| | 04:40 | Either way, examining those roles
will help you refine your workflow, help to
| | 04:45 | find ways to avoid bottlenecks and
inefficiencies, anticipate how needs are
| | 04:49 | going to change over time, and
prepare people for what their roles will be
| | 04:54 | within your new CMS.
| | 04:55 | It will also give you an invaluable set
of requirements that will assist you in
| | 05:00 | choosing a CMS that's
right for your specific needs.
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| Planning a content strategy| 00:00 | Most of the time when you research
content management systems you'll hear a
| | 00:04 | tremendous amount about the
management side of things and almost nothing
| | 00:08 | about the content itself.
| | 00:10 | Now unfortunately, this is a result of
CMSs being designed to view content as a
| | 00:15 | simple commodity, just another asset to be
ingested and moved along a predefined path.
| | 00:20 | I mean with some CMSs you could be
managing cupcakes, or paperclips, or red staplers.
| | 00:27 | At any rate, for your CMS
implementation to be successful, you need to go
| | 00:32 | beyond just planning on how content
should be managed to having a strategy
| | 00:36 | for your content itself.
| | 00:38 | This growing field is known, for
obvious reasons, as content strategy.
| | 00:42 | And if you're going to commit to the
effort of assessing your content workflows
| | 00:45 | and processes, you should also take
the time to review how your organization
| | 00:49 | creates the actual content itself.
| | 00:52 | Taking time to define a content strategy
means that you're going to put plans
| | 00:56 | in place to not only govern the creation,
usage, and publishing of content, but
| | 01:01 | to determine what type of content
you'll create and what makes that content
| | 01:06 | useful to your organization.
| | 01:09 | Every individual, organizational,
or corporate web site has a goal.
| | 01:13 | This might be to inform, educate, sell a
product, or generate interest in a cause.
| | 01:18 | In some cases there will be multiple goals,
related or not, that help to form the site's focus.
| | 01:24 | In order to properly plan content,
you should clearly list these goals and
| | 01:29 | then prioritize them.
| | 01:30 | Once this is complete, it's a lot
easier to review your content by asking how
| | 01:34 | well the content matches or serves these goals.
| | 01:38 | From there, you can concentrate on
refining your focus by defining your
| | 01:42 | content's key message,
| | 01:43 | the themes you need it to convey, and
then create guidelines for the purpose
| | 01:47 | content should serve.
| | 01:49 | This can be used to create what's
called a content strategy framework.
| | 01:53 | Authors and content creators can
use this framework to help them create
| | 01:57 | meaningful content that serves the
goals of your site and stays on message.
| | 02:02 | This framework can include style
guides, publishing policies, metadata
| | 02:07 | structure, article relationships, SEO
terms and policies, and even guidelines on
| | 02:12 | the types of authors necessary to
create the right type of content.
| | 02:17 | Although we're going to talk about
this in more detail later, your content
| | 02:20 | strategy will be a guiding
factor in your content lifecycle.
| | 02:24 | These are policies that guide how
content is collected, where content fits on
| | 02:28 | your web site, and how
long it's going to stay there.
| | 02:31 | A good content strategy will also
direct what type of content needs archiving
| | 02:35 | and how long it lives on the site
before it's replaced or archived.
| | 02:39 | Content strategy shouldn't be
simply subject based either.
| | 02:42 | It should also include policies on
distribution channels, marketing campaigns,
| | 02:46 | and when and how content should be repurposed.
| | 02:48 | Now we'll talk more about that a
little later on when we discuss
| | 02:51 | controlling content lifecycle.
| | 02:53 | Finally, your content strategy should
contain rules for analyzing content to
| | 02:58 | determine whether it's effective,
whether it's placement on the site is optimal,
| | 03:02 | and whether related content
should be created to broaden its effect.
| | 03:07 | Now I know that's a lot to digest.
| | 03:09 | I also realize that not every
organization or site needs a content strategy
| | 03:14 | quite to the level of the one I've just described.
| | 03:16 | I'm also betting that more of that
than a few of you said, "Yeah right, like we
| | 03:20 | have time to quantify all of that."
| | 03:21 | Now granted, taking a step back and
reviewing and defining your content strategy
| | 03:26 | takes time, but make no
mistake, you already have one.
| | 03:30 | Your content creators, editors,
and publishers already make decisions based on
| | 03:35 | the quality of the content,
| | 03:36 | its relevance, and other factors.
| | 03:38 | The question you really need to ask
yourself is this: is it a good one?
| | 03:42 | And does it produce the kind of content
that will create compelling user experiences?
| | 03:47 | Or perhaps, you can think about it
this way: what's the point of go into
| | 03:51 | the trouble of reviewing workflows,
researching content management systems,
| | 03:55 | and implementing a CMS, if all you're
going to put through that is useless red staplers?
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The importance of taxonomy| 00:00 | In the chapter on terminology, I
discussed what taxonomy is and described some of
| | 00:05 | the tools and techniques people used
to create taxonomies on their sites.
| | 00:09 | In this movie I want to talk a little bit
more about the 'why' behind it and give you
| | 00:14 | some advice on building
taxonomies for your site.
| | 00:17 | Let me see if this
scenario seems familiar to you.
| | 00:20 | You read a fascinating article or
watching an entertaining video on a web site
| | 00:24 | and then return to the site about a
month later, because you want to share it
| | 00:27 | with a friend or link to it in a
blog post, only you can't find it.
| | 00:31 | Or you'll find it after what
seems like hours of searching.
| | 00:34 | I'm betting that this has happened
to you, and probably more than once.
| | 00:38 | One of the things that we've come to
expect from the web is to have the ability
| | 00:42 | to instantly find the exact piece of
information or content we're looking for,
| | 00:47 | and if that process is clunky, slow, or
doesn't work at all, it leaves a very
| | 00:52 | negative impression of the site.
| | 00:53 | One of the most important tasks for
any CMS is the organization and retrieval
| | 00:59 | of content. After all, what's the point
in managing your content if no one can find it?
| | 01:05 | As sites get more complex and their
content becomes more diverse, it's
| | 01:09 | increasingly important to have a
predefined structure in place to properly
| | 01:13 | classify items and add meaning to how
those content types relate to each other.
| | 01:18 | Taxonomies give us that structure, and
they allow us to apply meaningful tags and
| | 01:23 | categories to content that offers clarity.
| | 01:27 | Creating taxonomies isn't hard.
| | 01:28 | It just requires a lot
of thought and discipline.
| | 01:31 | Start with the terms that describe
your content in the broadest sense.
| | 01:35 | One way to do this is to think of the
main navigational links on your site.
| | 01:38 | If you offer products for sale, one
of the top-level classifications will
| | 01:43 | probably be products.
| | 01:45 | Next, build a structured hierarchy
of terms that describe that section.
| | 01:50 | Let's say that you sell healthy food products.
| | 01:53 | After the products heading, you would
list the top level of products that you
| | 01:56 | sell; terms like bread, supplements
and juices would make up the next level.
| | 02:02 | From there, you simply flesh out all
the terms that you need to accurately
| | 02:06 | describe this section of content in
terms that make sense to everyone.
| | 02:10 | Now of course that's not all.
After creating your initial terms, you should
| | 02:14 | focus on creating synonyms for each term
that people might use to search for the content.
| | 02:19 | Instead of just listing milk in your
taxonomy, for example, you'd want to
| | 02:22 | include dairy or even lactose.
| | 02:25 | You also want to create generic tags
| | 02:27 | that will help you to establish relationships.
| | 02:29 | Although healthy wouldn't be a specific
category, it is a tag that will help you
| | 02:34 | identify related items later.
| | 02:36 | And this doesn't mean
that you have to overdo it.
| | 02:38 | It's easy to just keep creating terms
and categories until you have a taxonomy
| | 02:43 | that's too complex to be effective.
| | 02:45 | Content creators will simply stop using
your vocabulary if it takes too long to
| | 02:49 | add metadata to the content.
| | 02:51 | Part of the challenge is to strike a
balance between having a comprehensive
| | 02:55 | vocabulary while still being
small enough for it to be usable.
| | 02:59 | So what benefits do we
derive from all this work?
| | 03:02 | Well, obviously this content structure
is going to make it easier when searching
| | 03:06 | for content within your site.
| | 03:07 | In fact, when I hear taxonomies
discussed, search is the most frequently
| | 03:11 | presented benefactor of it.
| | 03:13 | As important as that is--and it is
important--let's talk about some of the
| | 03:16 | other ways taxonomies can improve your
CMS's performance and enhance its value
| | 03:21 | to your organization.
| | 03:23 | Taxonomies can also greatly assist
in improving your site's navigation.
| | 03:27 | Obviously, creating sections and
categories will help you understand what
| | 03:31 | your site is all about, but it will
also help you understand how your site
| | 03:35 | should be structured.
| | 03:36 | By clearly defining content types,
their internal structure, and how they relate
| | 03:41 | to each other, you can accurately
predict what type of information visitors are
| | 03:45 | likely to be looking for and give
them clear links and top-level access to
| | 03:50 | assist them in finding it.
| | 03:52 | Taxonomies will also help
you find related content.
| | 03:55 | Now often, we're not good at
connecting the dots and understanding how
| | 03:59 | content should be grouped.
| | 04:01 | By taking the time to create structured
taxonomies, you'll have a better idea of
| | 04:05 | how content relates each other and make
it easier for your CMS to show related
| | 04:09 | articles, products, and services.
| | 04:12 | Another reason to take the time to
build taxonomies for your site is to
| | 04:16 | simplify vocabularies.
| | 04:17 | If you work in a specialized industry,
the medical field, or a governmental
| | 04:21 | agency, you're probably surrounded by
complex terminologies that the average
| | 04:25 | visitor might struggle with.
| | 04:27 | By associating these terms with
simpler but associated vocabularies, you're
| | 04:32 | improving the access to
information within your site.
| | 04:35 | Taxonomies also make it easier
to reuse and repurpose content.
| | 04:38 | For example, if you successfully tagged
individual sections of an article, you'd
| | 04:43 | be able to mine that article for
sections that you'd want to republish at a
| | 04:47 | later date or reuse within a
related article elsewhere on the site.
| | 04:52 | These examples highlight the
benefits of the content organization that
| | 04:55 | taxonomies can bring to your site.
| | 04:57 | Take the time to build out logical and
well-structured taxonomies for your content.
| | 05:02 | Once you start the process of
managing content with your CMS, you'd be glad you did.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Controlling content lifecycle| 00:00 | Once a CMS is up and running, either
you, your team members, or your clients
| | 00:05 | will be responsible for not only
creating and editing content, but controlling
| | 00:09 | the entire lifecycle of the content as well.
| | 00:13 | Obviously, this will mean drastically
different things depending upon the size
| | 00:17 | of your CMS and the goals of your organization.
| | 00:19 | But it is helpful to understand what
content lifecycle is and the things you
| | 00:24 | can do to control it.
| | 00:26 | Content lifecycle is
exactly what it sounds like.
| | 00:29 | It is the path your content takes,
| | 00:32 | from creation all the way to archiving.
This lifecycle will largely depend
| | 00:36 | upon your goals, your system's capabilities,
and on how you intend to use your content.
| | 00:42 | As we go through the content lifecycle,
you're likely to ask what the difference
| | 00:46 | is between the content
lifecycle and the CMS workflow.
| | 00:50 | Well, that's a good question.
| | 00:51 | Both are intertwined and planning
for one will likely impact or drive the
| | 00:56 | planning for the other.
| | 00:57 | A content lifecycle is a little
different in that it focuses solely on the
| | 01:02 | content portion of the workflow and
that not all aspects of the content
| | 01:06 | lifecycle are tied
directly into the CMS workflow.
| | 01:10 | As with most of the subjects I have
discussed in this chapter, if you don't have
| | 01:14 | a plan in place to control your content
lifecycle, it could end up controlling you.
| | 01:19 | How you control your content's
lifecycle will largely depend upon your CMS.
| | 01:23 | Some have very sophisticated tools
that will track your content, remove it,
| | 01:28 | archive it, and delete it based on your
systems preferences. In other cases, almost
| | 01:33 | all of this will have to be done manually.
| | 01:35 | Now whatever the method, you need to
have policies in place to control your
| | 01:39 | content's lifecycle that are logical
and are ingrained into the CMS workflow.
| | 01:44 | Now these policies are often referred
to as your content's governance, and in
| | 01:49 | larger organizations having
one is particularly important.
| | 01:52 | Governance policies should define
clearly who has ownership of what content, set
| | 01:57 | policies for when content should be
transferred, define workflow processes, set
| | 02:03 | periodic policy reviews, and set
terms for content end-of-life.
| | 02:07 | That's a lot to cover, so
let's take it step by step.
| | 02:11 | Your content's lifecycle actually starts
out before the content is ever created.
| | 02:15 | When you're analyzing your site's
content needs, you should be able to
| | 02:18 | categorize content before it is
created to help guide its lifecycle.
| | 02:22 | Is it content that should be archived?
Will you need to track various versions
| | 02:27 | of it? Will you need an audit trail
to track contributors along the way.
| | 02:31 | Thinking further down the line will
allow you to define when and if it should
| | 02:35 | be archived, whether it is a permanent part of
the site, and if the content is suitable for reuse.
| | 02:40 | Now, thinking ahead means that you can
place the content in the proper channel
| | 02:44 | and already have rules in place to guide it.
| | 02:47 | Next, during content creation is when
you have the greatest opportunity to
| | 02:51 | influence how the content is handled.
| | 02:53 | Meta-tagging, categorizing, and applying
rules to the content can help continue
| | 02:58 | to guide its path all the
way through its lifespan.
| | 03:01 | Must content will either be uploaded, if
it's a specific file type, so it is just
| | 03:05 | images, video or documents, or entered
in to the CMS through the WYSIWYG editor.
| | 03:10 | If your CMS has the tools to apply rules,
permissions, or meta-tags during this
| | 03:14 | process, make sure you do so.
| | 03:17 | Adding these in later is difficult, and
most authors won't take the time to do so
| | 03:21 | after the content is already in the system.
| | 03:24 | If your content will go through an
editing process, the rules that guide your
| | 03:28 | content life cycle will
determine much of the editing workflow.
| | 03:32 | If your CMS has the ability, you may want
to take advantage of using audit trails.
| | 03:36 | Audit trails allow you to track
content each time it has interacted with.
| | 03:40 | It tracks who interacts
with the content and why.
| | 03:43 | It's a great way to assess both content
and workflow, and you can set up internal
| | 03:47 | logic to retire content after so many
edits, or to tag content for review after a
| | 03:52 | certain number of processes.
| | 03:54 | You might also want to look into some type of
version control for this part of the lifecycle.
| | 03:59 | Versioning allows you to
keep every version of content,
| | 04:01 | from the first one to the last, and
will often allow you to compare edits and the
| | 04:06 | history side by side.
| | 04:07 | I feel like I should mention here that
version control isn't a common feature on
| | 04:11 | most content management systems, and
I've rarely seen it work effectively.
| | 04:15 | However, in the right workflow
versioning can help you manage the overall
| | 04:19 | content lifecycle effectively.
| | 04:21 | The publishing stage of your content
lifecycle should be governed carefully as well.
| | 04:26 | Are the distribution channels clearly
defined? Have you thought out how creating
| | 04:30 | content can be appropriated and reused
by other departments or for marketing
| | 04:35 | campaigns and what that process might look like?
| | 04:38 | Do you have mechanisms in place for
repurposing content for mobile devices?
| | 04:42 | More importantly, if content is reused
and repurposed, what systems do you have
| | 04:46 | in place to track and analyze
whether or not the content is effective?
| | 04:50 | When writing these policies, you
should first think about all eventualities,
| | 04:54 | how they are going to affect content
lifecycle, and then which mechanisms you can
| | 04:58 | use to enforce or enable these policies.
| | 05:00 | We also need to thoroughly test your
delivery methods to make sure the content
| | 05:05 | is presented as expected in each channel.
| | 05:07 | Finally, your lifecycle governance
should contain archiving and removal policies.
| | 05:13 | How long should content stay within your system?
| | 05:15 | What triggers a piece of content to be removed?
| | 05:18 | If it's removed, is it deleted or archived?
| | 05:20 | If it is archived, what type of
archiving and categorization of archived
| | 05:24 | content do you need?
| | 05:25 | In some instances, archived content
can be used to create knowledge bases,
| | 05:30 | frequently asked questions, or used to
trace the history of the organization.
| | 05:34 | Archive content itself presents an opportunity.
| | 05:37 | Should archived content be stored in
a separate repository and should it be
| | 05:41 | accessible to all users of your
site or only for internal users?
| | 05:44 | Perhaps most important, can content
be removed from archives and
| | 05:49 | reused, and how is that process detailed?
| | 05:53 | Now, that's a lot to think about.
| | 05:55 | How much of this process you need to
manage will depend upon the size of your
| | 05:58 | organization and the
complexity of your content model.
| | 06:02 | However, from the small site to the
largest, if you're managing content, you need
| | 06:06 | to put some thought into the
content's lifecycle, define it, and make sure
| | 06:11 | policies are in place that can
control the content lifecycle.
| | 06:14 | Without this, your workflow can become
a jumbled, reactionary mess, and you won't
| | 06:18 | get as much value out of your
content long-term as you should.
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| Challenges for CMS migrations| 00:00 | By now I'm guessing you've already made
the decision as to whether or not you're
| | 00:04 | going to be using a CMS.
| | 00:06 | If you're going to use one to create a
new site, you really only need to do the
| | 00:09 | proper assessments and then
start creating your content.
| | 00:12 | However, if you plan on migrating an
existing site to a CMS, well then you have
| | 00:17 | an entirely new set of challenges on your hands.
| | 00:20 | In this movie I want to discuss some
of the challenges involved in migrating
| | 00:23 | an existing site to a CMS and some of the
things that you could do to make it easier.
| | 00:29 | The first thing you need to realize
about moving content from one site or system
| | 00:32 | to another is that it's hard,
| | 00:34 | perhaps one of the hardest web
development projects you'll ever tackle.
| | 00:37 | It's easier for smaller sites than
larger sites, and obviously the more complex
| | 00:42 | your site, the more complex the migration.
| | 00:44 | But even moving from one
blogging platform to another can be an
| | 00:48 | incredibly complex operation.
| | 00:51 | Think about this for a moment. You're
going from one site structure with the one
| | 00:55 | set of rules to an entirely different
site structure with another set of rules.
| | 00:59 | Somehow you have to make all the
content here move over here and work the way
| | 01:04 | it's supposed to under
the new structure and rules.
| | 01:07 | If you're working with a large
organization with an existing CMS or complex web
| | 01:12 | site, make sure you either have a
dedicated IT staff that is technically savvy
| | 01:16 | enough to manage the migration, or
you'll need to hire outside help.
| | 01:21 | This could mean contracting with a
web development company that specializes
| | 01:25 | in migration or the CMS vendor itself if
you're hiring a firm to develop your CMS for you.
| | 01:30 | If you do decide to go with an outside
vendor, understand that no matter how
| | 01:34 | experienced they are, there are going
to be bumps in the road and the process
| | 01:37 | will take a considerable amount of time.
| | 01:39 | If someone claims to offer you
seamless integration with the new system,
| | 01:44 | don't believe the marketing hype.
| | 01:46 | So why is migrating content from
your old site to a new CMS so difficult?
| | 01:51 | Well, first you have to realize
that content isn't just content.
| | 01:55 | It's not like you're taking an item off
one shelf and placing it on another.
| | 02:00 | Web content by it's very nature is
made up of many interconnected things.
| | 02:05 | You may have internal links that
point to other internal content.
| | 02:09 | You're going to have navigation tied
to content that no longer matches the new
| | 02:12 | structure, and you may have content
like blog post, comments, or customer
| | 02:17 | feedback, that aren't structured correctly
for the new system or don't even fit into it.
| | 02:22 | Plus, if you're moving to a new CMS,
you're going to be doing a lot of what we've
| | 02:26 | discussed previously in this title,
| | 02:28 | things like creating meta
tags and new taxonomies.
| | 02:31 | These are entirely new vocabularies
that need to be mapped to the old content.
| | 02:36 | Older meta tags might cause
problems when ingested into the new system.
| | 02:41 | Don't forget that outside sites might
link to specific articles or content as well.
| | 02:46 | Those links will now be broken and
need some means of redirecting them to the
| | 02:50 | new location of the content.
| | 02:52 | With all this in mind, it's important
to have the right expectations about what
| | 02:56 | to expect when migrating content.
| | 02:58 | Well, first, you should expect lose
data. Now, obviously you want some control
| | 03:02 | over this and some data is easier to
deal with losing than others, but don't
| | 03:06 | expect to emerge from a migration unscathed.
| | 03:09 | Second, expect it to
take more time than you think.
| | 03:13 | Most tasks take twice as
long as people estimate.
| | 03:17 | If you build in patience for the process,
you'll eliminate a lot of the stress
| | 03:21 | usually associated with migrations.
| | 03:23 | Finally, expect there to be an awkward
transition time as you go live to your new system.
| | 03:28 | Understand that it's not going to go
perfectly and you'll be cleaning up and
| | 03:31 | remapping content, at least in the short term.
| | 03:34 | Clearly understanding the challenges
in migrating content will help you plan and
| | 03:38 | execute the steps necessary to migrate
your content successfully, and that is
| | 03:42 | exactly what we'll talk about in our next movie.
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| Steps for migrating content| 00:00 | I'll be honest, it's really hard to
quantify all the steps required for a
| | 00:04 | proper CMS migration, because
every site, site content, and CMS are
| | 00:09 | different, and they have different
technical challenges that are unique to that
| | 00:13 | specific migration.
| | 00:14 | However, I do want to go over some of
the general steps that you want to keep in
| | 00:18 | mind if you decide to
manage the migration yourself.
| | 00:21 | First, determine what a successful
migration is, and by that, I mean what will
| | 00:26 | constitute an acceptable migration,
taking into account that business logic,
| | 00:31 | processes, template structure,
and workflows are changing.
| | 00:34 | It's really easy to have
unrealistic expectations.
| | 00:38 | The best thing you can do is to set
realistic goals for your migration at the very start.
| | 00:43 | Next, what type of migration are you
performing? Are you just moving data, or you
| | 00:48 | moving page structure as well.
| | 00:49 | Well, you need to strip out
metadata and replace it with new metadata?
| | 00:54 | If you plan on automating some of the
processes, will it do everything that you
| | 00:58 | need regarding structure or metadata?
| | 01:01 | Now once you have expectations and
migration type down, you need to perform a
| | 01:05 | site inventory. All assets, content,
functionality, and paid structures that
| | 01:12 | should be maintained, should be
quantified, including internal links content
| | 01:16 | relationships and navigation.
| | 01:19 | During this process finding any orphans
or stale content that can be distorted
| | 01:23 | this will make life easier.
| | 01:25 | If you have rules in place to guide
what side of content needs to migrate and
| | 01:29 | then what can be left behind, you can reduce
a significant amount of time with this step.
| | 01:34 | And speaking of rules, make sure you
define rules for breaking up content and
| | 01:38 | how they should be mapped to the new system.
| | 01:41 | Make sure that you anticipate as many
decisions in this process as you can, so the
| | 01:45 | team members are making consistent
choices when breaking up content, deciding not
| | 01:50 | to migrate something, or
maintaining content relationships.
| | 01:53 | At this point, your content can then be
mapped to a new CMS based on its requirements.
| | 01:59 | The content's target location within
the new CMS, it's tagging requirements, user
| | 02:04 | ownership, information and lifecycle
policies all should be decided upon prior
| | 02:08 | to the actual migration.
| | 02:11 | One thing that you need to think of
prior to the actual migration is, what
| | 02:15 | happens if target requirements are not met?
| | 02:17 | For example, if an article doesn't
have an author associated with it or
| | 02:21 | publishing date, what happens?
| | 02:24 | If you're automating the process, you
could autogenerate generic values or tag
| | 02:29 | the content for a later manual transfer
where values could be inserted by hand.
| | 02:33 | If you're performing a manual transfer,
make sure that policies are in place to
| | 02:37 | deal with these so that
they're handled consistently.
| | 02:39 | Now after initial transfers, compare
the results against your expectations or
| | 02:44 | definition of success.
| | 02:46 | If you're not where you need to be,
consider modifying your transfer policies to
| | 02:50 | make up for any shortcomings that you found.
| | 02:52 | As always, there's some things you want
to a stay focused on when considering a
| | 02:56 | migration. For one, be sure to fight scope creep.
| | 03:00 | Make sure you clearly defined your
goals and what results are acceptable to you
| | 03:04 | and then stick with them.
| | 03:05 | Also--and very importantly--don't
change the target requirements of the new CMS
| | 03:11 | to match your older source content.
| | 03:13 | Believe it or not, many people will do
just this to make sure content migrates easier.
| | 03:18 | Doing that, however, goes against the
reason for switching to a new system
| | 03:21 | in the first place.
| | 03:22 | Also, if you're going to automate
portions of your migration, test them on small
| | 03:27 | batches of data first and compare the
results to what you've define as a successful
| | 03:32 | transfer to see if you're
getting what you expect.
| | 03:35 | Finally, if you're migrating from one
CMS to another, do a Google search such
| | 03:39 | as migrating from Y to Z. You should
find several articles offering advice,
| | 03:45 | tools, or even scripts you can use to
assist your migration, especially for
| | 03:49 | open-source systems.
| | 03:51 | At the same time, carefully examine the
export capabilities of your old CMS and
| | 03:56 | compare them to the import
capabilities for your new one.
| | 03:59 | You're likely to find ways to
make the process a little bit easier.
| | 04:03 | Now there's no way to suddenly wave
a magic wand and have your content
| | 04:07 | seamlessly import into another system.
| | 04:09 | However, with a little diligence,
realistic expectations, and a lot of patience,
| | 04:13 | you're going to be able to
manage your migrations successfully.
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| Avoiding distractions| 00:00 | I have one final piece of advice
for you before we end this chapter.
| | 00:04 | I know we've discussed a lot of
different processes, workflow considerations, and
| | 00:08 | migration strategies
regarding content management systems;
| | 00:11 | however, it's really easy to get
caught up in the nuances and minutiae of
| | 00:16 | choosing and integrating a CMS and
lose sight of what's really important, the
| | 00:20 | functionality of your site.
| | 00:22 | Never lose sight of the fact that you
or your organization has specific goals
| | 00:27 | in mind for your site, and that a CMS
should assist you with those goals, not get
| | 00:32 | in your way, create inefficient
processes, or obscure your content behind
| | 00:36 | features that, frankly, you don't need.
| | 00:39 | Now this saying has been around for a
long time regarding the web, content is king.
| | 00:44 | Regardless of what kind of site
you're managing, the content in content
| | 00:49 | management needs to come first.
| | 00:51 | Remember that people are
visiting your site for your content,
| | 00:54 | not the latest widget or
your cool dropdown menus.
| | 00:57 | As such, you need to stay focused on
your content throughout the entire process
| | 01:03 | and avoid common distractions along the way.
| | 01:06 | When choosing a CMS don't let the
impressive feature list of one CMS distract
| | 01:11 | you from another CMS that offers
a better workflow for your needs.
| | 01:15 | It's also common to get so enamored
with a specific feature that you convince
| | 01:19 | yourself that your web site can grow
into it or that your visitors will really
| | 01:22 | appreciate the extra feature set.
| | 01:24 | Both of those things might be true,
but if adopting that feature comes at the
| | 01:28 | price of less flexibility for your
content and a less efficient way to present
| | 01:32 | it, then it's not a good trade-off.
| | 01:35 | Also while all the analysis, processes,
and workflows I've mentioned up till now
| | 01:39 | are very important in
successful CMS implementations,
| | 01:42 | don't let them become a distraction from
the quality of content that your site needs.
| | 01:47 | If you find that a specific workflow
becomes too restrictive to content creators
| | 01:51 | or that you don't have enough freedom
to publish content in a timely manner,
| | 01:55 | then change workflow.
| | 01:57 | Make sure that no matter which CMS you
choose you have enough flexibility in how
| | 02:01 | you work to make tweaks to it if it's
going to result in greater quality and
| | 02:06 | greater focus on your content.
| | 02:09 | Make sure as well that the workflow
and processes that you adopt are suitable
| | 02:12 | for your team's size and their abilities.
| | 02:15 | All the site analytics in the world
won't improve your site's quality if
| | 02:19 | you spend the majority of your time
bogged down in workflow checklists and
| | 02:23 | web analytic tools.
| | 02:24 | Those processes should
support the creation of content.
| | 02:27 | And if they get in your way, find a way
to scale them back and modify them in a
| | 02:31 | way that allows you to keep your
focus on creating great content.
| | 02:35 | I guess the best way that I can sum
this up is to be very clear about what you
| | 02:39 | expect your CMS to do and
what you expect from your team.
| | 02:43 | Be realistic in your goals and don't
expect a CMS to be a cure-all for every
| | 02:47 | workflow problem that you encounter.
| | 02:49 | A content management system is
just another tool in your chest,
| | 02:53 | and its role is to help you build and
maintain engaging online experiences.
| | 02:58 | As with any tool, it's only as
good as the artisan that wields it.
| | 03:03 | Take the time to learn your CMS's capabilities.
| | 03:05 | Make sure you clearly state your goals
at the beginning of the project and stay
| | 03:09 | focused on the user
experience and quality of the content.
| | 03:12 | Those three steps alone will do more to
ensure a successful CMS integration than
| | 03:17 | all the checklists in the world.
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ConclusionAdditional resources| 00:00 | I hope you've enjoyed CMS Fundamentals and
that it has provided you with a starting point
| | 00:04 | in learning more about and
using content management systems.
| | 00:08 | By now, you should have a good idea about
what type of CMS is right for you, be able
| | 00:12 | to find some candidates and compare them,
and feel comfortable with some of the basic
| | 00:16 | terms and principles of content management.
| | 00:18 | I want to leave you with some additional
resources that can help you learn more about content
| | 00:22 | management systems and the
principles of sound content management.
| | 00:26 | A site that has some great articles
about using a CMS would be the cmsmyth.com.
| | 00:32 | This is a blog put together by some content
management system consultants, and it really
| | 00:37 | does feature a great set of articles on proper
strategies for using CMSs, different CMS reviews.
| | 00:44 | It's a great place to go get some
information on the theory behind using CMSs.
| | 00:49 | Another CMS news-related
blog is cmscritic.com.
| | 00:52 | This is a nice site for keeping track of
what's going on with different CMSs, new releases,
| | 00:58 | new updates, and new platforms.
| | 01:01 | If you're part of a larger organization or
corporation, cmsreport.com does a great job
| | 01:06 | tracking larger CMSs or enterprise-level
CMSs and giving you news on what's going on in
| | 01:12 | those communities and articles and advice on
using them, signing up for them, or working
| | 01:18 | with different vendors.
| | 01:19 | So this is a site that has a lot of resources for you,
especially if you're part of a larger organization.
| | 01:25 | Cmswire.com is probably the
standard of all CMS-related blogs.
| | 01:29 | This is a great site for learning about the
latest news in terms what's going on with CMSs.
| | 01:34 | They have a software directory where
you can go search and find for CMSs.
| | 01:38 | They have reviews on CMSs.
| | 01:40 | It's been covering the CMS market for a long
time, so if you want to come and learn more
| | 01:43 | about content management systems, this is
definitely a site that you need to bookmark.
| | 01:48 | Of course we have some fantastic titles or
some of the most popular content management
| | 01:52 | systems right here in the lynda.com
online training library.
| | 01:56 | These titles are great for giving you more
in-depth information or in giving you the
| | 02:00 | training you need to learn how to
use the CMS that you've selected.
| | 02:04 | Be sure to explore the lynda.com online training
library for the full range of CMS-related titles.
| | 02:10 | Well, that's it for CMS fundamentals.
| | 02:12 | I hope you've enjoyed this title and I hope
that you've gotten a solid foundation which
| | 02:16 | will allow you go deeper into the
world of content management systems.
| | 02:19 | For everyone here at lynda.com, I am James
Williamson and I'll see you in my next title.
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