Published · Updated
The short answer
A content management system, or CMS, is the editing side of a website. Your customers see the public pages. You, and anybody you give a login to, see a set of boxes behind those pages: the hours, the phone number, the words on the services page, the photo at the top. Change a box, save it, and the public page shows the new version.
Want this handled instead of DIY'd? See the three fixed-price website sizes.
Everything people argue about when they argue about CMSs comes down to two things: how much of the site those boxes reach, and who the editing screen was designed for. A system built for a newsroom with forty writers is a different animal from one built for a shop owner who changes the hours twice a year.
The easiest way I know to picture it is the letter board outside a corner store. Somebody built the sign and set the post in the ground, and you would call them back if a storm knocked it over. Nobody calls the sign company to change OPEN SUNDAYS to CLOSED THANKSGIVING MONDAY, though. You open the glass, slide the letters around, and close it again. A good CMS hands you the letters and leaves the post to the person who set it.
The editing screen and the public site can be separate
On some systems, the screen you log into and the site your customers load are one piece of software. Every time a visitor opens a page, that same system puts it together on the spot. WordPress works that way out of the box, and it's why WordPress sites come with a steady list of plugin and security updates that somebody has to keep on top of.
On other systems, the editing screen sits off to one side. You make your change there, the system builds a fresh set of plain pages, and those plain pages are what your customers get. There is no login sitting on the public site, so there's less to patch and less to go wrong, and plain pages tend to load quickly on a phone.
Both count as a content management system. So when a builder says "you'll get a CMS," the useful follow-up is "which kind, and can you show me?" The answer tells you what a Sunday night edit will actually feel like, and what the site will need from somebody every month after launch.
A Sunday night in two businesses
It's Sunday night. The owner of a cheese shop on Brock Street has just found out a delivery is late and she won't open until noon tomorrow. Across town, a mobile dog groomer who works out of a van, based in Kingston and driving out to Sydenham and Harrowsmith, has decided that from November on he'll stop taking calls after 7pm. He's also started picking up regular work in Verona.
| The change | Cheese shop on Brock Street | Dog groomer working from a van | Should the owner do it alone? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours | Opening at noon on Monday, just this once | No calls after 7pm from November | Yes, in a couple of minutes |
| A short notice | "Late delivery, open at noon" at the top of the home page | "Winter hours start November 1" | Yes |
| Prices or specials | This week's board of three cheeses | His price for a bath and trim | Yes, if prices are on the site at all |
| Something new | A page for gift boxes she's starting to sell | Verona added to the towns he serves | The words, yes. A brand new page, usually with the builder |
The first three rows are letters on the board. The words already have a home on the page, and the owner is swapping what's in it. The cheese shop owner should be able to do that from her phone on the couch, and the groomer from the front seat of the van between appointments.
The last row is where it gets interesting. Adding Verona to a sentence that already lists his towns is a letter change. Giving gift boxes a page of their own, with a title that turns up in a search and a place in the menu, is closer to adding a second sign. Some systems let the owner do that safely and some leave it to the builder. Either is fine, as long as you know which one you have before the Sunday you need it.
A good CMS hands you the letters and leaves the post to the person who set it.
What you change yourself, and what you call about
Here is how I'd expect the line to fall on a small business site, whatever system sits underneath it.
Things you should be able to change yourself, without asking anyone:
- Your hours, including one-off closures and holiday hours
- Your phone number and email address
- Prices, specials and short notices
- The words on a page that already exists
- Swapping one photo for a better one
Things it's normal to call the builder for:
- A new kind of page, or a change to the menu across the top
- The layout, the colours, or how the site looks on a phone
- Where the contact form sends its messages
- Anything to do with the domain name or the hosting account
The second list exists to keep you safe, and a builder who guards it is doing you a favour. A layout that works on a phone is easy to knock sideways with one well-meant edit, and a contact form pointed at the wrong inbox fails quietly for weeks. Keeping those behind a phone call costs you a little patience and saves you from a broken site you don't know is broken.
A CMS only changes the website, and your hours live in more than one place. The website is one, your Google Business Profile is another, and the sign on the door is a third. Changing the website on Sunday night doesn't change the others. The launch checklist covers who should own those details, so I won't repeat it here.
What to ask a builder before you sign
Most of what goes wrong with a CMS is a mismatch nobody noticed at the start. These questions bring it into the open.
- "Show me where I'd change my hours." Ask for a live look, in person or on a screen share, at the exact screen. A description of the editing side is no substitute for seeing it.
- "Can I do that from my phone?" If the answer is laptop only, decide now whether that's fine for how you work.
- "Which parts are mine, and which parts need you?" Ask for the line in writing. Then you know before the Sunday night, instead of finding out during it.
- "What happens if I make a mistake?" Ask whether there's a way to see the old version and put it back.
- "Can I give my staff a login, and take it away when they leave?" You should be able to add and remove people without phoning anyone.
- "Does the editing side need its own updates, and who does them?" Some systems need regular upkeep and some barely need any. Either is fine, as long as you know whose job it is.
- "If I move to another builder, does the editing side come with me?" The pages should be yours. Find out whether the way you edit them is too.
A builder who answers all seven in plain words has thought about your Sunday nights already.
Common questions
Do I need WordPress?
Not necessarily. When a site needs a screen the owner can edit, WordPress is what I most often use, so you'll hear me mention it. It is one option among several, and I pick it when it fits the business. A very small site that changes its hours twice a year may not need an editing screen at all, and for that business a quick email to the builder can be the simplest setup there is.
Are the drag-and-drop website builders a CMS too?
Yes. Those services bundle the editing screen, the design and the hosting into one monthly account. That's handy, and it also means the editing side, and often the site itself, stays with the service if you ever leave. Ask the move-out question above of them too.
Can I break my site by editing it?
On a sensibly set up system, the worst you can do in the boxes you own is put the wrong words in them, and you can fix that the same way you made it. The parts that can actually break the site are the ones in the second list, which is the whole reason they sit behind a phone call.
What if I'd rather never touch it?
That's a perfectly good answer. Plenty of owners would rather send an email that says "closed Monday" and let someone else do the rest. Say so at the start, so nobody builds you an editing screen you'll never open.
I usually build on WordPress, though I'm not tied to it. Call me at 613.480.1345 or email hello@kingstonwebdesigner.com and I'll tell you exactly which parts of your site you'd edit yourself and how. What each size of site includes is under the three fixed-price website sizes.
The cheese shop and the dog groomer are illustrations, not clients.