background

When I started this business the concept of having a Content Management System (CMS), inasmuch as really being able to give the site owner a way of controlling ALL of their content, just wasn't an option.

This wasn't necessarily an issue as we could still put content in a database (via a form that was accessible after logging in) and retrieve this information, then display on the page. [endclip]But this was really only of any use for text in a specific part of a site or more commonly was used a bit like an ecommerce site where products were added. The focus was not on quality textual content.

Now, this wasn't really a problem at the time as we would update clients' sites within minutes and to be truthful we liked it as we charged for this service.

In the past few years and with the advent of easier platforms the focus has been very much on CMS systems, in fact we have only built one site since Jan 2011 that hasn't been on a CMS.

However, as the title suggested there is still a question of if you should use a CMS or not.

Why? 2 reasons.

1 - Can you understand the CMS?

Experience shows that sites that get updated, added to, or modified on a regular basis get more Google love. But if you are using a CMS that is frankly as complicated as the Space Shuttle the average user won't use it, rendering the time and money spent on the CMS useless. You would be better going back to the dark(er) ages and allowing a web developer to update the site for you.

2 - Does the CMS encourage more Google Love?

Google loves fresh content (above) but it also needs other slightly more technical issues to be addressed as well, such as:

Page title
Page description
Page load time
Properly formed URLs (the bit after your domain, so in the case of this page www.barkweb.co.uk2/to-cms-or-not-to-cms 
W3C compliant HTML and CSS (ask!)
Well formed internal links (time to stop saying 'for more information click here')

Our most productive clients, ones who get the most from their websites, are properly involved in them, recognise the importance of them, update them regularly and embrace the additional benefits that a modern feature rich, easy to learn (and easy to re-learn once you have forgotten) CMS can give you.

So the short and blunt answer is:

Yes! A CMS system will give you control over your content which in turn should make you more popular with Google. 

I should point out that we still update clients sites for them even if they are on our CMS, this can be because they are 'just going into a meeting', 'don't have time at the moment' or 'can  you just tweak the text a bit so it reads properly'... Always glad to help in any way we can!

If you would like a demonstration of our CMS so you can see the difference for yourself, please get in touch.