Simple but Powerful CMS?

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bearaman

bearaman

New Member
Hi All,
I'm going to be designing a number of similar sites and would like to offer the clients the ability to update them via a simple CMS. Here are my requirements:

1) Simple for the client to update, if they can send mail or use Word, they should be able to update content or create new pages.
2) Very SEO friendly. Needless to say, I know, but indexing by Google is a must.
3) The web sites will initially be simple affairs with a few pages of information and a web form. It should be easy to add more services in the future.
4) Possible to administer all sites centrally? I would love to have the ability to add, for example, a newsletter service to all my client from one button click!
5) Easy for me to control user and group permissions.

I haven't used any CMS in the past and I'm currently looking at CMS Made Simple CMS Made Simple - Welcome to CMS Made Simple - an open-source CMS. Anybody used it before?
Looking forward to hearing your views.
Thanks,
Bearaman
 
Cormac

Cormac

New Member
Wordpress does all of your above requirements except for number 4.
To do that you would need to have each site sharing the same SQL db, this would basically involve you writing a custom CMS.

There is no logic, system wise, behind this requirement anyway.
 
bearaman

bearaman

New Member
Thanks for the replies.
WordPress looks interesting. Is there a specific CMS version of it available or are you expected to do a hack? One other requirement I forgot to mention is that it would have to be easy to design different templates/themes. I take it both WordPress and EE do this?
Thnaks,
John
 
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TheMenace

New Member
If you're looking for something really simple, I would recommend Joomla. It's great for designers who aren't overly technical. Once you're comfortable with the system, it really boosts what you can offer your clients.
 
bearaman

bearaman

New Member
Thanks for the info.
I've installed WordPress 2.2 and CMS Made Simple at home and I'm evaluating them both there. From initial impressions, I'd say WP seems to have the edge. Once I get my hands on some plugins, it should do all I want and more. I'll let you all know how I get on.
What does Joomla offer over WP?
Bearaman
 
T

TheMenace

New Member
bearaman said:
What does Joomla offer over WP?
Click to expand...

WP is a blogging tool with a limited (but extensible) basic feature set. Joomla is more powerful, tiered templating and content management tool with much more powerful features and the ability to set up a more sophisticated site architecture.

Basically WP is for blogging and simple sites, Joomla is for medium sized sites or larger.
 
Gnopps

Gnopps

New Member
Website Baker

I use Website Baker (Website Baker: Start - Introduction) for my website and find it very good. Though not as powerful as some of the other CMSs it has a much much smaller learning curve. Setting up a site is done in no-time for beginners. I also has SEO urls.
 
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seaghan

New Member
With all due respect, what you are looking for is nowhere near a 'simple CMS'. No CMS will accept content from Word without going through some sort of filter to clean up the MS styling that feics up most content. That said, many editors have a paste from word or paste plain text, that *if* used by the end user, will help.

As for central management, Drupal has multisites in its core (ie install and deploy mother website, and then deploy sibling sites based on parent settings). Some of your other requirements are possible with considerable tweaking, but overall you are looking at spending a few weeks (or 3 or 4 ordinary websites) getting to know a CMS and then trying this project - or paying someone to set up 90% of the system for you, and working on the last 8% over a few weeks. The last 2% you will not be able to implement, trust me ;)

You will not get 'simple to use', from an out of the box setup, with your specific requirements, so my friendly advice is not to keep looking for a perfect CMS (there ain't any) but choose a 90% one, learn it well, be realistic, and work from there on the 8% :)

HTH

Best of luck with it :)
 
B

Baz

New Member
From a personal point of view (I'm a newbie btw!)
I would say either Wordpress or Joomla. You will need HTML and CSS knowledge for both and you will be tinkering very lightly with PHP too.

If you want something that can do anything with modifications (sometimes easy, sometimes very painful) go for Joomla, it can even back itself up if you install the right mods so really good piece of mind. If you want good SEO in the most part and general easy useability from the start try Wordpress. If it came down to it I'd say Joomla, but I fully agree you will spend a few months learning the basics... and yes you always have the 2% you're not sure of even if you know everything before you install that last mod!

Best Of Luck,
Baz
 
F

fantastvik

Guest
bearaman said:
Hi All,
I'm going to be designing a number of similar sites and would like to offer the clients the ability to update them via a simple CMS. Here are my requirements:

1) Simple for the client to update, if they can send mail or use Word, they should be able to update content or create new pages.
2) Very SEO friendly. Needless to say, I know, but indexing by Google is a must.
3) The web sites will initially be simple affairs with a few pages of information and a web form. It should be easy to add more services in the future.
4) Possible to administer all sites centrally? I would love to have the ability to add, for example, a newsletter service to all my client from one button click!
5) Easy for me to control user and group permissions.

I haven't used any CMS in the past and I'm currently looking at CMS Made Simple CMS Made Simple - Welcome to CMS Made Simple - an open-source CMS. Anybody used it before?
Looking forward to hearing your views.
Thanks,
Bearaman
Click to expand...

try Drupal. it is better than Joomla. you will absolutely love it
 
O

oliflorence

New Member
Hi There,
we are recently launch our own CMS with web designer access. This is a system we have building over the years for our clients so it is really built with the client in mond, making this simple for them and easy to use but it is also very powerful with the ability to grow to much larger sites and with a control panel for you in order to determine which area the client can access etc.
If you can design a web page without CMS then this is all the technical knowledge you need, integrating is very easy to do.
You can view more info on our site at www.flocms.ie
You can contact us from the site for pricing etc if this is of interest.
 
H

hughdurkin

New Member
Wordpress sounds perfect for what you're doing.

It's easy to make larger sites work well with it, and various plugins can handle caching, data importing, and even managing multiple sites from the same interface.

If you need an idea of how it can look decent enough, www.celebritygossip.ie is running it (though I do have to set up the caching a lil better because it's being hammered at the moment).
 
S

shaneod

Member
seaghan said:
With all due respect, what you are looking for is nowhere near a 'simple CMS'. No CMS will accept content from Word without going through some sort of filter to clean up the MS styling that feics up most content. That said, many editors have a paste from word or paste plain text, that *if* used by the end user, will help.

As for central management, Drupal has multisites in its core (ie install and deploy mother website, and then deploy sibling sites based on parent settings). Some of your other requirements are possible with considerable tweaking, but overall you are looking at spending a few weeks (or 3 or 4 ordinary websites) getting to know a CMS and then trying this project - or paying someone to set up 90% of the system for you, and working on the last 8% over a few weeks. The last 2% you will not be able to implement, trust me ;)

You will not get 'simple to use', from an out of the box setup, with your specific requirements, so my friendly advice is not to keep looking for a perfect CMS (there ain't any) but choose a 90% one, learn it well, be realistic, and work from there on the 8% :)

HTH

Best of luck with it :)
Click to expand...


I'd be inclined to agree with all of that.
 
E

Expand.ie

New Member
Cushy CMS is by far the best I have come across for free and simple CMS.
Joomla will do your nut in for the first month or so, customising templates can be a pain in the hole.

Cushy lets you just add a class to your content's div and make changes through the browser.. Its like adobes new incontext editing, but better.... check her out.

If your looking for something more complex go to wordpress or joomla.
 
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fantastvik

Guest
Though it is a old thread but could not stop myself from adding what i know,since i have come across very interesting recently which full fills the criteria of simple and easy to use CMS completely.Infact this CMS was developed keeping non programmers in mind.its name is zimplit

It has following features:

1.No Database.

2.Not a single line of code is required to integrate a website template into CMS.

3.And yes as you said updating the content is almost like word,any body who has worked on word can operate this CMS.
 
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