Greetings, readers! Welcome to the May 2010 issue of ZooNews, from professional website design company Zoonini Web Services.

Are you planning a new website or overhauling your existing one? You may want to consider building your site with a content-management system (CMS).

A CMS – as we defined back in the second issue of ZooNews – is database-backed software that gives you the ability to easily update a site's content with less risk of damaging the site's layout or functionality. Most CMS-driven sites are maintained by the site owner/editor through a web-based interface, which allows text and image updates to be made from any browser.

Building a CMS-run site tends to take a bit longer and cost more than building a site without one, and it's not a solution that makes sense for everyone. Here are some questions to consider when deciding whether or not to have a CMS-driven site:

A CMS may make sense for your site if at least a few of these criteria are met:

• you'll be blogging; a CMS like WordPress makes both blogging and updating "static" pages (like "About Us") very easy
• you'll be adding news or events on a regular basis
• you'll have frequent updates to static pages – at least a few times a month
• you want control over exactly when your content is updated
• you – or someone in your organization – are comfortable with technology on a basic-to-intermediate level (i.e. word processing, simple graphics manipulation if you'll be updating images) and have the time to devote to keeping the site up-to-date
• your site updates entail fairly simple layouts
• you have a substantial amount of content to be added and need an automated way to keep it organized – for example, in categories
• you need a number of special features – such as internal site search, a photo gallery, private pages, or a membership system – which may be more efficiently built into your site via a CMS rather than using individual unrelated scripts for each piece of functionality

A CMS might NOT make sense for your site if:

• your site doesn't need to be updated often
• you aren't comfortable getting hands-on with your website
• your time is limited and you'd rather have someone else handle updates on your behalf
• you can be flexible on when your site is updated
• your site updates involve complex layouts

Whether or not to use a CMS isn't a black-and-white state of affairs. For example, if you don't need all the features of a full-fledged CMS, there are often other solutions. If you want an event calendar integrated with your site, there are scripts that can be used just for that; if you'll only need to update a news section, a "mini-CMS" can be installed for that area only.

Hopefully the questions above will help make your "To CMS or not to CMS" decision a bit easier.

The term Lazyweb crops up on Twitter and blogs as a kind of self-deprecating preemptive strike when asking a question of followers/readers that you probably could, with a little effort, discover the answer to yourself. For example,

"Lazyweb, what's the weather going to be like this week in Montreal?"

In the more specific context of programming, as Clay Shirky wrote back in 2003, Lazyweb can also refer to the phenomena of: "If you wait long enough, someone will write/build/design what you were thinking about." or "[Describing] a feature [you] think should exist in hopes that someone else will code it."

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

Looking for a speaker to address your association, conference, company, class or group? I'm passionate about helping people avoid common website pitfalls and enjoy speaking to entrepreneurs, students, and others on all kinds of web-related topics. Don't hesitate to get in touch if I can be of help – and feel free to check out the expanded professional-speaking information on Zoonini.com for more details.

Montreal is exploding with tech events this spring and I'll be participating in two of them this week: Webcom and Make Web Not War. Hope things are as hopping wherever you are! Maybe I'll see some of you this week, or at NXNEi in Toronto next month.

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner