Author: Kabir Bedi

Choosing the right vendor to execute the integration of right CMS solutions into your website could be a mind boggling job. However, if you know which CMS solution will work best for your business, finding the right developer may not be as daunting task as you think.

So, before you make any informed decision about what type of CMS solution will be right for your business, make sure what is the objective, purpose, and working pattern of your business so that you can accomplish what you are looking forward to.

Website content management system is the most sought after open source solution for small and medium scale businesses. The reason for this could be that it is simple and easy to use and painless to integrate. And this is why increasing number of business owners are looking for this cost effective yet great CMS solutions to cut down their cost of maintenance by doing things on their own.

How you can keep yourself updated with CMS solutions?

It is quite obvious to say that a website that has used CMS solutions in its development is most up-to-date than others without having CMS. Nevertheless, availability of hundreds of options in CMS like WordPress, Drupal, etc., to power a website makes the task to take an informed decision even more difficult.

The right CMS solution offers a flexible mode to create, edit, organize, archive and search content on a website. We know that creating the right CMS requires significant experience and needs to know at least one programming language, say PHP, and of course, a good amount of time. Therefore, inexperienced people make use of ready made product that not necessarily prove good for their website.

Take a look at the types of CMSs available for you!

General Website CMS

Self-hosted Solutions
Hosted Solutions
Integrated Solutions
Flat File CMSs

The Blogging CMS - WordPress that has two versions -

Hosted version at wordpress.com
Full code version at wordpress.org

The eCommerce CMS

Used as the basis for an ecommerce website Popularly known as Shopping Cart software, which is a complete system for selling products online.

The Forum CMS

These include phpBB, Phorum, Vanilla and Simple Machines, and the commercial one is vBulletin.

Others, such as Wikis, Image Galleries, Gaming and Learning Management systems.

The only popular site using Wiki is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which is built on MediaWiki.

The Content Management System is supported by a broad range of developers who make it suitable for all business types by integrating the websites with the right solution. Its installation is easy and the features that have made it so popular among small and medium scale businesses are its ability to extend and availability of several templates. This gets you a huge number of plug-ins that transforms your website the way you want it to be.

So selecting the right one for you is very very important. Here are the few suggestions for you that would make your task pretty easier;

If you want a blog, go for WordPress without wasting a sec on thinking. If you have a general website, go for its counter partners, Drupal or MODx. If you want to increase your control on your site, Look at Unify or Perch, or the easier one - CushyCMS. For shopping Carts, go with hosted solutions like Foxycart or Shopify. Like these, the list goes on. All the Best!

About the Author:
Kabir Bedi is the senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a web development company in India, offering web based development services. The company also specializes in offering custom content management system development services to its offshore clients. "