Web design and the way websites are built has changed dramatically in the past few years and so has the cost involved in developing them. Almost all businesses and especially small businesses are looking for ways to control costs and manage their website content in-house to save money. The good news is that getting a site you can manage yourself isn't any more expensive than getting one you can't. If you are considering a new website it's vital you make sure your web design firm is going to build it using a Content Management System or CMS. A CMS lets non programmers add, edit and remove content from a website using a simple what you see is what you get editor which is simple to use. With cost savings being a main priority for businesses, managing your own website content instead of using a website maintenance company makes a lot of sense and a CMS ensures this easily. Popular systems include open source or free systems such as Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. All of these systems offer amazing and easy functionality, and are supported by many professional web design firms and are easy to use once you've familiarised yourself with their respective control panels. However, there is a thing of concern relating to CMS. With so many freely available and widely supported systems in use, avoid companies who offer you their own CMS. Such companies wont have the power and flexibility of the systems mentioned above. It won't have been tested properly and if the system goes bust, there will be nobody to support it. Choose an off the shelf system and save yourself a lot of worry in the future.
