Choosing a CMS?

When you start out a website, as I'm sure many of you already know, the system which runs the site is really important.

You need to consider the a few things:

a) What is your website going to do?
- Do you need a Content Management System?
Are you going to be publishing a lot of content or managing other people's content?

• Are you going to need a user base?
  Are you going to be allowing users to register on your site for extra benefits or is it just a static, information based site?

• Who is going to be participating in your website?
  Are you the only admin of the site or will you have content providers and moderators participating too?

b) Who is your target audience?
- If you are writing a website about programming, you want to ensure that your audience are programmers or at least interested in your information.

c) Do you need a custom CMS?
- I personally have written my own CMS called Cybershade (with a few other people), the reason for this is that I didn't want to have to work around the problems that I found with various other CMS's such as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress (arguably not a CMS). If one of the mainstream Content Management Systems do exactly what you want then go with that, there is no need to create your own (please remember to check out the plugins and modules which come with the system).

If all things considered point to you getting a pre-built CMS, then just make sure that it does exactly what you need it to.

One more thing to consider is the userbase of the CMS you chose, be it bespoke or premade. The userbase is very important, if you need support on the system, will you be able to ask people about it? Will you be able to go to a forum or email the developers? How many people are posting about potential issues that you think may come up?

I have had far too many people come to me and complain about a system which they have chosen because it was the first one they came across which looked good but in the end didn't do what they wanted.

You should always do your research on any system which you want to use. A day of research or (potentially) months of porting over your current site to a new system when you decide to change.

Just keep it in mind.