The Very Introduction to Content Management Systems

Sean Donnelly

What is a Content Management System?

A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content on a web site as well as maintenance from a central interface (Sharma & Kurhekar, 2013)

Common Functionality

Some basic characteristics

• Lifecycle management – creation, publications, archive, rollback

• Infrastructure for managing multiple persons to engage with the content. The basic participants in the CMS are: – Content Editors (who decide what content to publish and

where)

– Content Publishers (who publish the content on the web)

– Content Authors (who create the content for the web)

• Pre-written templates

• Central repository to facilitate access and reuse

CMS Benefits

• Depending on the business needs and the CMS used, the benefits can be summarized as:

– Increased control of user's management of their web content

– Increased interactions with customers

– Simplified, cost efficient management of content to web sites and portals

– Streamline of content management processes

Popular CMS’

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=blogger,drupal,sharepoint,wordpress

Basic CMS Workflow

Login in the CMS Choose a website

from the list available

1. Edit Web site properties 2. Preview a site 3. If administrator, set the access rights for different users

Choose a predefined workflow

OR Create a new workflow

Adding new pages in a section of a web site

after creating the index page

Create sections for adding new content

in the site

Changing the order of sections

OR Changing the properties

of a section

Choose a predefined template

OR create a new template

Upload media files on the Web server

Display the content on the screen

Who uses Wordpress?

Hosting & Domain

Development and Maintenance

Monetisation

• Hosted on WP servers. • WordPress in domain unless

fee paid

• No back-end access • CMS fully maintained with

backups, updates and security by WP

• Default ads on website unless fee paid

• No e-commerce solution

• You are responsible for hosting

• You are responsible for domain names

• Full access to add files, edit files and configure servers

• You are responsible for server issues etc

• Unlimited

Storage

Plug-ins and Themes

• There is a limited storage

• Limited selection of free themes and widgets

• No third party plug-ins

• Unlimited

• Thousands of free themes and plugins

• Tens of thousands of premium themes and plugins

WordPress

Check Social Network Username Availability on

www.namechk.com / www.namecheck.com /

www.checkusernames.com

Get Started – Visit

www.wordpress.com

Complete the Required Steps

Your WordPress.com blog address is what people use to access your blog. An example of a WordPress.com blog address is support.wordpress.com. The address of your blog can be changed: http://en.support.wordpress.com/changing-blog-address/

Choose a Username and Password

WordPress Profile

Choose Free Option

Check your email to activate

Choose a (free) theme

Your WordPress.com Homepage

My Sites

Your Wordpress.com Homepage

Blog Discovery

Search by Topic

Accessing the dashboard

Visit your dashboard to start blogging…

Dashboard is the blogs control panel…

Hello World

Your Blog should look something like this…

Delete Hello World

writing a new post…Add New

Writing a New Post

Adding a hyperlink

• Hyperlink to a webpage

Writing a New Post

• Hyperlink to a webpage

In a new window visit images.google.com

Adding an image to your post

Save image to your desktop

A note on using imagery

Paid

• Purchased imagery – www.istockphoto.com

(on demand, pay per image)

– www.shutterstock.com (subscription model)

– www.presentermedia.com (subscription model)

– Graphic Design

Free

• Your own photos / graphics

• Creative Commons – www.freeimages.com

– Wikipedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/

– www.openclipart.com

– www.morguefile.com

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Writing a New Post

• Add a media file

Writing a New Post

• Upload a picture

Writing a New Post

• Upload a picture

Adding an Image • describe the image • format the image • Insert the image in to the post

Add image details (SEO)

Your blog post should look something

like this

Embed a video

Copy this text

Embedding an online Video e.g. YouTube • Find the video ad click the share button • Choose Embed

Embed a video

• Copy the code directly into the blog post

Decribing Your Post

• make sure private

• add tags (take care on hierarchy)

• add categories

• save and preview

Tags versus Categories

Categories Taxonomy

Tags Taxonomy

Tags versus Categories

• Categories are your site’s table of contents.

• Tags are your site’s index words. (Micro categorisation)

• Categories allow for a broad grouping of topics

• Categories can be arranged in a hierarchy.

• To describe posts more specifically, use tags

• The use of tags is entirely optional (although each post must be attached to at least one category).

• Tags exist in their own right and have no set relationship to anything else.

• If enough posts have the same tag, and it represents your blog purpose and goals, it’s a category.

Add categories

Creating categories

Type category name here

Creating Tags

• Optional and more specific than categories

• Used for micro categorisation (meta data)

Tagging a Post

Save/Update & Preview

Your new blog should look something like

this…….

Publishing Your Post

Scheduling posts

Customising the Look of a Blog

Preview Themes

Customise the Look

• Live Preview

• Activate or Close

Widgets

• Click on Appearance

• Click on Widgets

Adding Widgets

• Click on widget, drag to site location

• Populate or activate widget

• Save

Monitoring performance

• Click on Site Stats

A note on wordpress as content management system

- Adding pages creates a site structure

A note on wordpress as content management system Decide hierarchy & decide on page parent

A note on wordpress as content

management system

Domain Mapping

• Example.wordpress.com – free

• Domain mapping just means pointing your own domain e.g. www.example.com to example.wordpress.com

Purchase your domain • Purchase your domain at sites like:

– www.letshost.ie

– Follow domain providers instructions for changing DNS settings

THE END And Finally……………..