Guides · Plain English

What a CMS does, and when you need one.

A content management system is a login that lets you edit your own website. Whether that is worth having depends entirely on how often you actually edit it.

The short answer

A CMS — content management system — is an admin area behind your website where you log in and change the words, swap photos, add pages or publish posts, without touching code or waiting for a developer. WordPress is the best-known one. Whether you need it depends on how often your content really changes.

What it gives you

A place to log in, a list of your pages, and a text editor. You change the opening hours, save, and the live site updates.

For anything that changes on a schedule — a menu, a price list, staff, events, a blog — that is the difference between a five-minute job you do yourself and an email to somebody else.

It also means more than one person can keep the site current, which matters when the person who knows how is on holiday.

What it costs you

A CMS is more moving parts, and moving parts need maintenance. WordPress sites need the core, the theme and every plugin kept up to date, because out-of-date plugins are the single most common way small business sites get hacked.

They are also heavier. A database-driven page has to be assembled on every visit, where a plain page is just handed over. That is not fatal, but it is why a neglected WordPress site often feels slower than a simple one.

And there is a learning curve. "You can edit it yourself" only pays off if somebody actually sits down and learns the editor.

When a CMS is the right answer

You publish regularly — posts, news, events, offers.

You have a catalogue, menu or price list that genuinely moves.

Several people need to keep different parts current.

You are selling online, where stock and prices change constantly.

When it is overkill

A five-page site for a local trade whose details change twice a year does not need a login, a database and a maintenance routine. It needs to load fast, say the right things and be easy to phone.

In that case the honest answer is a simple site and an arrangement where changes get made for you when they are needed. Fewer moving parts, less to go wrong, nothing to keep patched.

We build both. Which one you get should depend on how your business actually works, not on which is more impressive to sell.

The menu board analogy

A CMS is the chalkboard menu you rewrite yourself every morning. A static site is the printed sign the sign-writer made — sharper, cheaper to hang, and you call them the two times a year it changes. A café with daily specials wants the chalkboard. A solicitor with the same six services since 2011 does not need one, and pays for it anyway if somebody sells them one.

What it costs

A simple site, changes by request	Included in a care plan	You email the change, we make it. No login to learn, nothing to keep updated.
A site with its own CMS	Quoted per project	More to build and more to look after, because it has more parts.
WordPress run properly	Ongoing, not one-off	Core, theme and plugin updates are a recurring job, whoever does it.

Our prices come straight from our price list, so this page can’t drift out of date. Figures for other companies are typical ranges, not quotes.

Do you actually need it?

You want a CMS if

Your content changes more often than every couple of months.
You have a catalogue, menu or events list.
More than one person needs to update the site.
You are selling products online.

You probably do not if

Your details change once or twice a year.
Nobody on the team wants to learn an admin panel — and that is a perfectly reasonable position.
You would rather have a faster, simpler site with fewer things to break.

Mistakes worth avoiding

Buying a CMS you never log into

Plenty of businesses pay for a system, learn it once, and never open it again. If that is honestly you, say so at the start and spend the money on the parts customers see.

Installing plugins and forgetting them

Every plugin is somebody else’s code running on your site. Out-of-date ones are the usual way these sites get compromised. Fewer, kept current, beats many and neglected.

Assuming a CMS makes you findable

It does not. A CMS is a tool for changing a page. What is on the page is what gets you found.

Questions

The ones people actually ask.

Is WordPress the only CMS?

No — it is the most common, so it has the most themes, plugins and people who know it. There are plenty of others, and a custom admin built only for the handful of things you actually change is often simpler to use than a general-purpose one.

Can I edit my site without a CMS?

Not directly, no. The usual arrangement is that you send the change and it gets made for you, which for a site that changes rarely is less effort than learning an editor you would use twice a year.

Does a CMS help my Google ranking?

Not by itself. Google reads the finished page and does not care how it was produced. A CMS can help indirectly, because it makes it easier to keep adding good content — but only if somebody uses it.

Will my site break when the CMS updates?

It can, which is why updates need somebody responsible for them. A simple site with no CMS has nothing to update, which is a genuine advantage people rarely mention.

Which do you recommend for a small local business?

Honestly, it depends on how often your content moves. We will ask what actually changes and how often before recommending either, and we are happy to say you do not need one.

Where to go from here.

All guides

What we build

Sites with a CMS, and sites without.

Read on

How fast our sites are

Measured, with the method shown.

Read on

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