Understanding CMS: What It Is and Why It's Needed
Host:
– "So, welcome, Carlos, to this podcast. We are going to talk about a comparison... We're going to be talking about a comparison on different CMSs that are available for businesses or for overall marketing users. And around that topic, I'd like to get started with an introduction to CMS systems. So, as to let our audience know what exactly a CMS system is. I don't know whether you would like to get started with that part, answering: What is a CMS system? And why will a business need one?"
Carlos:
– "Thanks you."
– "You're welcome."
– "Okay. So, a CMS or a content management system is a platform online that allows you to manage the content of a web app, of a website, of a mobile app even. And those are very helpful, especially for our marketing teams, to create new pages, to edit the content of those pages that they have on their website without using, or without needing a programmer, without actually needing someone that has knowledge in coding. They can easily manage that content or make changes, edit stuff, remove stuff from the website, etc. And yeah, those are, as I mentioned, really helpful for marketing teams on different businesses, to create websites, to manage the content of them, and to, again, edit them, add new images, add new copy, remove, edit, etc."
Comparing CMS Platforms: Criteria and Categories
Host:
– "Exactly, and this being answered, what we're going to do next is to compare different CMSs that are available on the market. That we are familiar with, by the way, because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of CMS applications. And I believe that we can do that comparison around the following topics: ease of use, the features, and also, very important, the pricing. This being said, I believe that we can probably get served with separating CMS systems for e-commerce, and CMS systems for other types of websites that are not based around e-commerce."
– "Oh! Also we can consider this third one: web apps."
Carlos:
– "Or web apps, yes."
– "Yeah."
Exploring CMS for Regular Websites
Host:
– "Yeah. So, maybe we can get started with the most common type of CMS system, the one that is not everything around e-commerce."
Carlos:
– "Yeah, for regular websites, like company, informational websites or, yeah, regular company websites, business websites. Yeah, there are a few... not a few, there are many CMS platforms! Either Headless or not. Headless are the ones that are pretty flexible and maneuverable for people to integrate with their own custom websites that are hosted on their own servers and everything that, and there are others that are attached to a specific platform like Wix or Webflow, for example. Framer is a new one that is also a website builder and a CMS, has CMS integrated with it but in general, those CMSs are very helpful, and it really depends on the needs of the customer, or the needs of the person that is going to use it. Depending if there's a small business, depending on if they want to scale up the website, if it has any custom functionalities that are not simple to create or to integrate with a platform like either Wix or Webflow, maybe they will need something more versatile, more flexible for their programmer to integrate with. And, yeah, I guess there's a vast variety of CMS platforms for these kinds of businesses, or these kind of websites or informational ones. And it really depends on, again, of the size of the website, the needs of the client, and what else? To know what... which one is going to be chosen for that."
Ease of Use: DIY CMS Systems vs. Designer/Developer Platforms
Host:
– "I agree with that. I believe that there might be several ways of classifying that ease of use, perfect? I was thinking about, maybe there are websites that can be classified into those three groups. In terms of ease of use for the person or team who is going to be creating. Notice creating, not only editing, but creating the overall website."
– "I can think about DIY CMS systems, that would be a surface system that allows a person with zero technical knowledge to build up and maintain a website, like for instance, there's Wix and there's one that we very recently used for a free website for a movie at Squarespace, and also there's Weebly, there are many, Weebly. So, I believe this first type of website is very easy to use for a user or groups of users that are not only managing content, but creating the overall website. Those types of CMS allows them to create without any knowledge. I believe that in that regard, there is another group that will be for custom websites; I will call them that way, not very much based on templates, like Webflow, perhaps..."
Carlos:
– "But these platforms... sorry to interrupt... but these platforms also are integrating, or they also integrate templates, or they have some kind of template store to get those sections or, those again, templates of a website for people to easily add content to them, and personalize them, customize them. So, yeah, those are very easy to use as well; even if you don't have much technical knowledge, there's a learning curve that it's not that it doesn't take too long to learn how to use these platforms. For example, Webflow, if you have a template and you don't have much technical knowledge you pretty much know how to make a few changes here and there in content to personalize, to customize your website."
Host:
– "That is very true. So, maybe instead of, I'll change the second category in terms of ease of use to something like... for the designers slash developers, perhaps."
– "Like the first category is more for, you're a business owner, you don't know, and you didn't have time to learn anything about how to create websites, just need to get there and get a website published fast..."
– "You don't have time to learn anything. Now, this second category in which we were talking about Webflow I believe that's more for designers, slash developers, maybe..."
Carlos:
– "Yeah."
– "In a short amount of time, you... yeah."
– "You have a lot of options in that regard to build your website and to customize it as much as you want."
Host:
– "Exactly, I believe that Webflow fills pretty well this category for designers; actually that is a target market of them. Designers like if you can do it in Photoshop, if you can do it in an XD, or Figma, then you can do it on Webflow, that's what they sell here."
Carlos:
– "They even have a Figma plugin to create your designs on Figma and then export and move them to your Webflow project. So, yeah, that's, I will say, yeah, their target of, those platforms will be designers slash developers."
Host:
– "Yes. And at a visual level, the difference between the DIY category and this designer category is that there's a lot more flexibility when it comes to how websites will look. Now, I think about Webflow here, and I was about to place HubSpot, WordPress within the same group, but I don't know if I create another group like it's more for developers. I'm not that sure about it."
Carlos:
– "Oh! Wow! That's interesting because... those have templates as well available to them, and the ease of use can be, again, pretty simple if you just choose a template and start adding content... Considering the limitations that they have... but it's still there's a small learning curve. It's very simple to... Okay, this is the template that I chose, this is the content that I have and I start populating the website with my assets from my brand: logos, colors, copy and imagery. So, that's some kind of middle of the park kind of thing. It's an in-between somehow because those can be powerful tools for developers to create something pretty custom, but also they can be very helpful if you just are a business owner... you select the template and start populating the website with your content, and... that's I guess it's very simple to do in those platforms as well; but at the same time it allows developers create something bigger, something more complex and custom if they decide to do so... Yeah, I don't know how we'll label those specific..."
Host:
– "Yeah, I don't know either. I believe that instead of having subcategories, I will have a sort of line that will start with DIY at one side that will go down to designer. Then to developer and then to very much developer..."
– "And within that line I will place WordPress and HubSpot, like in between designers and developers because I believe that those are touching bases for both type of professionals. I'll have WordPress and HubSpot here. Okay. What else do we have within this developer and designer part of the line in terms of ease of use for creating the overall website? Because there is ease of use just for the marketer to manage content, and I believe that is to be treated differently."
Carlos:
– "Yeah, the developer and that plus."
The Role of Headless CMS in Content Management
Carlos:
– "Yeah, it's completely different if you are, for example, Headless CMSs or Headless website builders like Prismic, for example. I guess the ease of use for marketers or people that are going to be editing the content... it really depends on how the developer sets it up. With Headless CMSs, there's a huge role in terms of the person that sets up the CMS and how everything is structured... That is going to determine how easy to use a website is because you can have a platform that is very user-friendly, but if your developer set it up in a way that is very convoluted and complicated to understand, then you're not really taking advantage of the platform..."
– "In the case of Headless, it's some kind of a mirror... It's like as long for a developer it could be more difficult. And it gets more difficult because it's completely custom and you have to be thinking all the time about the needs of your customer... at the end of the day, if you as a developer give it much more thought and you work hard and try your best to optimize as much as possible the way you set up the CMS, the easier it's going to be for the marketing people to edit that content... So, this thing some kind of inverse proportions over there... the harder it gets for developers to set it up, or maybe you need more expertise, the easier it's going to get for the people that are going to be editing the content of the website."
Host:
– "I agree completely. This that you mentioned makes me think about an approach to talk about ease of use. That would be, that it depends on the project requirements because the more custom and creative functionality we have the less easy are the simpler platforms to use. So, DIY platforms will be either absolutely not usable or very difficult for everyone... if we are having custom-crazy functionality. And I have a very recent example with this: a Squarespace website that we created for an Apple TV movie... it was very difficult for us to design, to code, and it will be in certain scenarios for the content managers to change things... Or if you go to Squarespace to that example they have for the Super Bowl with Adam Driver, is an amazing website... But at the end of the day, it is all custom code... and that will be very difficult for account managers to change things on that Adam Driver website."
Carlos:
– "It's really interesting because, as you mentioned... at the end of the day, there's a trade-off, there's always a trade-off... if you want to make it simpler for the content managers... or if it's going to be... you know, that awesome website with a lot of custom functionalities that are mind-blowing, but at the end of the day, behind the scenes, there's really not much that you can do without a programmer. And there's always that trade-off, and sometimes you have to either sacrifice design or functionality to try to make sure that there's like the most user-friendly experience for the people that are going to manage the content, or sometimes, you have to find some kind of balance."
Host:
– "Absolutely. So, just to summarize until this point... we can draw a line for ease of use on CMS systems, a technical knowledge line that could start with DIY with CMS systems such as Wix, Squarespace, Weebly that moves towards designers or for designers with Webflow and then moves in between designers and developers for WordPress, HubSpot, and that points towards Headless or very much for developers or even for teams of developers."
Carlos:
– "That is, yeah, sometimes for teams of developers, yeah. And the interesting part is that with the exception of Headless, most of these platforms... have this entry-level that is closer to the DIY that allows you to pick up a template, and you can start working on these platforms even if you don't have much technical knowledge... it's like the gateway to this platform..."
Host:
– "Absolutely. And for Headless, which will be like the other part of the line that is very technically demanding, we will have CMS systems such as Prismic, Sanity..."
Carlos:
– "Strapi."
Host:
– "Strapi is another one. I mean, there are many... But, yeah, I believe that... So far, we have this DIY: Wix, Squarespace, Weebly. Then we're having designers with Webflow, slash developers with WordPress and HubSpot. WordPress is, by the way, kind of a do-it-all CMS system... there's also the possibility for developers to code a completely custom template... So that's why I'm placing WordPress in between designers and developers."
E-commerce Focused CMS Platforms: Shopify and BigCommerce
Host:
– "...there's e-commerce because we had talked about CMS systems for service websites."
Carlos:
– "Yeah, mostly informational websites... but it's different in regards to an e-commerce website and in this case, there are platforms that are dedicated specifically to e-commerce."
Host:
– "Yes, which is not to say that we can't do e-commerce with any of those platforms we already mentioned... But we might be talking about websites that are very focused on e-commerce... So, I'm talking about Shopify and BigCommerce."
Carlos:
– "Yeah. Those are platforms that are specifically created for e-commerce websites... the main focus is to sell your products via those platforms. And it's very interesting because... if you want to have a completely custom experience... that might not be that user-friendly... Shopify has apps like PageFly or Shogun that allows you to have some kind of website builder... but the main focus and where they specialize is e-commerce and all that is very intuitive, very easy to work with... the reports, the data that they get... how to fulfill orders... shipping rates and everything... it's designed to be easy to use in regards of e-commerce."
Host:
– "Yes. And what's interesting to me is that I believe both Shopify and BigCommerce are targeting customers or users all across this line of technical knowledge because they're targeting people in the DIY section, even with the possibility of having an e-commerce without a website, like just with social media."
– "That's a very DIY functionality of Shopify... But also, they allow people... to create and publish an e-commerce website with a template in the platform... they can allow designers to play around with the design of a store... they can also allow developers with the possibility to create a custom theme. And also, they have this possibility to allow developers to integrate Shopify with a Headless system."
Carlos:
– "Yes."
– "Yeah."
– "Shopify Plus, they have their own Headless system."
Host:
– "Exactly. So, notice how Shopify and BigCommerce are trying to cover all of the parts of this technical knowledge line... So, at the end of the day, I believe we can summarize things as follows: First, ease of use... depends on the project requirements... But we can talk about ease of use, like drawing this technical knowledge line in which we place platforms from DIY to designer, to for developers, to for very much developers in the Headless part of the line."
Carlos:
– "Yeah, I completely agree. And I believe these platforms, in general, their approach is what you just mentioned... they want to appeal to as many customers as possible, from the ones that have more technical knowledge to the ones that have little to non-technical knowledge. And they want to make it, yeah, accessible to anyone in that spectrum that you just mentioned."
Summarizing CMS Platforms and Looking Ahead
Host:
– "Totally, totally. Well, just to wrap up this conversation, I'm going to mention a few things that I believe will be cool for us to cover on the future podcast... We already talked about ease of use; I believe that we can talk next about features, pricing, support, maybe. And also, case studies like who this CMS is for, and maybe what are the key factors for you to consider choosing one CMS over the other."
Carlos:
– "Specific CMS over the other, yeah."
– "100%."
Host:
– "So, I believe that we're having many podcasts to... on which to talk about this, yeah."
– "Perfect, thank you very much, Carlos, for joining me on this conversation."
– "Excellent. Well that's nice. Thank you. Bye bye."
Carlos:
– "Thank you for inviting me. Nice talking to you."
– "Bye bye."
