User Friendly CMS: What Features It Should Comprise?

Hi!

I would like to devote my first post here to the thing I posses some knowledge about. I’m currently working as a software developer and developing a user-friendly content management system is what I’m into at this stage. Here I would like to share with you my thoughts about what features a user friendly CMS should include.

Good and user friendly CMS should represent the compilation of time-tested tools and care for the non-technical users. First, CMS should be simple to use for those who are not savvy in IT, still however it should be able to satisfy the sophisticated demands of developers. Good CMS should be easy to manage both micro-sites and large portals. All told, content management system should be comprehensive and multipurpose.

Good CMS should possess the features to allow easily update all the content of the website pages and overall website structure, including pages layout, text fonts and colors, logos, images and slogans. Then, any user-friendly CMS should allow easy navigation.

Some words about navigation. Navigation panel
should be easily aligned to the administrator’s wishes: vertically or horizontally.

Quick jump navigation module should be available on each page allowing the visitors to obtain instant access to the most important or highly-visited pages.

Footer navigation panel should provide links to the Terms and conditions, Privacy policy pages, etc.

Every user friendly web content management system should include ready-to-use modules such as news blocks, info blocks, and search bar. I would suggest adding a search bar to every page as it will provide visitors with easy access to the searched content.

CMS should give the possibility to change the appearance of the pages or the entire site easily with a few clicks without rebuilding the entire website.

Every friendly website CMS should include a built-in site map page which is automatically updated when adding pages to your website or editing existing pages.

Now to SEO. With the fact that 90-95% of the Internet users start their surfing over the web from search engines, every good CMS should be developed from scratch with SEO in mind. For instance, SEO features should assume:

- editorial control Meta tags and titles
- search engine friendly and clean URLS
- XML site map generation module
- easy to navigate Site map
- integration with Google Analytics

CMS should include a Media library section in the administration console to upload files of all possible formats including images, flash files, PDF, Word files, etc. A single image can say more than a thousand of words.

For better user experience and better security every good CMS should possess the ability to set up the unlimited number of roles and relevant permissions distributed among individuals or groups of individuals.

A built-in email tool is a necessary “ingredient” for managing email promotion campaigns through your website. Moreover, an administrator can submit a newsletter sign up form to the website’s homepage to collect visitors’ email addresses.

Multilingual support allows running your website in different languages to outline to improve the users experience of foreign visitors. An administrator can assign several languages to the website and create various page versions for each used language.

Custom features are must-haves for any CMS as this is only you who knows better how your website should look and operate.

Here is just an example of other essential features of user friendly cms on the model of CORE Framework CMS.

It was just a set of some basic features a user friendly CMS should comprise. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas about CMS features in your comments.