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Web Design Tips - Will I Need A Degree To Update My Website New Zealand, NZ

Will I need a degree to update my website?

cms_pages_250A good content management system (or CMS) makes it simple for you to update your website without requiring a degree to operate it and eliminates the risk of you accidentally breaking your web site. You can make changes quickly and easily when ever it suits you and over time you can save a lot of money because you’re not paying your web designer to make every change.

The key is to identify the things you need to update as well as the things you don’t. What parts of your web site will you need to update regularly? What things don’t you need to update, require a lot of training or are too complex for you and should be left to your web designer to update? In our experience, most clients get a lot of value from being able to update their contact details, about us information and products and services. More complex things like visual design, page navigation and pages with complex layouts are usually best left to your web designer. If you choose the right content manager and set it up well, you can easily update the information on your web site that needs regular updating with minimal training and support. It’s simple, cost effective and convenient.

A good content manager will only give you access to the things you need and prevent you from changing things you might break. Anyware’s content manager is an example and looks like the image top right. All you see is a list of pages - you should never be overwhelmed by a huge array of confusing menus and icons. You click on a page to edit it and a simple page editor opens - see the image bottom right. We particularly enjoy training sessions with clients because they often have this huge sense of relief when it only takes 3 minutes to show them how to log in and use the page editor. It can do lots of other things too, but you get the idea. Keeping it simple means it’s easy and effective for you.

cms_page_editor_250When selecting a content manager consider who it was designed for. Most CMS’s are designed not just for editing content, but also for the web developer to manage the visual design, page navigation and technical configuration. While this is great for large companies with well trained content developers, it does not work for small business owners who wear many hats and need a simple, easy to use web site editor. So choose a content manager that allows you to do it easily. If your CMS is capable of running a country, you’ll probably need a PhD to use it. But if it’s designed for business owners who don’t have a technical bone in their body, you’ll find it quick and easy to update your web site and you’ll get incredible value from it.

Contact us for a demo of Anyware’s content manager – it’s the simplest web site editor you’ll ever use. We can even give you a one on one demo over the phone.