Choosing a CMS for a blog or websit

Choosing the right Content Management System, it's quite a task.

Among all these proprietary or free softwate it's quite difficult to determine which CMS will meet your needs and what are the key points to check before opting for a particular solution. Especially when it comes to those distributed under a free license, the range of solutions is quite large.

Blogs

The domain name of your blog should reflect clearly its contents and contain the keywords that you want to communicate. Also make use of a name that is commonly searched on Google, the domain name is the key to a good SEO. To implement your own blog, you must first subscribe to a hosting service and buy a domain name. The deployment of a CMS like Wordpress or Dotclear (but there are others) will be perfet if you want to customize and refine the settings for your blog.

If you are looking for simplicity, you can turn to online blogging platforms, providing lodging for your blog.

Wordpress

This CMS is currently the most popular one and enjoys of a large and active developer communities.

Wordpress offers regular updates, including new features and security flaws are monitored and handled. The solution is widely used, developers continually offer new applications that allow users to "push" capabilities of the CMS and / or to provide richer content (picture, sound, video). Note that many free themes are available for the community. Themes are used to "customize" the CMS based on the use you have planned.

Note that the code provided by Wordpress is clean, and is defacto optimized for SEO. In addition, several plugins are proposed to improve the SEO of your blog.

The strengths SEO Optimized Effective support through a large online community

Weaknesses Some hosting services block URL rewriting The solution can be long and complicated to deploy for novices

Dotclear

For long Doctlear was considered as a direct competitor to Wordpress. But it is clear that Wordpress has largely taken over. Yet Dotclear remains a serious and credible alternative to Wordpress. In its latest version, Dotclear provide a more ergonomic back-office. The CMS also offers many third party applications and themes for personalizing your blog. However, the number of "plug-in available is less than important as for Wordpress.

Strengths Simplicity of implementation Ergonomics of the back office

Weaknesses Less choice in themes and plug-in A community less reactive than the one of Wordpress

Developping your website

Again, to deploy a website you must subscribe to a free or subscription-paid hosting service. Note that, to create an entire website normally require a basic knowledge in developing (php, html and CSS). The solutions offered below are non exhaustive and are adapted to manage a large number of pages ....

Joomla

Ideal if you're looking for a fairly comprehensive, flexible and scalable solution. Joomla allows the management of static pages and dynamic pages (news for example). Many themes are available for the platform, and the back office is quite intuitive. As result even if someone without advanced knowledge in development, may manage the website (once it has been created and hoste or course). You may implement contact forms on the website and easily manage the influx of visitors (provided the server is properly sized). Note that: however, the installation of Joomla is not recommended for beginners!

Strengths A detailed management of permissions for users Ability to customize your site through using plug-ins

Weaknesses Mastering the admin interface requires a training effort The code generated is not always very clean and standards compliant

Drupal

With Drupal, you can do everything ... or almost! Dynamic website, social networking, editorial site or blog platform. Among the CMS, Drupal is one of the most versatile. Once downloaded, it consists only of a "heart" that will ensure the vital functions of a site: publishing content on the web. According to the scope of the projet, the developer can add his own modules or make use of those developed by the community. Drupal may be the most flexible CMS, but still it is the most difficult to implement. You'll need anyway to call a "geek" to get the best. In return, you'll have a CMS tailored to your needs!!

The strengths Flexible Ability to deploy the CMS in multi-mode

Weaknesses Implementation difficult for novices Basic Back-office / lack of ergonomy

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