Free CMS, a good idea for my site?
Many of you are looking for a solution for your website. The word free CMS comes up a lot: what should you expect? Let's take a closer look at the different CMS.
Why create a website?
The need to create a website
You need to be present on the Internet, whatever your activity: service provider, seller of goods, or even association or institutional organization. People need to be able to find you on a search engine, locate you, know your opening hours, contact details and so on.
But how do you create a site?
How do you create a site? You're not a programmer, you don't speak three words of HTML - that famous web language - and you're not a geek. Are there any tools for novices? Can you get by without learning code or hiring the services of a paid developer?
The solution: open source CMS
While some webmasters still create their own frameworks, most use what are known as CMS (Content Management Systems). Based on WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) logic, they enable you to create a site in visual form, without having to code. Free CMS are available, and we'd like to point you in the right direction.
What should you bear in mind when creating a website?
Free CMS doesn't mean zero expenses
Some CMS are free. But that doesn't mean you'll pay nothing for your site. Unless, that is, you're satisfied with a totally unprofessional URL (Uniform Resource Locator), flanked by a www.votremarque.wordpress.com-type extension with the basic formula of a basic platform, such as wordpress. No, to have a dynamic site, your platform will have to be carefully chosen, and you'll necessarily have to spend money, if only to be hosted, and that's even with free and easy software, as is the case with CMS made simple, for example.
Create your site seriously
Your website is the image of your company. An unprofessional URL brings your business into disrepute. Yet it's a medium with which you hope to create engagement: raising new prospects, for example, or building customer loyalty. With the creation of a website, a start-up can succeed in attracting investors, convincing financiers or federating people around its project.
Create a site to give buyers confidence
If you want to sell online, the URL is an essential element of assurance for the buyer. They will only fill in a contact form and pay for their order, by entering their credit card numbers, if they feel confident. A non-fluid interface reflects an amateur spirit and sows doubt in people's minds, which can cause you to miss the sale.
Consider the question of hosting
"To host my site, I take the cheapest host". This is probably what you're thinking, because like the URL, saving on hosting costs is possible. An easy solution, yes, but not recommended. Firstly, because it makes you dependent on third-party players for something as important as your image. Secondly, because it's offset by the presence of random advertising on your site, which has never been a guarantee of professionalism. So simplicity and efficiency are not on the side of economy.
What to do before choosing content management tools?
Three choices to make
For your site, you'll have to cover the costs associated with renting your domain name (between €8 and €14 per year) and subscribing to the hosting service (between €4 and €6 per month). So you need to make a triple choice: a registrar, a host and a CMS-type tool.
A technical base
As you can see, setting up a site involves a wide variety of aspects. There are many players and many different recommendations. To find your way around, it's best to know your way around, or to have the patience and curiosity to learn: there's no shortage of tutorials on the web.
Learning Wordpress
A CMS like wordpress runs under Apache and allows you to set CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), rather than using an HTML text editor. Its intuitive use and easy installation - by downloading it from the .org site, then transferring it from your FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client, having created your MySQL database beforehand - will enable you to understand the basics of the content management system and effortlessly acquire a good level in terms of responsive web design, i.e. accessibility on all media for the web surfer. Alternatively, some hosting providers offer one-click modules.
Other free CMS for creating and customizing your website
Other solutions include Drupal, Joomla and Xoops. All offer greater flexibility when it comes to customizing or redesigning your site, although you'll obviously need to imagine your interface based on a template before generating it. You'll never get ahead blindly, and even less so with a customizable site. Nevertheless, these tools are ideal for content managers developing their own sites. The degree of knowledge required by each varies. Some CMS solutions, like Mambo, have been discontinued since 2013.
Paid CMS for beginners
How are they sold?
Other CMS are not free. In this case, purchasers are automatically offered support and a kit for building a site without any prior knowledge. This is the case with e-monsite, for example. These CMS generally operate on a subscription basis.
A complete package
To simplify the process and avoid having to deal with multiple people, many offer a complete package with all the necessary plugins. This is the case with Weebly, for example. You're guided through all the steps, and have only one supplier to interface with.
Staying vigilant
The landscape is changing, and so are the services offered. One example is Prestashop cloud, whose service was discontinued at the beginning of the year, prompting all members to migrate to a partner hosting provider. In other cases, it's the compliance of the Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) that may have posed a problem, as was the case with Wix for a time.
Marketplaces as alternatives
Some service providers offer to create a space on a marketplace, such as Shopify. Be careful, however, to assess the costs involved. In the long term, this type of formula may cost you more than another alternative.
When it comes to choosing a CMS, it's important to look beyond price, and consider the functional aspect of the possibilities offered, the security dimension of the system, and the associated referencing quality. For novices, don't make the mistake of trying to do everything on your own: you'll spend time on this that could be better spent developing your business, for example.
Article translated from French