A Content Management System or CMS is an ideal way to simplify the infrastructure of your website.  A CMS separates the content from the design and structure, allowing you to modify, add, or delete content without having any HTML or programming knowledge. Through the use of installed plugins, a CMS can offer many flexible options for sophisticated website features such as forums, blogs, restricted content, and shopping carts that would normally require custom development at a huge expense. This results in a more professional and dynamic website.

Good content that is relevant and frequently updated is key to keeping your customers coming back to your website. A CMS helps you to spend your valuable time focusing on delivering that content instead of dealing with coding and browser compatibility issues.  Additionally, you can assign persons to be responsible for various content on your site and grant them only limited access to update that particular area. This is great when your business or organization doesn’t have one person dedicated to managing website content. A CMS also makes it easy to keep consistency in design from page to page which results in a better user experience. And when you are ready to give your site a visual face lift or a new brand identity, it is relatively easy to apply a new design without having to re-code pages or change content.

Sapient Design uses two open-source CMS systems called Joomla and Wordpress. Both are free to install and use, are user-friendly, and have a strong and thriving development community who are continually updating and extending these programs and associated plugins.  Sapient will recommend the best system based on your businesses unique needs. As for design, there are thousands of free and commercially available templates that can be used as-is or adapted for your needs, or we can design something unique just for you.

Website design and development may be combined with our user research, interaction design, or UI/visual design services in order to better define your audience and their needs and expectations.

Not convinced that a CMS is for you? Ask us for a demo!

Process and Deliverables:

Project Discovery/Planning
All web design/development projects start with our Project Planning Process.

Hosting Setup and Installation
We will first determine whether your web host will support the technical requirements for the CMS. If not, we can recommend service providers that do or host you ourselves (see Hosting and Maintenance) and help you to facilitate the change. Then we install.

Configuration
The CMS is configured for security and misc. settings using best practices and your preferences. Appropriate plugins and modules are evaluated, installed, and tested. Menu items and navigational structure are put into place.

Design
A design template is chosen and applied with your branding or created from scratch. If you are deciding between several templates, we can easily swap them out on the site so that you can preview what each might look like with your design.

Content
Last, we add your content and refine all the little details to make your site look professional and polished.

Testing and Delivery
Your website will be tested in major browsers for both design and performance issues, and any necessary revisions made.

Training
If you plan to maintain website content yourself, 2 hours of complimentary training will be provided via web-conference to teach you the basics.