We integrate CMS into websites

CMS - Content Management System. Depending on your needs, budget and suitability we can either build a bespoke CMS or integrate your site with an open-source or a commercial CMS of your choice. Since you have landed on this page then it is logical to assume that CMS integration is on your agenda. Let us know how can we help you!

Our real world experience 

"We integrate CMS into websites" - this is not just 'a statement of capability' but more importantly is our past experience. Many of our past web development projects included integration with existing CMS or building a bespoke CMS.

Cost to integrate CMS.

This, perhaps, is the most popular question we get. - Put it simple, the total cost of integrating CMS to any given site = [cost of making a new CMS-backed site] - [design work], as we simply will take your design as a baseline. Other influencing factors are:

• Open-source (£0), commercial CMS (£100 - £10000) or bespoke CMS (£500 - £5000);
• If data migration is required;
• Complexity/depth of the proposed site;
• If third party integrations are required;
• Complexity of adopting a selected off-the-shelf CMS to specific requirements;
• Cost of new hosting (some CMS packages require specific platforms and modules).

E.g. if basic websites deployed on WordPress (open-source CMS) may cost you from £1000 (includes: cutting templates, installing and configuring WordPress), other more serious tasks with complex logic and addon modules like HR, catalogues, shopping carts will cost considerably more. Average cost ranges from£6000 to £12000, but this is just average and must be carefully evaluated in each case.

Which CMS?

We have been integrating CMS into websites for a long time. The choice will depend on your current setup and hosting capabilities - some will have CMS pre-installed and available for customisation / tuning (and you may not be aware of that! - Check "Applications" in the Control Panel of your website), some are limited to only Windows server technology or Unix/Linux, some hosting arrangements may have constraints / limitations. In each case we evaluate which way to go.

Popular choices of CMS are:

• Proprietary (built from scratch to your specification), or ...
• Open Source or commercial systems like:
  • DotNetNuke
  • Joomla
  • Vivvo
  • WordPress
  • etc.

If you are only planning / developing a new site then we can advise on the best way to go, and thus we can recommend a hosting platform for you. 

Or, ... if you just wondering What that 'magic CMS' is all about, read on

A static website is built in HTML code and can only be updated by a trained web developer. In contrast, a website that uses a content management system (or CMS) can be edited, expanded and updated by regular users and administrators. There are 2 main benefits of using a CMS for your site:

1. Content can be easily maintained, which will help you achieve a fresher, content-rich site that ultimately delivers better results.
2. Your website can be maintained by your existing staff, which reduces the ongoing maintenance costs.

Most good content management systems work by organising the text, images and files for your site within a database. Changes to your site can be made through a special database interface (in other words - a dedicated mini-site where you can manage structure and content of your site and pages). Each page of your web site is then programmed to link to the CMS to retrieve the appropriate content for the page. Every time a page is visited it checks the database for its content, so any updates that are made to the CMS are immediately visible on your site. No special software is required for visitors to view a content managed web site because when the web server sends your web pages to the visitor they are sent as plain HTML, so it looks and works just like a static site.