Blue Larch LLC
Web Content Management (WCM)
Many client like the ability to manage their own content through a content management solution as it allows you the freedom to update your site when you want without having to rely on a third party.
Before going this route its important to understand the options and costs.
Implementing a web content management solution can drive up the price of a web site as it requires more time to implement. There are a number of packaged content management solutions such as Joomla! and Droopal, even WordPress. Installing a basic toolset like these takes very little time, it is customizing their appearance where the time (cost) can become a significant factor to consider.
Also WCMs can be complex in their own right to work with and may be daunting for anyone not truly comfortable with complex applications. WordPress is fairly straight forward but the more 'sophisticated' packages offer tremendous functionality - which brings complexity. Additionally there is a 'devil in details' challenge when a packaged solution doesn't quite do what you want and needs to be 'tweaked'. Programmatically they are complex and making functional changes can be time consuming.
To avoid some of these issues we often develop custom content management solutions with a password protected administrative area where you can add and update dynamic data, while usually leaving more static content outside the WCM. Our thought process is to avoid developing expensive functionality for content that may not change for years, and might only take a few minutes of a developers time to change even then.
Based upon your requirements (needs) we will recommend what we believe to be the best, most cost effective, approach to content management for you.