Building your own website used to require days of coding and web development expertise. But as the internet gets older, it gets easier to use, and people and businesses have an abundance of tools available to help them create, design, and manage their own websites. Instead of lengthy sessions learning HTML, you can have custom, powerful, websites put together in minutes. These days, if you don't have a site that provides relevant information and builds your clientele, then you're way behind the times! You really have no excuse to not put together an excellent website, right now.
So if you're building a website, where are these alleged "abundant tools" to help you out? Enter the content management system, or CMS. These aren't just online platforms to create a website, you can manage the entire thing through them. If you've heard of systems like Wordpress, Joomla, Hubspot, and Silverstripe, then you know what a CMS is. How do you know which is right for you to use for you own website, or your business? Let's take a look at these four popular CMS platforms!
Wordpress - The most popular free CMS available, Wordpress has a huge range of free templates to choose from, giving you the ability to customize your site based on your needs. You can easily design a site that focuses on aesthetics, or one that's more practical and informative. You get a built-in blogging system with all the search engine optimization tools you need, and the more you get familiar with the system, the more widgets and add-ons you can install to improve your site! It's readily available through many hosting services like GoDaddy, so if you wanted, you could have your own website live in less than an hour!
Joomla - This CMS is a fan-favorite because of the open-source community that powers it, constantly improving and upgrading Joomla components. Much like Wordpress, you have access to a wide variety of templates and add-ons, and you don't need extensive web development knowledge to create and manage your site. Joomla is rapidly gaining in popularity, and the developers are expanding in response.
Hubspot - Hubspot is much more than just a CMS, they provide a huge array of marketing, social media, and lead generation components that will bring inbound marketing to your business. Instead of blindly firing advertising and marketing efforts out into the internet, Hubspot will help you build a website that creates traffic, gives your sales team leads, and helps nurture those leads through the sales funnel. You pay for Hubspot, but with the tools available to you, getting ROI on your investment is question of when, not if, granted you put the time in. 
Silverstripe -Silverstripe is one of the most powerful and intuitive CMS platforms available, but building a website in it takes some coding and web development ability. Once your site is live, managing it through the CMS is pretty straightforward, but there will be more work on the front end to get it together. The upside is that you get complete control over your design and features because of the coding involved, but it's more technical than setting up a site through a different CMS.
So which CMS is right for you? If you're looking to get a website started today, with low cost and great features right out of the box, then Wordpress or Joomla is the way to go. Personally, I prefer Wordpress, and down the road, you always have the option of upgrading your website to a more dynamic setup. If you want to get a website together, along with a significant inbound marketing presence, then look no further than Hubspot. Their team has experience with businesses just like yours, and knows what you need to be successful and build a great site that will improve your traffic and sales. If you're more familiar with HTML, CSS, and other coding languages, you may opt to build in Silverstripe. If you're going to pay a developer to create a site for you, ask them about Silverstripe and getting it integrated into your new site.
There's a CMS out there for every different person and business, and once you find one you like, it's time to get started! Don't let the internet scare you, a better website isn't that hard to create!
