The market is full of user-friendly Content Management Systems (CMS). Each is tempting
and each promises to fulfill your requirements. But before you zero in on any one
of them, do check whether your newspaper CMS has the following five features. They
are a must-have if you want to get the best out of your CMS.
1. Identify business requirements and challenges: There are plenty of newspaper CMS available in the market, all promising wonderful features. But before you get impressed with them, analyze what are your business requirements. If possible think five years ahead, what all are you likely to require. Then analyze the technologies available in the market. Does the CMS meet your business challenges, understand your requirements and can it be altered in the near future to keep up with your needs? If it can answer these questions in the affirmative, then only opt for the CMS.For example, if your business requires you to host a community on your website, then your CMS should have functionality like chat, comments or forums.
2. Social Media sharing and commenting: Social media is an important platform in today’s world for grabbing instant attention, hence the need for a social media marketing friendly CMS. The CMS tool should be such which can be easily integrated with top social media networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc., and must enable readers’ participation in the form of sharing, comments etc.
3. Mobile friendly viewing: The cost-friendly sophisticated smartphones are increasingly becoming ubiquitous with the result that more and more people are accessing net on their hand-held devices. The CMS should thus be mobile-friendly, that is, the website must be responsive, displaying information suitably irrespective of the size of a screen (be it iPad, iPhone, etc.) or software used in a device (iOS, Android, etc.).
4. Site backups: This is the most important feature. What if there is a hard drive failure or someone hacks the site? Data generated over the time needs to be protected. This is why it is important to plan for backup when deciding upon a CMS. Also, the system should be able to automatically take regular backups as manual backup is impossible given the herculean task involved. Remember, backups cannot prevent data loss but they can at least make sure that the data is restored quickly and the site is up and running asap in case something goes wrong.
5. Software Updates: This is one thing many avoid to do as it requires time and effort. But updating your newspaper CMS software is a must do. Regular updates minimize the possibility of software becoming vulnerable to malicious attacks by providing you with the most secure version of the software. Also, upgrades often contain better code and features, thus enabling your website to run faster and increasing efficiency.