For many beginning webmasters, HTML and CSS are very foreign languages to their ears, giving reason to avoid hand-coding websites. While they are very important skills to master, there is still one coding language that has dominance over the two in today’s website world.

Since its introduction in 1995, PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) has been revolutionizing the stock webpage that consisted of HTML. The two languages are powerful together, creating the backbone for the modern-day Content Management System (CMS).

You may be wondering, though, what a Content Management System is. The majority of websites in today’s world are powered by one, and using one will not onlyimprove your SEO, but will also make your life a whole lot easier.

Examples of a CMS

The job of a content management system is simple – to manage content. Using languages like PHP, Python, or Ruby on Rails, a CMS is able to provide editors to make updating a website a breeze. Instead of updating every page by hand, it can all be done systematically in a matter of seconds!

There are, literally, hundreds upon thousands of content management systems in existence, fueling every possible website you could imagine. Seeing a website not powered by a CMS is becoming more and more rare – they’re everywhere!

There are CMS for many types of websites including:

• Forums
• Blogs
• Community-based websites (Social Networks)
• Sales websites
• Dynamic webpages

The list could, if you spent some time thinking, go one forever – there is a CMS for just about any situation you could encounter. WebsiteBegin itself is powered by a CMS known as WordPress!

You can see some of my favorite content management systems by clicking on this resources page link, or viewing the below list:

• WordPress – Blogging
• Joomla – Business webpages
• PHPBB – Forums
• Drupal – Business webpages

While there are thousands of content management systems available to you for free, the above four are my favorite. No matter what kind of website you need, one of the above four will, most likely, fulfill your needs.

Why Use a CMS?

Ease-Of-Use

One of the most dominant features of a content management systems is their ease of use. Before content management systems and PHP were widely used, web developers would have to edit each page one-by-one if an on-site update was needed.

If a new theme was to be implemented, days of work would be spent applying all of the changes. With a CMS, it can be as easy as one click to change every single page on your website – it’s magical.

Search Engine Friendly

Search engines like Google are very picky about your code – errors could impact your rankings for search terms. Most CMS like WordPress have you covered, though – they use the correct and most efficient code for nearly all aspects of your website.

In search engines, less is generally more – they’d prefer a 250KB file over a 500MB one – PHP helps cut down on the size of each file by using a single line that is called out to in another document.

Community Support

One of the greatest thing about a content management system is the great communities that generally build up around them. There is a community supplying themes/designs, plugins, modifications, ideas, and just about everything else you could need.

If there is a problem, somebody else probably had it, too, and they’ll help you. It’s magical.

Do You Use a CMS? What One?

Photo Credit: Thumbnail | Search Engines |