From TECH: Firm Web site/Redesign, A Supplement to The Legal Intelligencer

Content Management Systems

Putting Together the Right Home for Your Site on the Internet 

Every so often, your firm's Web site will need to be refreshed and/or redesigned, content will need to be dated with newer material, outdated information will need to be deleted and possibly a new look that introduces a new graphic layout will need to be created. In addition to updating graphics and/or content, this process a1so opens the possibility of changing the system that runs the Web site.

Instead of your Web site being designed as a mixture of HTML (the basic language Web pages) and programming logic that only your Web development company can update, have your Web development company modify your Web site to run within a Content Management System (CMS).

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Content Management Systems offer any features that would typically require complex programming or additional special Web-based software to perform, from the simplest CMS software that allows the addition and modification of Web content, to more complex versions that support multiple authors, workflow or page 'approval and 'timed 'released articles, password-protected pages, user...rums and even the ability to host multilingual pages.  One of the best features that a majority of CMSs offer is workflow support.. Workf1ow allows the delegation of content modification to someone else, though still requiring a manager to approve the content before it is released on the Web site.

Selecting which CMS software to use will probably be the most difficult decision in the conversion process.  The main requirement is that your current or prospective Web-hosting provider supports both the programming language the CMS software is written in and the type of database support the CMS system requires.  While there are several hundred companies providing Web-hosting services, they can almost all be boiled down to two types - Windows hosting and Linux hosting.

A standard rule of thumb is that Windows hosting companies support the SPNET programming language and the MS SQL database server, while Linux hosting companies support the PHP pro­ grarnming language and the MySQL database server. Because technology changes often, some Windows hosting companies offer support for Linux hosting features - although for the sake of this document, we will ignore this. With this in mind, two different CMS software packages will be evaluated - InsiteCreation 2008 for Windows hosting and CMS Made Simple for Linux Web hosting.

InsiteCreation 2008 is a commercial CMS Software solution for Windows hosting clients, as it requires ASP.NET and MS SQL database server.  While only costing $79.95, it offers many features right out of the box that rival with only the most expensive competitors Features such as built-in document management, a frequently asked questions knowledge base, client newsletter support and page approval workflow only touch the surface of these features

In addition to these and many more features, InsiteCreation 2008 includes predesigned graphic templates that can be used to get your Web site up and running quick1y without the need to hire a graphic artist.

For Linux hosting the recommendation is CMS Made Simple. Unlike InsiteCreation 2008, CMS Made Simple is a free product, supported by its many users throughout the world. CMS Made Simple supports many features, such as multiple authors with page approval workf1ow, a recent news manager and an intergraded image manager.  What makes CMS Made Simple extremely powerfu1 is the ability to extend its features with the use of modules, small add-on components that provide additional features such as image galleries, frequently asked questions and contact form generators. One of the best advantages is that most, if not all, of these modules and the CMS Made Simple software product are free!

SETTINGS

Once you have selected the CMS soft ware product to use for your practice, your Web-design or Web-hosting company will need to install, update and configure the basic settings for you. This includes uploading the software files to your Web site, configuring the database server and the CMS software to access the database server, and lastly, implementing the necessary CMS settings to meet your needs.  Due to the nature of the Internet and Internet security permission settings and database security measures also need to be implemented in order to make sure that someone can't adversely affect your Web site without your permission.  On average, the typical CMS software product takes between two and four hours for this initial setup and configuration.

Now that your CMS software is functional, your Web-design company will need to modify the graphic layout files of your Web site to be compatible with the CMS system. Each different layout will have a corresponding template file that is nothing more than a standard Web page with CMS specific place holders for items such as page title, menus and page content.

Once all of the template files and associated images are uploaded into the CMS software, page content can be added without worrying about graphic design or causing instability to the graphic layout. As an added bonus, now that your Web site is running within a CMS software package, the next time the decision is made to redesign the graphic look and feel, the process will be much easier as you only need to add and select new template files

ADDING CONTENT

The CMS software is installed and ready to go, and all of the Web site graphic templates have been uploaded; now it's time to add content.   Each CMS software package has a unique process to manage Web pages, although almost all include an editor that highly resembles Microsoft Word. This is a great feature, as the editing page resembles a software product most of us have been using for years.

Of the two CMS solutions we examined, InsiteCreation 2008 and CMS Made Simple, both offer uniquely different methods to add and modify existing content.  InsiteCreation 2008 allows the modification of pages while viewing the actual Web site, of course once logged in successfully. This makes it easier to find a certain page to remove by using the actual navigation menus that normal viewers would see. On the other hand, CMS Made Simple has an entire administration section that offers full control from within. Instead of seeing the pages in their final outputted templates, a simple hierarchical menu-tree is presented, niaking the addition, deletion and modification of pages not only very quick but very simple. The CMS software package you decide to use for your Web site will probably differ in one way or another when it comes to the administration of content, although almost all of the most successful products are very user-friendly and should be very simple to navigate.

InsiteCreation 2008 and CMS Made Simple are only two of the several hundred CMS software products available today, which range in price from free to several thousands of dollars. Discuss the conversion of your Web site to a CMS solution with your current Web design company, Web-hosting provider or IT consultant for more information. This person should be able to inform you of the most cost effective solution for your law firm, based on the needs and features set that is needed today and for future growth. Once your new CMS software solution is installed, configured and ready to go, you will have the ability to add and remove pages, update content and give your prospective clients new information almost immediately without having to outsource these changes to your Web design company for a premium fee.