How to Become an Expert in Content Management Systems

Becoming an expert in Content Management Systems (CMS) is relatively easy and fast, even for someone without any coding skills. I started with Wordpress, for example, and, with little help, learned how to use it within a week. Content Management Systems are ideal for people who want to create and manage websites independently without relying on technical help, a computer specialist or even knowledge of how to code. When Content Management Systems are integrated into an office setting, it is easy to get everyone on-board and able to access, manage and change content. Once someone has learned a simple system like Wordpress, that person can learn other CMS interfaces quite easily. Being an expert in Content Management Systems can increase a person's value to their company as well as their ability to work independently and effectively with personal or professional websites.

So, the best place to start is with a free CMS software package like Wordpress. Though Wordpress is technically oriented to bloggers, it is (1) a good place to learn Content Management Systems protocols and (2) highly adaptable to other kinds of web content. Wordpress.com lets people download everything in one simple bundle. Then, a person simply has to FTP (upload) what they downloaded to a given page on a website they own. The uploaded package automatically and becomes a ready-to-go page with a CMS interface. From there, a free Wordpress templates (these are page layouts/designs) can be easily uploaded to the template folder on the website. There are literally thousands of free templates to choose from. Additionally, customized or unique templates or pages can be purchased for as little as $50, depending upon the design and features included.

After installing Wordpress (or another CMS package) the first step is to log into the control interface. In Wordpress, this is done by going to: www.mywebpagename.com/wp-admin. Once signed in, a user should familiarize themself with the menus along the top of the page. These allow users to change templates, add new posts or pages, and so on. It is worth taking some time trying out these various functions and reloading the page to see the results. Even a new user really can't do any great harm to a new page, so the worst case scenario is: the page needs to be deleted and the Wordpress (or other package) needs to be uploaded again. Thus, becoming a Content Management Systems expert is easy and relatively risk-free from the start.

After someone has familiarized themself with the basic layout and operation of your interface in non-technical terms, they can begin to explore some basic code changes if they want to make more fundamental edits to a page. For example, in Wordpress: go to the Presentation tab and select Theme Editor. Notice that there are links along the right-hand side of the page that refer to the basic content on your page, such as the Header, Footer and Sidebar. Click on one of these and look at the code that appears in the text box adjacent to the links. Basically, without knowing what any of the code means anyone can start to get an idea of what it does just by intuitively relating the visible behind-the-scenes code to the website as it is presented.

In terms of editing the code of an existing site, it is important to be very careful. The best thing to do is: avoid deleting any code. Instead, bracket out any parts of the page so that they aren't rendered on the site. This way, nothing is deleted. Of course, it is also important to download any modified versions of the page in case they are somehow lost in the system, hacked or otherwise damaged or destroyed. Though becoming a Content Management Systems expert is relatively easy without using code, it can help to learn a little bit of basic HTML.