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If you are thinking about redesigning your existing winery website or are building a new one, you will likely have heard the term "CMS". CMS is an acronym for "content management system". You're probably thinking that sounds complicated ... I just need a website. But in fact, using a CMS to build your website and to maintain it is one of the smartest decisions that you will make. In fact, for a winery, it is a critically important decision because most wineries do not have anyone on staff who is skilled in website design or maintenance.
That's why using a CMS is so important. In short, a CMS is a system that allows you to maintain your website yourself without having to call your web designer, computer technician or graphic designer. A good CMS is super easy to use ... almost identical to using Microsoft Word ... so if you know how to write a letter on Word, you know how to add or edit content on the CMS. That means you can update the information on your site yourself. If your winemaker changes, you can edit all of that information and upload a new photo. You can add special events or news to the site. If you introduce a new wine, you can add it yourself. When you do a vintage release, you can add all the new wines yourself and archive the old ones. In fact, you can even add all the information in advance and set it to automatically appear on the release date. A CMS can save you thousands of dollars in web maintenance costs ... and best of all, you control your site. You are not dependent upon anyone else to change it.
A CMS is also a great money saver in the long run because it separates your site content and the site design. As a result, if you ever decide to redesign your site, you can simply pay for a new template design, plug it into the CMS, flip a switch, and presto all your old content will appear instantly within the new design.
Some CMS systems are expensive. For example, Microsoft sells a CMS coupled into its enterprise server, SharePoint, which is staggeringly expensive. However, there are some fantastic open-source CMS products that are available which are perfect for winery use. We have a wealth of experience with the world's most popular open source CMS which is called Joomla. It is extremely easy to use as well as being very stable and secure. We have adapted this CMS for winery use and it is very easy to install and affordable. It can also be used in conjunction with most ecommerce systems.
We strongly advise any winery that is redesigning a site or creating a new one, to build it using a CMS. You will then have a superb platform for your website which will last for years and years. Plus you will have complete control over your site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A demo of our winery customized system will appear here shortly. In the interim, please contact us if you have any questions.
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