We recently had a lovely chat to Holly at CommsClass on the topic of the pros and cons of CMS for all stages of business growth.

Here are our tips on the following three platforms below:

Wordpress

• Best for: Everything. A highly customisable platform for small businesses and enterprises alike. However, if you want truly unique functionality, this is where this platform might hit its limit (i.e. a membership log-in section for customised training).

• Pros: Comes with many templates to choose from, easy to get developers to custom-build something on a budget, various plug-ins for SEO, and inbound marketing. There are endless amounts of information on forums to answer any question you might have on WordPress 'how to'.

• Cons: Not as easy to use as some of the other affordable CMS platforms out there, not as intuitive as Squarespace.

• Outsource or DIY: Both. WordPress is a solid platform for a small business that has plans to grow. It can expand as your business does. One core factor to keep in mind when choosing a CMS is how many developers are familiar with it, so with WordPress, it will always be easy to find affordable developers to update the site.

Squarespace

• Best for: A DIY approach to creating a website that looks slick.

• Pros: Very easy to use (once you’ve got your head around the basics). High design values. I personally have my sites on Squarespace due to how easy it is.

• Cons: Slightly more expensive than WordPress, especially if you need to add on monthly fees for newsletters, calendar appointments integration, or Gmail accounts. Squarespace didn't have a great reputation for SEO once too, but those issues have been fixed, and now can be optimised for search.

• Outsource or DIY: DIY unless you want something fancy. Tip - when choosing a template on Squarespace think about the functions you want your site to have. i.e, do you need a blog which can be indexed or navigated by topic in it or is scrolling by date fine. List out what needs you have and then check the functionality of each template before choosing. You don't want to set up a template only to realise at the end that it can't do what you want it to.

Adobe

• Best for Enterprise e-commerce. Used by large organisations such as banking.

• Pros: This is the Rolls Royce of CMSs. It is capable of virtually anything, and the supporting analytics is equally impressive. Good for when you have the budget and want large volumes of customer insights with an amazing UX (user experience) to match.

• Cons: The license cost is premium, and you’ll need to pay Adobe approved developers to build it. You’ll also need training on how to use it and transferring directly from Google Analytics to Abode Analytics isn’t an easy process.

• Outsource or DIY: Outsource, and expect a custom website build to start at $1 million+