Some years ago, I was approached to be one of the webmasters for a community website. During the first discussion meeting, one requirement for the website was that it must be running on a Content Management System (CMS) engine.

That was the first time I heard of this term, CMS. Luckily, the other webmaster was a well technical knowledgeable in this area. As such, he selected Joomla! as the CMS engine and set it up. Soon, I focused in putting in the content and along the way learnt the rope of using CMS.

From that point onwards, I will put in a CMS of some form for all the websites I managed. I usually put in WordPress if Blog-based site is sufficient or Joomla! for more complex sites.

There are few good reasons why CMS is a must for modern websites.

1. Easy to Setup

On average, most people would only require about 5 minutes to setup a WordPress Blog-based website. It would take more time to setup a Joomla! based site. But the whole process would seldom require more than an hour.

There was no coding or creating lists of files. It just require the server to have MySql database and php scripting language.

2. Easy to Update

In the past, we needed to edit the html pages, and upload the pages to the server using ftp.

Using CMS means that, the webmaster can easily update the site as long as there is Internet access and a browser. So the webmasters can change the content almost anytime, anywhere, even using a public computer at the Internet Café or Library.

3. Easy to Create New Look

Recently, site a new look. I edited a new template and set the new default template. The site has a new look, and there is no change in the content.

WordPress makes use of themes while Joomla! uses template. These allow the webmaster to easily change the look of site without the trouble of re-creating the site.