CMSs still need developers?
Most businesses choose a traditional CMS for one reason and one reason only:
Because they want to build and maintain a website without managing code (back-end) and front-end development systems.
For that, CMSs are great.
They’re great for the small-scale blogger who wants to update content every week and cares little about lead generation or conversion rates. They’re great for the person who wants to build a simple content-creating website with minimal customizations.
But that’s about as good as a CMS gets, unfortunately.
Traditional CMSs are extremely restrictive, only allowing you to make HTML, CSS, and JavaScript changes if the CMS approves. So you’re constantly fighting against the platform when it comes time to make changes to content, design, or optimize for conversions.
I know. I know. This looks simple.
And this doesn’t…
That is, if you’re not a developer. But here’s what most CMS vendors don’t tell you.
They don’t tell you that you’ll still need developers for fixing the inconsistent code of a mashed-together WordPress theme and plugin concoction. They don’t tell you how much this mix will slow your website down or create unintentional conflicts of code, and even leave your website open to greater security risks.
The whole reason that many businesses use a CMS is to lower the cost of front-end developer work and simplify website maintenance, updating, and customization processes.
The reality, though, is that a CMS actually makes all of these processes harder, not easier.
Since CMSs are so restrictive, they often make the whole website build process more technical than it may have been with a website built by a developer. Perhaps the most noteworthy problem with CMS “solutions” is that they do a cruddy job of protecting you from security breaches.
With all of the plugins and themes mashed together to create a (hopefully) cohesive whole, all that hackers need to access your website is a bit of forgetfulness.
Mossack Fonseca and Equifax experienced this first hand. Equifax was recently hacked, affecting 143 million people in the process.
What caused the breach?
Well, Equifax hadn’t updated one of their web applications for two months, and that slack was enough to create an entry door for vicious hackers to steal valuable information.
After the hack, one man said, “I really don’t have a lot of faith in putting my last six numbers of my social security number on an Equifax website after what happened.”
Yikes.
Similarly, Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama, “did not encrypt its emails with Transport Layer Security protocols”. They were using a version of WordPress that was three months out of date and a customer portal, Drupal, that was also out of date, creating a security breach that leaked 11.5 million confidential documents.
While most businesses would like to sit back and relax after building and organizing their traditional CMS, the reality is that they can’t — not if they want to actually protect their website.
If not maintained — which sort of kills the point of getting the CMS in the first place — CMSs threaten your website’s security, seriously hinder website speed, and restrict necessary customizations.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.