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Content ManagementThis page explains Content Management in generic terms. In order to do this, we need to explain the difference between content and format and how this affects the creation of a text page and a web page. We will also introduce some content management terminology.

Every document consists of content and format. For web sites and Content Management, the format is often referred to as the “look and feel” of the document. In Microsoft Word (and most other text editors), a Styles and Formatting menu is used to add a specific look and feel to document elements. These elements consist of the page background, headers, footers, headings, paragraphs, bulleted lists, bold text, tables, figures, etc.
Before HTML, documentation was available from the Internet as simple text files. HTML (Hyper-Text Mark-up Language) is the Internet standard that adds look and feel to web pages. Of course, the price to pay was that designing web pages required special skills. HTML text editors (software used to tag document elements) have improved, but most content writers use word processing software to create content.
Paper is still a fundamental part of marketing literature for most businesses. Often the content that appears on paper and web pages is the same. What is different is the look and feel. Paper does not have links. Instead, paper relies on other mechanisms for presenting the content to the user. This helps us understand why content writers use publishing programs like Frame and Word to create documentation.

There are a series of steps between writing content to developing web pages that makes it cumbersome to get content changes into web pages in a timely fashion. Updating a web page today looks like this:

Marketing proposes web page content changes.
Content writer creates a text document.
Marketing reviews the text document for accuracy and clarity.
Marketing approves the text document content.
Web guru parses the text document content with an HTML text editor to tag each document element.
Marketing compares text between the text and HTML documents to ensure that the tagging process has not changed the output.
Marketing reviews the HTML document to ensure that the look and feel is OK.
Marketing approves the web page content and look and feel.

The end result is that today’s web sites do not get updated as often as they should. There are simply too many steps in the process.
With Content Management Systems, updating a web page looks like this:

Marketing proposes web page content changes.
Content writer creates the text document.
The text document is incorporated into a web page, as is.
Marketing reviews the web page for accuracy and clarity.
Marketing approves the web page content.
Note: The look and feel does not change, since it is part of an already approved template.

There are many Content Management solutions. Most of them are proprietary solutions, which mean that your business has to convert existing content files to the new Content Management software to take advantage of managing content on your web site.
When choosing a Content Management solution for your company, make sure that the content writers are involved in the selection process. After all, they are the ones most affected.
Look and Feel is the term that describes how the page looks, the style of its elements. The look and feel is often different between a paper page and a web page.
What differentiates a Content Managed web site from a regular web site is web page templates. Let’s look at a hypothetical web site that has 100 pages.
Without Content Management, this web site has 100 unique web pages. That means that all changes must go through the web design team.
A Content Managed web site has fewer than five unique web pages and 100 content files. The web pages are actually web templates that have a unique look and feel. For example, there is probably a Home page template, Questions and Answers template, and standard Page template. The content files are mapped to the web page templates.
Without Content Management, the content is created first by a content writer and then copied across into the web page. Many errors are created when information is copied from one document to another. That is why the final web page needs to be closely reviewed.
A Content Managed web site allows content writers to manage the content once, thus speeding up the web publishing process.