Building a Content Management System (CMS)

• Analyzing an organization’s current information architecture, content management processes, and content types used.
• Defining content management needs and CMS goals (e.g., an ability to easily manage dozens of websites simultaneously, faster content development and publishing, more efficient storage and management of large amounts of content, compliance with government or industry-specific regulations like GDPR or HIPAA).
• Outlining the solution’s scope (e.g., customizable content templates, AI-based content personalization, built-in SEO tools, multi-language support).
• Specifying future CMS users and their roles (e.g., content authors, content editors).

• Deciding on a content governance strategy including content life cycle workflows, file naming conventions, metadata management, frequency of content updating, user roles and permissions, content retention/deletion, regulatory compliance.
• Defining the core CMS features depending on the content management needs. For example, if you need CMS to manage websites used for selling products online, CMS will require dedicated built-in ecommerce functionality (e.g., product description pages, product recommendations, promotional banners, shipping and payment information) or should be integrated with an ecommerce solution.
• Eliciting CMS technical requirements and creating a software specification.
• Choosing a suitable platform (platform-based CMS implementation) or a tech stack (custom CMS development).
• Planning CMS integrations (e.g., with CRM, intranet, ecommerce, marketing automation software).
• Planning a CMS development project, including project duration and budget estimation, target CMS KPIs (e.g., +75% website development speed, +50% traffic volume on the website, +25% user engagement with the web content, +60% invoice processing speed).
• Drawing up a business case, including cost-benefit analysis, NVP and ROI calculation, etc.

• Creating an information architecture, i.e., categorizing content to ensure easy content search.
• Designing content management workflows (e.g., content approval, publishing) for each content type.
• Creating personas and user journey maps.
• Creating CMS prototypes.
• Conducting usability testing of the prototypes.

End-to-end CMS development in line with the chosen implementation approach:

• Building a platform-based content management system. We choose this option if typical CMS features (e.g., multi-type and multi-format content, structured storage, full-text content search, automated content approval and publishing workflows) can meet a customer's content management needs.

• CMS development from scratch. We choose this option if a customer wants a flexible and scalable CMS that will meet their specific content management needs (e.g., custom branding, integrations with legacy software).

• Creating a CMS test plan, test cases and checklists.
• Conducting functional, performance, integration, and usability testing.
• Fixing issues detected during testing (e.g., slow page response time, errors in content workflows).

• Creating a thorough data migration plan.
• Defining the content eligible to migrate to CMS.
• Checking the legacy content for errors and duplication, outdated or inconsistent data.
• Conducting content migration without disruption of business processes.
• Testing the transferred data and content for consistency.

• Creating documentation on CMS use (including a style guide that describes the rules of content formatting) and handing it over to CMS users.
• Conducting training sessions for CMS users on content creation, approval, publishing, and updating.
• Conducting user acceptance testing.
• Collecting user feedback and implementing relevant CMS improvements (e.g., in navigation, workflows).
• Launching CMS to the production environment.

• Fixing CMS bugs and performance issues.
• Adjusting the solution to the changing business needs (e.g., changing the layout, creating custom CMS add-ins or plugins).
• Monitoring and improving CMS compliance with government and industry-specific standards and regulations on data security (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).