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Solutions for Managing Content on Simple Sites

By Laura Quinn, Idealware
Lasa Information Systems Team

Are you embarrassed by your organisation’s website? (Come on, you can admit it.) Was it built in a volunteer’s nephew’s basement — or does it look like it was? Does it feature events or breaking news that are sadly out of date? This article explores the software you can use to build or update a site without technical skills.

The first of two articles looking at website content management for simple sites, take a look at the second article Using CMS to update simple sites.

This article is based on the  Idealware article A Few Good Tools to Manage Content on Simple Sites. Idealware provide candid information to help nonprofits choose effective software. For more articles and reviews, go to www.idealware.org.

These days, it’s critical for every organisation to have a solid, professional-looking, reasonably up-to-date Web site. Just like your physical address or a good brochure, a professional website enhances your organisation’s credibility and helps people understand what you do. If you’re hosting a big event but nothing is mentioned about it on your Web site, or if your site prominently displays news from last year, these inconsistencies raise questions about your ability to get things done.

Your organisation needs not only a Web site, but a reliable way to update it. That said, not every organisation requires a complex site or sophisticated software to manage it — sometimes, a simple 10- or 20-page site is sufficient for your needs. In this case, a complex content management system designed to update sophisticated sites just doesn’t make sense — such systems are time-consuming to set up, and are overly complicated by a bunch of functionality you’ll never use.

What content management software would make sense? We asked six nonprofit technologists with extensive experience with small websites what solutions they would recommend. Our experts offer a number of tools that have worked for them — including Web-site-in-a-box tools, WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) software, nonprofit integrated tools, and robust content management systems. Maybe these options will work for you as well.

Relying on a Trusted Person

Many organisations rely on a trusted staff member, consultant, or volunteer to build and update their Web sites for them. If you only need to update your site a couple times a year and you don’t expect your organisation to grow or your website to change substantially, this method can work at a pinch.

This solution is not ideal, however. In many cases, the inevitable delays of handing off text will cause site updates to become increasingly infrequent. If a consultant is charging you for updates, these fees can mount up over time. Moreover, what will happen if your trusted person is no longer available, or decides to charge more than you want to pay? If you do rely on one person for updates, make sure you have a backup person who knows how to update your site, and ensure that the site is built using standard tools that another technical person could learn if necessary.

For most organisations, however, having a website that can be updated by a number of people in your organisation and that can provide a platform for your future growth is worth a small investment in one of the tools described below.

Web-Site-in-a-Box Tools

Let’s say you need to put up a simple Web site quickly, and you don’t have any technical expertise, graphic-design skills, or experience with Web sites. “Web-site-in-a-Box” tools are designed to help you in this situation. These tools allow you to go to an online site builder, pick out a design and layout from hundreds of templates, upload a logo, define your navigation, and create your text and images — all with easy-to-use tools that are intended for anyone accustomed to using software like Word or Outlook. They're inexpensive as well — typically little more than you would pay to host a Web site.

Keep in mind, however, that while Web-site-in-a-Box tools will help you create reasonably professional-looking Web sites, they are somewhat limited. The graphic design templates offered are typically somewhat generic, meaning that you'll have fewer opportunities to distinguish your site design-wise. Plus, most offer little or no way to include additional functionality. Want an events calendar? Online donations? Depending on the tool you use, you may be out of luck.

Moreover, sites built with Web-site-in-a-Box tools will only scale so far. When you’re ready to add more functionality or create a section with another 30 pages, you’ll likely need to start over with another tool. On the other hand, these kits offer a very quick way to set up a site, and there’s no reason you can’t use them to create a temporary site now and then discard it when you’re ready to replace it. You can usually try these tools out on a trial basis to see if they will work for you.

• E-Voice - Easy to use site creator for the voluntary and community sector. Free to use, site published using e-voice domain, for example http://www.e-voice.org.uk/yourdomain.
• Do your own site - Allows users to create their own look for their site. Offers a free 30 day trail, prices start from £5.98 per month for up to 1000 pages and showing Do your own site logo. Can use your own domain.
• Squarespace - offers options tailored to those who are publishing articles, news, or content on an ongoing basis. Their feature set includes print-friendly and forward-to-a-friend functionality, advanced blogging features, options for members-only areas, and more. It starts at £5 a month and ranges to £10 a month for the full package.

Tools Offered by Your Web Host

If a Web-site-in-a-box sounds promising for your organisation, and you’ve already set up a relationship with a company to host your Web site, check to see if that Web host offers site-building tools similar to those described above. Many hosts offer simple Web-site-in-a-box tools for free, although they vary widely in quality.

Hosted Integrated Tools

For many organisations, features such as online donations, event registration, and email newsletters can be as important as the Web site itself. If this is the case for your organization, consider a hosted-integrated tool.

Hosted-integrated tools are similar in concept to the Web-site-in-a-box tools, in that you pay a monthly fee and get access to an online tool that helps you to build and update your site. However, the packages in this section offer nonprofit-specific functionality, such as online donations and event registration, and help you to not only manage your Web site but also your entire list of contacts. While the feature set is considerably broader than the Web-sites-in-a-box, you are still limited to what the tools offer. If you want to do something extra, it likely won’t be possible.

WildApricot

Similar to the Web-site-in-a-box tools, WildApricot has a pick-a-design-template approach to building a new, simple Web site. Yet WildApricot is specifically nonprofit-oriented and offers support for tracking members and other constituents, online donations, email newsletters, and event registration. Pricing runs from $12 to $200 a month, depending on the size of your constituent list. If you have a small list, or track your constituents elsewhere, it can be very affordable.

Nonprofit Soapbox

Nonprofit Soapbox offers functionality that goes well beyond WildApricot and the Web-site-in-a-box tools. As a hosted version of the Joomla content management system (described below), it offers considerably more functionality in designing a site that’s tailored to your needs, as well as integrated constituent-management functionality. The platform is £35 to £70 a month based on a sliding scale, plus a £700 to £1,400 setup fee that includes the creation of your site, migration of your content, and training. Custom graphic designs are available at an additional cost, as are integrated donation and powerful email functionality through Nonprofit Soapbox's partner Democracy in Action.

Adobe Contribute

The packaged software tool Adobe Contribute (formerly Macromedia Contribute) is in a category by itself. This WYSIWYG tool allows you to directly access the underlying code of the Web site and easily make updates to text and images.

Note, however, that Contribute is not a tool that can be used effectively to build a site. Rather, it’s intended to allow non-technical staff members to easily update a Web site that’s been designed by an experienced Web developer, making it a strong option for organizations that have already invested in a unique design that they don’t want it to give up. While it offers special features for sites that were built in Adobe Dreamweaver, it should work with any site built in standard HTML. This means that, as opposed to every other tool in this article, you may be able use it to update your existing Web site. In practice, however, Contribute tends to choke on any Web site that isn’t built to precise HTML standards, meaning that most sites will require cleanup by an experienced Web developer to get it working with Contribute.

Another plus is that Contribute is inexpensive, around £70 and is easy to use. Once you're in Contribute, you can simply click an “Edit” button to update text, photos, and documents, add new pages, and more, without danger of accidentally messing up the basic design elements of the site. When you’re done updating, a “Publish” button updates the Web site with your changes. If you are well-versed in Microsoft Word or Excel, you can likely learn to update a site in Contribute in an hour or so.

Contribute is not without its drawbacks. Problems with Contribute’s connection to your Web site, and discrepancies between how pages look when editing compared to when they are published, can occasionally make the system buggy and frustrating. For instance, line breaks are notoriously unpredictable — something that looks fine when editing may suddenly have too many line breaks, or too few, when you publish it.

Finally, think through your long-term plans. Although it’s likely a better option than one of the Web-site-in-a-box tools above, a site built to be updated through Contribute is inherently less scalable than a site built with a tool like Joomla. If you’re going to add new sections and new functionality down the road, it might make sense to choose a tool that will better support your growth.

Open Source Content Management Systems

If you need a solution that’s more robust, and you can invest a little more time in getting it set up, an Open Source Content Management System may be just what you need.  Take a look at the article Using Simple Content Management Systems for an introduction to the pros and cons of these systems.  

Thanks to TechSoup for its financial support of this article, as well as to the nonprofit technology professionals who provided recommendations, advice, and other help:

• Steve Backman, Database Designs Associates, Inc.
• Heather Gardner-Madras, gardner-madras | strategic creative
• Michelle Murrain, MetaCentric Technology Advising
• Eric Leland, Leland Design
• Laura Quinn, Idealware
• Kirill Sokolov, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary