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A website content system is used to publish a range of content. These can be simple pages or complex pages sourced from databases, training materials, online manuals, or general business documents. The websites can range from large e-commerce sites, personal blogs, school lessons, to corporate sites. There can be thousands of pages with extensive linkage between pages.

To select a successful content management system, you must first determine the objectives for the site. There is no "magic bullet" that will cover everybody's wants or needs. All parties involved will have their own individual ideas and input and each must be addressed equally.

In order to ease the process, the prerequisites can be put in to the following categories, creating, managing, publishing and presenting content as well as contract and business. These steps show every aspect of a website content management system from building the actual content to displaying it to users.

The material present ion websites is written by authors who facilitate of content creation. A content management system's (CMS) success is measured by its ability to enable easy content creation and providing maintenance for content. The CMS' core functionality is content management which is facilitated by a central repository and is supported by a variety of tools for modifying and managing content. A CMS provides version control, archiving, workflow, and reporting. It must do this securely with integration support with external systems.

The publishing engine must be able to recall the contents in storage and generate the web page seen by the users. Imporant elements in the publishing engine includes page templates and stylesheets. The support of many formats such as HTML, PDF, WAP, etc. might necessary to ensure the success of the website. On larger sites, personalization and users' usage data should be implemented on the pages.

Presentation of the content is another important aspect which has to be looked into. This is going to determine the appearance and layout of the web pages. The presentation of the pages must meet certain standards if they are to be of value to your users. The major requirements are usability, accessibility, cross-browser support, speed, navigation and metadata.

The final item of business is the focus on the project management and oversight of the third-party or vendor implementation of the content mangement system (CMS). Items that should be finalized and documented in the contract include (but are not limited to) user training, CMS administration skills needed, specific hardware, software, and database requirements, and all costs.

The success of a website often depends on the selection of the correct content management system. Because this can be a multi-million dollar decision, it is very important that you correctly asses the site's current and future needs. In any decision this large, the most significant information you gather will most certainly be composed of your goals for the site and must also take into account the goals of all other parties who will be involved.