Everything You Need To Know About CMS Customization

Content management systems (CMS) are great for handling most sites of any size and shape, but what other options are there? Can you just build your website on your own and simply host the source files on your server? Well, yes, you can, but it’s not ideal. In many cases, the need for CMS customization isn’t obvious — yet the option is there.

So what is CMS customization? And why does it matter? In a world dominated by pre-made CMS solutions, it’s often hard to understand why you’d ever want to spend time and resources creating something that is already great on its own. When you build your own CMS from scratch, you’re essentially reinventing the wheel — but it becomes your wheel.

Even then, the key difference between wheels and CMS’s is clear; most people aren’t able to build such complex software from scratch. And, while you could find a way to Frankenstein a wheel together (even without technical knowledge), there is no way you can do that with a CMS — at least not on your own. That’s why CMS customization is very relevant.

Of course, you shouldn’t overcomplicate things if you’re a small business looking for a simple way to get your website online. But what if you were an enterprise-level organization looking to expand in multiple countries? That’s an entirely different ballgame. And that’s exactly where CMS customization shines most. Hopefully, you’ll be able to learn more about this in our complete guide.

What Does It Mean to Customize a CMS Solution?

CMS customization involves a lot of effort on many different fronts. After all, content management systems are built to deliver a faster, more approachable experience for online communities and webmasters. But how can you achieve such a seamless experience if it takes forever simply to build the tool in the first place? CMS customization isn’t meant for:

• Small- to medium-sized businesses or solo entrepreneurs
• People who aren’t aware of technical software benefits
• Basic websites with few dynamic elements (or none at all)
• Organizations who aren’t willing to invest in non-billable tools
• Entreprises who prefer to have a single point of contact rather than many

The above cases are only a few examples of those who shouldn’t customize their CMS’s. These people will be just fine with either standard content management systems or the so-called “ECM” (otherwise known as Enterprise Content Management); notable examples are Adobe Experience Manager, Microsoft Sharepoint, and Oracle WebCenter.

On the other hand, if you are an ambitious developer and/or business that wants to maintain full ownership of everything done both online and offline, then you might be looking for a fully custom solution. This means contacting a web development studio such as DarwinApps to get your own CMS off the ground, whether it’s based on Drupal, WordPress, or fully custom.

If you’re wondering what it actually means to customize a CMS (without forgetting how resource-intensive these tools are software-wise), you have to look at the data behind the major platforms available right now. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal — these are the big three, and they come with their own set of rules. But what makes them so special?

1. WordPress » Easy to use and set up, this CMS is the king of all CMS’s. That’s because its parent company — Automattic — has been able to build a thriving community that supports the open-source platform on a constant basis. It’s no wonder they were able to amass 60% of the total market share in the industry. However, when it comes to CMS customization, WordPress isn’t the ideal solution. That’s because the platform was built natively with plugins in mind, and while you could use a huge number of these to get the full functionality you want, it truly isn’t worth it (for various reasons we won’t get into here). WordPress is usually best used the way everyone uses WordPress — natively, with as little plugin overhead as needed. Not to mention, it’s a great platform for beginners.
2. Joomla! » The second biggest CMS doesn’t come close to touching WordPress in the number of users. Its 7% market share makes it look tiny compared to the biggest player, and yet Joomla! has 2.5M+ websites hosted on its platform, which is not only a respectable number but also shows how active their ~700k user base really is (3+ sites per user). The reason why Joomla! is popular has to do with the need for a platform that strikes the right balance between ease of use and technical prowess. Customizing Joomla! to fit your needs is often a better experience compared to WordPress, and it truly shows in the way workflows can be adapted to your organization or business.
3. Drupal » Here’s a CMS that has people talking a lot. Sure, it’s not the biggest one, and yes, it could afford to have a few things polished, but the technical prowess of Drupal is second to none in the CMS world. Developers love it, as they are able to build amazing, multi-layered solutions out of this powerful tool. You can say that Drupal is not really a CMS but rather a framework to achieve the best CMS for your specific needs. Of course, Drupal works seamlessly with its “core” version too, but don’t be distracted by the promise of easy vs. complex — Drupal truly flexes its muscles only when you have a dedicated team (or a committed developer) diving deep into settings, code, and structure. Loved by nerds, Drupal is the perfect platform for CMS customization.

So, now that we’ve taken a look at a few examples, we can confidently say that customizing your CMS means either taking an existing CMS framework and building on top of it or building an entire software from scratch using best practices. If you’re looking for a good balance between cost and effectiveness, Drupal is definitely the way to go in this case.

How To Customize Your CMS Solution

We’ve broadly looked at what CMS customizations entail and who can actually benefit from them. Now, we need to understand how these can be built. This is usually done via third-party development studios like DarwinApps, mainly because the costs are much cheaper compared to hiring, training, and integrating an entire web development team.

However, it can be done either way. Our recommendation when it comes to starting your own CMS journey is to highlight any requirements and any features as accurately as possible via a detailed brief. This allows the team to fully realize the extent of the project and how it will compare when scaled with other CMS’s on the market.

The beauty of it all is that CMS customization allows for 100% scalable results, making it “easy” to create a barebones system and add on top of it, little by little. If you need a minimum viable product (MVP) to start with — and need to immediately start seeing some returns on your investment — this can be done. If you want a fully-fledged solution out of the box, this can be done too.

There are virtually no limits to CMS customization. It’s important, however, to make a distinction between a CMS meant to host dynamic websites (since you shouldn’t really build a custom CMS for static pages) and a CMS meant to host full-scale applications with complex buttons, elements, server-side technologies, and much more.

Here are some features all CMSs should have:

• Straightforward content publishing tools
• Page editing functionality built into the system
• Content taxonomy options to organize everything
• Scalability and customizability no matter the end goal
• Ability to integrate the software with in-house tools
• Sound documentation and a way for developers to interact

Take website builders, for example (Squarespace, Shopify, Wix, etc.) They’re extremely easy to use, but they only really offer a good way to publish content. The rest isn’t really up to you, no matter what you do in order to “customize” your theme or take it from its vanilla state to a well-rounded website. The features offered are inflexible and inadequate for business use.

CMS’s instead is a good middle ground when it comes to a “business.” They do everything you need at a decent price. And best of all, their scalability is truly one of a kind, so there’s no need to go anywhere else… E- with the exception of when you get to the enterprise-level, of course. Then, you are looking for an ECM, as previously covered in this article.

Understanding the Omnichannel in CMS Customization

One of the things enterprises will take into consideration when building a customized CMS is the ominous-sounding “omnichannel.” This complex scheme is the kind of enterprise-level marketing strategy that can make any professional pale. And yet, these schemes are often used by big corporations and enterprise-level organizations for worldwide operations.

Surely, it’s not something that will apply to everybody, but to those who do need this kind of one-plan-fits-all strategy, creating a custom CMS isn’t just a commodity — it becomes a necessity. You will need a proprietary system capable of acquiring the data necessary to integrate with stores, websites, stock management, fulfillment, sales, mobile apps, and so on.

On top of that, the omnichannel features an added layer of complexity due to the sheer amount of resources that it needs to handle. At the core, the central stock pool acts as the main hub for everything related to the operation itself, and spreading outward, we can find all the different parts of a truly interconnected system, with CMS’s lying in between.

In the case of enterprise business, CMS customization can:

• Support multiple sites and connect them via one single hub
• Provide complex in-house integrations with software systems
• Enable feature-rich funnels that hook the user into taking action
• Help spread the workload throughout various locations and countries
• Allow for an interactive, contextual customer experience unlike any other

… and so, so much more.

Generally speaking, there are pros and cons to customizing your own CMS solution, and it will take a while before you land on something that truly works in every way you’d like. However, once your channels slowly start to integrate, and once the marketing strategy gets finalized, building a fully-custom CMS will take you from a powerhouse in your industry to a leading player the leader. Here are some pros and cons:

PROS

• Very fast if coded well
• Tailored to your needs
• No need to compromise
• Only pay for what you use
• 100% proprietary software
• Extreme security measures

CONS

• Resource-intensive
• Extremely expensive
• Very hard to maintain
• Can become confusing
• Requires a lot of training
• Might take years to complete

Why Even Bother with CMS Customization?

Why even bother with CMS customization? Because it matters. It might not matter to the average business owner, but where would Facebook be if they didn’t build their own proprietary CMS? Of course, most of what they do will still be handled via code, but all major platforms have a way to handle content that’s specific to them only. That’s how it works.

The better and the more scalable you can build your infrastructure, the more you’ll grow and retain users on the internet. It’s not a small thing to achieve, but it’s a long-term investment that will forever change the way you handle data both inside and outside the web. With the Internet of Things growing in popularity, a central CMS is crucial to enterprise success.

Surely, there’s a lot to consider when first detailing a strategy to build or customize your own CMS, but our experience in the industry has shown us that many customers usually require similar features (with workflows varying hugely instead). Some elements to consider when making the big switch to CMS customization are:

• Whether you require full ownership or not
• What security concerns you currently have
• The relevant corporate or enterprise requirements
• How interface, workflows, and tools will come together
• Which advanced features and integrations you will need

Remember, everything is up to you. The rest you can leave to us. At DarwinApps, we strive to build the impossible by starting from a simple (or complex) concept. It’s in our DNA. That’s what we know how to do best, and it’s also where you come in. Scaling the possibilities of your software is just one of our passions — you decide what comes next. Learn more here.