Post by sumiseo558899 on Nov 9, 2024 22:57:48 GMT -5
At the site development stage, one of the first questions that arises for the owner is which engine to choose? It seems simple - read the reviews, choose the best one. But in reality, there are so many details, so many contradictory articles and opinions that the question turns into an acute problem with a claim to deep research. Calm down, we have already conducted the research and are sharing the results.
Is it possible not to bother?
Spoiler: no, you can't. There is a reason why so many heated arguments about CMS arise – the choice of engine affects the possibility of making SEO changes and the further success of the project as a whole. Proper planning of the future site and a comprehensive analysis of the engines offered on the market are the basis for a successful choice of CMS.
Let's look at a trivial example: you are content writing service
the owner of a future online store. At the development stage, you were not very involved in the process, and the developer chose the CMS he was used to working with. The site was rolled out, they began to develop, gain traffic and orders. Over time, you, caring about the convenience of buyers, decide to add new functionality to the site (for example, a filter). And here the problems begin - buying additional modules, setting them up, all sorts of bugs and wasted nerves.
There are many similar situations when you hit the ceiling of the capabilities of the chosen engine (expansion of the range, new functionality, edits by your SEO specialist and much more). And there is only one way out: moving to another CMS with all the consequences - loss of traffic, positions, money. By spending time studying the issue now, you will save resources in the future.
The number of offers on the website management platform market exceeds 300 names from different price categories. Most popular solutions are comparable in their functionality, webmaster attitude, innovative developments and other quality characteristics, which makes choosing one or another CMS without experience working with them seem even more difficult.
Let's look at a few criteria that will help you narrow down the range of possible solutions to those that are most suitable for your project.
Criteria for choosing the right cms
In general, it is enough to analyze a number of parameters that will help you approach the choice more consciously and better navigate the diversity of all offers. Among them:
Site type and subject matter
You should have a clear idea of what type of website you want to get (online store, service website, business card, forum, etc.). The same situation with the subject. This information is the first step in understanding the functionality that will need to be implemented on the website. Starting to make a service website and ending up with an online store is a so-so story.
Site functionality
This point follows from the previous one. Depending on the topic and type of the site, you need to decide on the main functionality (basket integration, filtering, blog, etc.) and the type of content that should be presented on the site (listings, videos, comments, etc.). We study the sites of potential competitors or call an SEO specialist.
Volume
It is important to understand the volume of the trade offer (for an online store) and the content component of the site (for an information resource or a service site). If a full-fledged store with a wide range of items is planned, then unreliable Joomla and various constructors with a cloud service can be excluded from consideration. In addition, it is important to understand the scale - a regional service site and a large project with subdomains in all major cities of Russia will require different resources.
Possibility of making edits (including SEO edits)
The variety of engines presented on the market is often unable to meet the needs of each site, so the ability to adapt the CMS to the needs of the user is important. It is worth looking separately at how SEO-friendly the CMS is (allows you to make edits within the framework of internal optimization of the site). Even if you do not plan to engage in promotion now, you should definitely provide for such an opportunity. This will save you headaches in the future. From the main ones:
Meta tags (Title, Description). They define the snippet and title of your site in search engines, participate in ranking. They must contain key queries and be unique for the promoted pages.
CHPU addresses. For example, not mysite.ru/index.php?category=11&page=9, but mysite.ru/catalog/hp-laserjet-pro/. Help users and search engines understand what is contained on each page
Ability to edit robots.txt and sitemap.xml. These service files are responsible for indexing the site and show the search engine which pages need to be added to the index and which ones should not
Setting up 301 redirects and 404 pages. The functionality is used when it is necessary to change addresses or delete products.
Breadcrumbs. Simplify user navigation, help better navigate your site
In fact, there are many more optimization tools, but sometimes you can only understand which one to use in practice.
Typical engine issues (generation of duplicates, possibility of hacking, dynamic content, etc.)
It is better to learn about all the problems that you may have to face right away, before starting development. Each engine has its own shortcomings, so you need to choose the one whose flaws will not be critical for your site. For example, for OpenCart, the disadvantage is the generation of duplicate pages (a large number of duplicates can cause problems with indexing your site), Joomla sites are easily hacked, and Wix works with dynamically generated content (for correct indexing, you will need to create html versions of all pages).
Cost (free vs. paid engines)
There are many worthy representatives of not the highest price category on the market now, moreover, some developers provide their solutions for free (WP, Drupal, Joomla, etc.). They can be considered when creating small sites with standard functionality (for example, a regional clinic site). But it is important to consider that such engines are “free” only conditionally - to make basic edits, you need to install paid plugins or buy a business version.
Lifespan and Prevalence of CMS
Here we adhere to neutrality - ancient, creaky engines are as bad a solution as a CMS released yesterday by an unknown developer. This is not only limited or undeveloped functionality, but also a hassle with finding a suitable specialist who will subsequently make edits to the site. Our advice regarding new developments: strictly filter what is offered (read "for sale") on various forums and look for additional information.
I want my own engine
It is also worth mentioning custom engines here. There is an opinion that a site developed entirely from scratch is always better than projects assembled on a template CMS. Among the advantages are maximum customization of the client's needs and flexibility. In practice, you will have to face such difficulties as:
Huge time and money costs. What has already been implemented by the engine developers will have to be done from scratch. This includes the site architecture, the database structure, and the admin panel interface.
Binding to the developer. Understanding someone else's code is long and expensive. Therefore, for modifications you will have to go either to the website developer (who can charge you a decent amount for a simple edit), or look for a third-party specialist and pay with time
Finding a qualified developer. If you decide to implement a truly non-standard solution, then you won’t be able to entrust it to an inexperienced specialist. Here you need serious programming skills and experience in writing websites yourself. And this is again a big expense
Bug fixing. Popular engines are good because they are used by millions of people every day, and the main bugs are fixed by developers themselves in updates. Your personal CMS will never have that many testers
As a result, using a custom engine can only be justified if the site is planned to have non-standard functionality that none of the popular CMS can provide. In other cases, do not complicate your life.
Comparing popular engines
The table below shows commonly used CMS and their standard functional limitations. Choose the most critical points for your project and filter out unnecessary engine options.
Functional 1C-Bitrix WordPress Drupal Joomla! MODX OpenCart UMI.CMS Tilda, Wix and other designers
Basic SEO edits (tags, URLs, breadcrumbs, 404) + + + — + — + —
Variety of templates, design + + — + — + + +
Filters, sorting + — — — + + + —
Basket + — + — + + + —
Implementation of payment systems, eCommerce + — + — + + + —
Possibility of independent editing, ease of layout + + — + + + + +
Security and protection against hacking + — — — — + + +
Search the site + + + + + + + +
Comments + + + + + + + +
Blog + + + + + + + +
Scalability, availability of modules and plugins + + + + + + + —
Tech support + — + — — — + +
Open source + + + + + + + —
Speed of work + + + — + — + +
Flaws Using a lot of server resources Limited functionality in the basic version of the CMS; server load for large sites Complex interface; difficulty installing modules, scaling Complex interface; lots of unnecessary code Original documentation (difficult to study) Inconvenient material editor; extension compatibility issues when updating High hosting requirements Limited functionality, standard templates, low disk space in basic plans, transferring a site to another hosting is only possible for money.
Suitable type of site Service website, online store, news website or blog, service website Service site, news site or blog, promo site Services website, online store News site or blog, service site, promo site Online store, services website Online store, services website Services website, online store Service website, online store, news website or blog, promo website
Price From 15,900 rub./year Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. From 22,900 rub./year From 1500 rub./year
Table 1 - Comparative characteristics of engines when choosing a CMS
For a complete picture, let's consider the most popular types of sites. By analyzing them, we will identify the characteristic features of such sites and provide some examples of ready-made solutions for management systems.
Online store
Almost any CMS allows you to implement a product catalog on your site, including by connecting additional modules. But not all of them meet the optimal set of criteria for implementing a full-fledged online store. These criteria include:
availability of convenient functionality for fast and convenient management of goods
ease of user interaction with the site - sorting and filtering, comparison, etc.
the ability to adapt the project to any topic
scalability
Judging by these criteria, we can highlight several positive examples: WordPress, Magento, Drupal, CS-Cart and 1C-Bitrix.
Among those listed, WordPress deserves special attention: without exaggeration, it is the most popular of the existing CMS, about 30% of all sites are implemented on it. The platform is valued for its ease of use and a wide range of all the main functional blocks that can be supplemented with modules from third-party developers. For example, they can be used to deploy a full-fledged online store.
However, implementing a large project in the eCommerce segment on WP is not the best option. Firstly, the engine does not always have enough production capacity when processing data, which is why the load on the server increases several times. Also, the issue of security for WordPress sites is one of the most pressing. Cases of successful hacker attacks aimed at hacking are not uncommon.
There is definitely less risk with working on WordPress when working with blogs and other information projects. This CMS is also well suited for creating a corporate website.
Services website
Almost all corporate websites are commercial in nature and perform an informational function. Its main task is to provide a complete picture of the company's services, allow for the necessary calculations and serve as a tool for communication.
The choice of a platform for such a site is primarily based on the rules of ease of use of content. And also the possibility of adapting the site to solve auxiliary tasks, since the introduction of some additional functionality (for example, an appointment form or a cost calculator) into service sites is a common thing. Among the CMS that satisfy such needs are: 1C-Bitrix, WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, MODx, UMI.CMS, NetCat.
News site or blog
Content projects also belong to information type sites. Therefore, when choosing a CMS in this case, first of all, you should rely on your own preferences. Namely, on which system will be most convenient for you to work with, since the main task when owning such a site is generating and posting content.
Forum
With the choice of a management system for creating a forum, everything is much more individual. There are specialized platforms for them, among which the most successful ones include: phpBB, Invision Power Board (IPB) and vBulletin. Among those listed, phpBB is a free analogue of the other two.
When choosing a forum engine for yourself, first of all you should focus on the required functionality, cost and date of the current version of the product.
Are free engines really that hopeless?
There is an opinion that free engines and constructors are a priori pain. In this case, everyone suffers - the programmer, who cannot make edits due to limited functionality, and the optimizer, whose edits are not made, and the client, who loses traffic and orders. In general, we can say that this is so, but there are exceptions.
Free CMS, in some cases, can be a worthy alternative to market leaders from the paid platform segment. Among them, we can highlight the so-called constructors. Their main advantage is the ability to "assemble" your project without in-depth knowledge in the field of development and personalize it for your own needs.
Small service websites, business cards with standard functionality and even online stores with a limited range can exist on free CMS. The fact whether you pay for the engine is not taken into account when ranking by search engines - in the TOP of some topics (mainly service websites), websites on Wix and Bitrix can compete with each other at the same time.
The only thing is that not all such solutions allow you to make the required edits and provide the necessary functionality - in this case, an additional module or plugin is purchased. Conclusion: the decision to use a free engine should be made individually in each specific case - sometimes it can be justified. The cases below are just such examples.
How we gave a chance to a site on wix and did not regret it
In our practice, we once had a site on the Wix engine, which is not particularly popular in the circles of SEO specialists and programmers. There are at least two reasons for this:
Strictly limited functionality
(Therefore, some of the SEO edits had to be cancelled, while others were difficult and time-consuming to do, using roundabout methods).
Dynamically generated content
(And this means problems with indexing and, accordingly, ranking. The way out of this situation: creating an HTML version of each page of the site).
You should also be prepared for various problems, both from the constructor itself and from search engines. Now most Runet sites generated on Wix have dropped out of Yandex (https://vc.ru/39496-wix-sayty-vypali-iz-yandeksa) due to indexing problems on the search engine side. It is important to constantly monitor the status of your site and its display in search (at least, track positions and monitor the Webmaster), especially if it is implemented on Wix and other constructors.
Despite all the difficulties, in a year of work we managed to increase incoming traffic almost 4 times (from 1102 to 4248 visitors per month):
news
Fig. 1 – Traffic dynamics for the services website on Wix for the period from 01.05.2017 to 31.05.2018
It is important to note that the subject and type of the project (regional website of a medical center) played a decisive role in this case. For an online store, the engine functionality would not have been sufficient, and we would not have achieved such results.
In 3 months, we increased traffic on tilda almost 10 times
Like other designers, Tilda limits the functionality of an SEO specialist and for this reason is considered a difficult engine to promote. Among the disadvantages are standard problems: duplicate pages, long layout, the impossibility of making end-to-end edits to the entire site, etc. But Tilda has one advantage: it is a powerful and at the same time simple tool for creating a unique website design.
Is it possible not to bother?
Spoiler: no, you can't. There is a reason why so many heated arguments about CMS arise – the choice of engine affects the possibility of making SEO changes and the further success of the project as a whole. Proper planning of the future site and a comprehensive analysis of the engines offered on the market are the basis for a successful choice of CMS.
Let's look at a trivial example: you are content writing service
the owner of a future online store. At the development stage, you were not very involved in the process, and the developer chose the CMS he was used to working with. The site was rolled out, they began to develop, gain traffic and orders. Over time, you, caring about the convenience of buyers, decide to add new functionality to the site (for example, a filter). And here the problems begin - buying additional modules, setting them up, all sorts of bugs and wasted nerves.
There are many similar situations when you hit the ceiling of the capabilities of the chosen engine (expansion of the range, new functionality, edits by your SEO specialist and much more). And there is only one way out: moving to another CMS with all the consequences - loss of traffic, positions, money. By spending time studying the issue now, you will save resources in the future.
The number of offers on the website management platform market exceeds 300 names from different price categories. Most popular solutions are comparable in their functionality, webmaster attitude, innovative developments and other quality characteristics, which makes choosing one or another CMS without experience working with them seem even more difficult.
Let's look at a few criteria that will help you narrow down the range of possible solutions to those that are most suitable for your project.
Criteria for choosing the right cms
In general, it is enough to analyze a number of parameters that will help you approach the choice more consciously and better navigate the diversity of all offers. Among them:
Site type and subject matter
You should have a clear idea of what type of website you want to get (online store, service website, business card, forum, etc.). The same situation with the subject. This information is the first step in understanding the functionality that will need to be implemented on the website. Starting to make a service website and ending up with an online store is a so-so story.
Site functionality
This point follows from the previous one. Depending on the topic and type of the site, you need to decide on the main functionality (basket integration, filtering, blog, etc.) and the type of content that should be presented on the site (listings, videos, comments, etc.). We study the sites of potential competitors or call an SEO specialist.
Volume
It is important to understand the volume of the trade offer (for an online store) and the content component of the site (for an information resource or a service site). If a full-fledged store with a wide range of items is planned, then unreliable Joomla and various constructors with a cloud service can be excluded from consideration. In addition, it is important to understand the scale - a regional service site and a large project with subdomains in all major cities of Russia will require different resources.
Possibility of making edits (including SEO edits)
The variety of engines presented on the market is often unable to meet the needs of each site, so the ability to adapt the CMS to the needs of the user is important. It is worth looking separately at how SEO-friendly the CMS is (allows you to make edits within the framework of internal optimization of the site). Even if you do not plan to engage in promotion now, you should definitely provide for such an opportunity. This will save you headaches in the future. From the main ones:
Meta tags (Title, Description). They define the snippet and title of your site in search engines, participate in ranking. They must contain key queries and be unique for the promoted pages.
CHPU addresses. For example, not mysite.ru/index.php?category=11&page=9, but mysite.ru/catalog/hp-laserjet-pro/. Help users and search engines understand what is contained on each page
Ability to edit robots.txt and sitemap.xml. These service files are responsible for indexing the site and show the search engine which pages need to be added to the index and which ones should not
Setting up 301 redirects and 404 pages. The functionality is used when it is necessary to change addresses or delete products.
Breadcrumbs. Simplify user navigation, help better navigate your site
In fact, there are many more optimization tools, but sometimes you can only understand which one to use in practice.
Typical engine issues (generation of duplicates, possibility of hacking, dynamic content, etc.)
It is better to learn about all the problems that you may have to face right away, before starting development. Each engine has its own shortcomings, so you need to choose the one whose flaws will not be critical for your site. For example, for OpenCart, the disadvantage is the generation of duplicate pages (a large number of duplicates can cause problems with indexing your site), Joomla sites are easily hacked, and Wix works with dynamically generated content (for correct indexing, you will need to create html versions of all pages).
Cost (free vs. paid engines)
There are many worthy representatives of not the highest price category on the market now, moreover, some developers provide their solutions for free (WP, Drupal, Joomla, etc.). They can be considered when creating small sites with standard functionality (for example, a regional clinic site). But it is important to consider that such engines are “free” only conditionally - to make basic edits, you need to install paid plugins or buy a business version.
Lifespan and Prevalence of CMS
Here we adhere to neutrality - ancient, creaky engines are as bad a solution as a CMS released yesterday by an unknown developer. This is not only limited or undeveloped functionality, but also a hassle with finding a suitable specialist who will subsequently make edits to the site. Our advice regarding new developments: strictly filter what is offered (read "for sale") on various forums and look for additional information.
I want my own engine
It is also worth mentioning custom engines here. There is an opinion that a site developed entirely from scratch is always better than projects assembled on a template CMS. Among the advantages are maximum customization of the client's needs and flexibility. In practice, you will have to face such difficulties as:
Huge time and money costs. What has already been implemented by the engine developers will have to be done from scratch. This includes the site architecture, the database structure, and the admin panel interface.
Binding to the developer. Understanding someone else's code is long and expensive. Therefore, for modifications you will have to go either to the website developer (who can charge you a decent amount for a simple edit), or look for a third-party specialist and pay with time
Finding a qualified developer. If you decide to implement a truly non-standard solution, then you won’t be able to entrust it to an inexperienced specialist. Here you need serious programming skills and experience in writing websites yourself. And this is again a big expense
Bug fixing. Popular engines are good because they are used by millions of people every day, and the main bugs are fixed by developers themselves in updates. Your personal CMS will never have that many testers
As a result, using a custom engine can only be justified if the site is planned to have non-standard functionality that none of the popular CMS can provide. In other cases, do not complicate your life.
Comparing popular engines
The table below shows commonly used CMS and their standard functional limitations. Choose the most critical points for your project and filter out unnecessary engine options.
Functional 1C-Bitrix WordPress Drupal Joomla! MODX OpenCart UMI.CMS Tilda, Wix and other designers
Basic SEO edits (tags, URLs, breadcrumbs, 404) + + + — + — + —
Variety of templates, design + + — + — + + +
Filters, sorting + — — — + + + —
Basket + — + — + + + —
Implementation of payment systems, eCommerce + — + — + + + —
Possibility of independent editing, ease of layout + + — + + + + +
Security and protection against hacking + — — — — + + +
Search the site + + + + + + + +
Comments + + + + + + + +
Blog + + + + + + + +
Scalability, availability of modules and plugins + + + + + + + —
Tech support + — + — — — + +
Open source + + + + + + + —
Speed of work + + + — + — + +
Flaws Using a lot of server resources Limited functionality in the basic version of the CMS; server load for large sites Complex interface; difficulty installing modules, scaling Complex interface; lots of unnecessary code Original documentation (difficult to study) Inconvenient material editor; extension compatibility issues when updating High hosting requirements Limited functionality, standard templates, low disk space in basic plans, transferring a site to another hosting is only possible for money.
Suitable type of site Service website, online store, news website or blog, service website Service site, news site or blog, promo site Services website, online store News site or blog, service site, promo site Online store, services website Online store, services website Services website, online store Service website, online store, news website or blog, promo website
Price From 15,900 rub./year Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. From 22,900 rub./year From 1500 rub./year
Table 1 - Comparative characteristics of engines when choosing a CMS
For a complete picture, let's consider the most popular types of sites. By analyzing them, we will identify the characteristic features of such sites and provide some examples of ready-made solutions for management systems.
Online store
Almost any CMS allows you to implement a product catalog on your site, including by connecting additional modules. But not all of them meet the optimal set of criteria for implementing a full-fledged online store. These criteria include:
availability of convenient functionality for fast and convenient management of goods
ease of user interaction with the site - sorting and filtering, comparison, etc.
the ability to adapt the project to any topic
scalability
Judging by these criteria, we can highlight several positive examples: WordPress, Magento, Drupal, CS-Cart and 1C-Bitrix.
Among those listed, WordPress deserves special attention: without exaggeration, it is the most popular of the existing CMS, about 30% of all sites are implemented on it. The platform is valued for its ease of use and a wide range of all the main functional blocks that can be supplemented with modules from third-party developers. For example, they can be used to deploy a full-fledged online store.
However, implementing a large project in the eCommerce segment on WP is not the best option. Firstly, the engine does not always have enough production capacity when processing data, which is why the load on the server increases several times. Also, the issue of security for WordPress sites is one of the most pressing. Cases of successful hacker attacks aimed at hacking are not uncommon.
There is definitely less risk with working on WordPress when working with blogs and other information projects. This CMS is also well suited for creating a corporate website.
Services website
Almost all corporate websites are commercial in nature and perform an informational function. Its main task is to provide a complete picture of the company's services, allow for the necessary calculations and serve as a tool for communication.
The choice of a platform for such a site is primarily based on the rules of ease of use of content. And also the possibility of adapting the site to solve auxiliary tasks, since the introduction of some additional functionality (for example, an appointment form or a cost calculator) into service sites is a common thing. Among the CMS that satisfy such needs are: 1C-Bitrix, WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, MODx, UMI.CMS, NetCat.
News site or blog
Content projects also belong to information type sites. Therefore, when choosing a CMS in this case, first of all, you should rely on your own preferences. Namely, on which system will be most convenient for you to work with, since the main task when owning such a site is generating and posting content.
Forum
With the choice of a management system for creating a forum, everything is much more individual. There are specialized platforms for them, among which the most successful ones include: phpBB, Invision Power Board (IPB) and vBulletin. Among those listed, phpBB is a free analogue of the other two.
When choosing a forum engine for yourself, first of all you should focus on the required functionality, cost and date of the current version of the product.
Are free engines really that hopeless?
There is an opinion that free engines and constructors are a priori pain. In this case, everyone suffers - the programmer, who cannot make edits due to limited functionality, and the optimizer, whose edits are not made, and the client, who loses traffic and orders. In general, we can say that this is so, but there are exceptions.
Free CMS, in some cases, can be a worthy alternative to market leaders from the paid platform segment. Among them, we can highlight the so-called constructors. Their main advantage is the ability to "assemble" your project without in-depth knowledge in the field of development and personalize it for your own needs.
Small service websites, business cards with standard functionality and even online stores with a limited range can exist on free CMS. The fact whether you pay for the engine is not taken into account when ranking by search engines - in the TOP of some topics (mainly service websites), websites on Wix and Bitrix can compete with each other at the same time.
The only thing is that not all such solutions allow you to make the required edits and provide the necessary functionality - in this case, an additional module or plugin is purchased. Conclusion: the decision to use a free engine should be made individually in each specific case - sometimes it can be justified. The cases below are just such examples.
How we gave a chance to a site on wix and did not regret it
In our practice, we once had a site on the Wix engine, which is not particularly popular in the circles of SEO specialists and programmers. There are at least two reasons for this:
Strictly limited functionality
(Therefore, some of the SEO edits had to be cancelled, while others were difficult and time-consuming to do, using roundabout methods).
Dynamically generated content
(And this means problems with indexing and, accordingly, ranking. The way out of this situation: creating an HTML version of each page of the site).
You should also be prepared for various problems, both from the constructor itself and from search engines. Now most Runet sites generated on Wix have dropped out of Yandex (https://vc.ru/39496-wix-sayty-vypali-iz-yandeksa) due to indexing problems on the search engine side. It is important to constantly monitor the status of your site and its display in search (at least, track positions and monitor the Webmaster), especially if it is implemented on Wix and other constructors.
Despite all the difficulties, in a year of work we managed to increase incoming traffic almost 4 times (from 1102 to 4248 visitors per month):
news
Fig. 1 – Traffic dynamics for the services website on Wix for the period from 01.05.2017 to 31.05.2018
It is important to note that the subject and type of the project (regional website of a medical center) played a decisive role in this case. For an online store, the engine functionality would not have been sufficient, and we would not have achieved such results.
In 3 months, we increased traffic on tilda almost 10 times
Like other designers, Tilda limits the functionality of an SEO specialist and for this reason is considered a difficult engine to promote. Among the disadvantages are standard problems: duplicate pages, long layout, the impossibility of making end-to-end edits to the entire site, etc. But Tilda has one advantage: it is a powerful and at the same time simple tool for creating a unique website design.