Hi,
I have been lurking around for a while and decided to post.
I know that this has been asked and answered before, but I just can't seem to get a definitive answer.
Firstly, I have to say that I think all Xara products are really easy to use and I find them highly productive.
As my job isn't in design or web development (rather IT consulting) I kind of know what a CMS is and what Dreamweaver is etc. I have used many of them. (Joomla, Mambo, WebGUI, Concrete5, Drupal etc)
What I would like to know is where the 'gotchas' are.
Why use a CMS?
- You may want to change the look of the site, but keep the content the same
- Many users are updating the site on a regular basis
- You want to publish information which will expire on a certain date
- You need a search engine on the site
Why not use a CMS?
- The setup of the template is complex, time consuming and restrictive
- You need to constantly upgrade the CMS software, or you get behind
- When you want to make a change to one page, you might find it hard to do
- Changing the template can be hit and miss
Sure, there probably are lots more pros and cons.
Now, if I was managing a site with 100's of pages, then I would use a CMS, or just wordpress.
But, for my own website, which is about 50 pages and doesn't need a CMS I am wondering if I should just build it in Xara?
Xara is so easy to use, it almost seems that it is a toy and that I will get stuck somewhere. I am worried that when I get 99% into the site, I will hit a wall, especially with SEO.
When I look at some of the sites which I like, they might be built on a CMS, but their look is clean and modern. For example, the BI tool we sell is QlikView and to build a similar site in Xara would be possible.
Thanks for any feedback.
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