As a marketer, I’m looking for a few things in a content management system (CMS). Will someone with skills and brains please build this???
Any Page, Any Element Taguchi Testing
I want to be able to split test things like headlines, colors, etc. And it should be from right within the content management system. I don’t want it to be an added-on feature that makes me add lines of code here, there, and everywhere.
Assignable Backend Roles
I want certain people to be able to log in to the back end of my CMS, but not necessarily have full privileges. For example, writers should be able to create content, but not publish it without my approval. That kind of thing.
Built-In Analytics
Yes, I know that analytics packages and content management systems are often thought of as separate packages, but my opinion is that if you aren’t testing and tracking your content, you aren’t managing your content, you’re just publishing it.
Built-In Media Support and Library
Not only do I want the CMS to maintain a library for me to pull from, but I want built in multi-box support for images and movies. If I upload an audio file, I want it to give me a built-in SWF player for streaming audio.
Customizable RSS Feeds
Whether it’s a certain type of page, a certain class of pages, all pages, or whatever, I want control of what goes into an RSS feed, and the ability to create my own feeds as I desire.
Flexible Member Permissions
I want to be able to assign roles to people who sign up with the website, and allow certain roles certain privileges. I’d also like to offer “staged content,” where their access changes on a set schedule. For example, getting “Week One” content the first seven days, and then getting access to “Week Two,” etc.
Intelligent and Customizable Search Engine Friendly URL’s
It amazes me that so many content management systems don’t provide even this basic feature. I don’t want to see URL’s with question marks, ampersands, and long numbers to identify pages. Give me something understandable, with real keywords in the URL.
Paste from Microsoft Word (or Pages)
Let me write my copy in Microsoft Word (or the excellent Mac OS X Pages), if that’s what I choose to do, and then handle all the formatting when I import it into the WYSIWYG editor.
Per-Page Robots Meta Index/Follow Settings
Especially in the case of campaign landing pages, I don’t especially want everyone and their mother dropping by from their favorite search engines. So give me an option for each page to give robots special instructions. OR, write it to a common robots.txt file.
Per-Page Title Tag Customization (and Meta Description, too)
Do I even need to explain this?
Real-Time PDF Creation for Printing
If someone wants to create a clean hard copy for printing, I want the CMS to provide one.
Scheduled Go-Live Dates/Times
Another self-explanatory item. It doesn’t appear until I say it does.
Site Map — HTML and XML Versions
Just one less thing I’ll have to worry about.
User-Selectable Template Styles
There are several different sub-page types, and I’d like the ability to select preset layouts and styles based on my objectives for the page.
