Important Reasons not to Give Your Client a CMS

The Internet is great: It gives us everything we’ve ever wanted, exactly when we need, and as fast as we could possibly desire it to get here. It also comes with a boatload of innovations that make it infinitely easier now to create Web content than, say, fifteen years ago. One of the foremost tools, to go with web design, is the content management system—that’d be nifty softwares like WordPress or Drupal that make it blissfuly simple to create blog-style content without any coding knowledge.

If you’re like us, you often use a CMS to make a client’s website easier to handle: For the client that is, not necessarily for you. However, is giving your client a CMS to manage their stuff always the best idea?

When you get down to it, we hardly think it is. In fact, we’ve compiled a short list below of clients you should never give the WordPress keys to. If you’re curious, keep reading. We may just save you a lot of headaches further down the road.

Those who should NOT use a CMS:

The Static Web Owner: Let’s say you create a website for a client who doesn’t run a blog, and has no intention of publishing new content to the Web with any real frequency. With that set of parameters, we also feel it’s safe to guess the individual would rather leave the matter of website creation up to you. As such, why would you give the client a CMS? If they’re not going to want to publish content regularly, they’re not likely going to want to update WordPress regularly either. Additionally, when they do need changes, with a CMS there’s always a chance they’ll take on the task themselves. If there’s no easy way out involved, and enough time has passed since your last invoice, you’re likely to be looking at a lot of extra work over the years.

The Shelf Life Website Owner: How about a project in which you’re creating a website for a conference. The conference will only last a few days, and as such, the website isn’t likely to suffer many changes during all that time. In this case, optimizing a PSD design for a CMS is just plain dumb. They won’t make the most of your effort, so why bother in the first place?

Those Who Rely on Web Maintenance as a Service: Lastly, if you have a contract with a client in which you supply Web maintenance on a monthly basis, don’t ever shortcut yourself by opting out with a CMS. It makes you look cheap, and pretty soon, the client may decide they simply don’t need you.