Give us a call +44 (0) 20 7193 4928, or email us at info@lemberg.co.uk
Alex Dolgov
Managing directorDo you have any questions, interested in joining our team or
want a quote? We would love to hear from you.
Contact us right now!
- Email: info@lemberg.co.uk
- Phone: +44 (0) 20 7193 4928
- Fax: +44 (0) 20 7990 9991
More info on contacts page.
CMS Implementation
CMS implementation is one of the most popular services with our customers. Lemberg Solutions specialises in installation and customisation of the leading content management systems: Drupal, WordPress and N2CMS and many others.
Why the choice of CMS matters?
Choosing a Content Management System is a bit like choosing a car. They will all get you from point A to B, but how they do so varies widely. You don't expect a sports car to be cheap, but it performs really well, while a small car is not much use on a racetrack but is great for city driving. Content Management Systems are much the same. Some are simple and quick to set up, but are suitable only for certain simple kinds of website. Others are more complex and take more time to implement but are more slick and full of exciting features.
To decide which CMS to use, you need to think about many issues: How big will the site be, five pages or five hundred? Do you need it really quickly or have you got some time to prepare? How much do you want to spend? Do you want an off the shelf design, or a custom one just for you? We will guide you through the process of answering these questions, and come up with a proposal that precisely fits your needs.
Our favourite Content Management Systems
Through our years of experience as both users and creators of CMS based websites, we have selected two systems that we feel are of especially high quality for our clients: Drupal and WordPress (and its big brother WordPress MU). We are also experts in other systems such as N2CMS (the best option for Windows hosting), SimpleCMS and Typo3 but these are less effective than our favourites and used in specific circumstances. Below we show the benefits of the two main Content Management Systems we recommend:
| Feature | Drupal | WordPress & WordPress MU |
|---|---|---|
| Project type | Sites for medium and large organisations, membership sites, forums, social networks, portals, intranets, SaaS projects and e-commerce sites | Sites for small- and medium-sized businesses, blogs, multi-blog sites, event sites |
| Performance | High performance, quick and reliable | Good performance but slows considerably with large numbers of posts |
| Key Features | Powerful system for categorising content (taxonomy), role-based permission system, easy user registration and profiles, out-of-the-box RSS, browser-based administration, in-built stats system, in-built feedback system | Simple ‘5 minute’ setup of basic site, simple content editor focussed on writing text not complex layout, posts and articles easily picked up on other blogs through ping system, many free themes (though few of really high quality) |
| Costs | Built on open source technologies – no license fee, high quality open source security | |
| Support & community | Large, vibrant development community that provides affordable support and frequent updates and improvements | |
| User experience | Complex at first but powerful | Very simple and user-friendly but limited power |
| User profile | Easy creation of member sites and portals, can modify fields to any purpose | Member system is locked, can add members easily but only certain fields. |
| Plugins and themes | Many powerful plugins but free themes not so attractive (but Lemberg are experts at modifying or creating themes for you) | Thousands of free plugins and themes. Theme quality acceptable though not fully professional. |
| Languages | Multi-language support built in, run Drupal in any major language | Many language specific themes and translations but not built in. |
| Caching | Built in and also integrates with third party systems | Caching only via plugins, weaker solution |
| Well-known sites | U.S. Department of Commerce Christina Aguilera Warner Brothers Records AOL Corporate Lemberg Solutions! | The PlayStation Blog The NASA site TechCrunch 9 rules ZDNET blog |
Approach and Process
Our first step is to identify your needs. Generally this means we will help you create a scope and specification, select an appropriate CMS together then get on with building and testing your site so it can get online and in use! On the other hand if you are a design or creative agency and already know what you want (and have wireframes, designs and technical specifications) then we can do just the technical implementation. Either way we will work closely and collaboratively with you and your team to achieve a high quality result.
To help us keep track of the project, and help you to monitor our progress, we use the following tools:
- Balsamiq Mockups for quick prototyping
- Secure SVN for code storage and version control
- Basecamp for easy project management
- Mantis BT for efficient bug tracking
- Google Analytics for instant web statistics
