The web sites of today have changed dramatically from even 5 years ago. Web site visitors demand the best and fresh content on the web site they are viewing. Gone are the days you can build a web site and they will come, as content is king in the Web World of 2007.

Now how do you update content without paying web designers for every little change on the web site. And how do you make a change at midnight when you need to update something on your site, and your web designer is unavailable?

You use Web Site Builders, or as they are also known, Content Management Systems (CMS).

Any web designer should be able to set you up with a CMS Program. If they can't, find another web designer! But how do you know which CMS will work for you, or if you even need a large CMS on your site. You may only need to add new news items on the page while nothing else changes.

You really have a few options. Let's get into them.

1) CMS Software

These software are open source software your web designer can set up and install onto your web hosting server. Depending on the software, you can normally make theme changes to how your sites looks to changing every last bit of text on the pages. If you want complete control over the text of your site, a CMS Software is the way to go.

But how do you know which one? Your web designer can offer you so many options, its overwhelming! Depending on if you are setting up an Updated content web site, or a blog or both, you will use different Content Management Systems. Let's explore the options.

a) Free CMS Systems

The free software that will only cost the time it takes your developer to implement them:

Web Site Builders: Joomla (http://www.joomla.org) XOOPS (http://www.xoops.org) Drupal (http://drupal.org)

Blog Builders: Wordpress (http://wordpress.org) Google Blogger (http://www.blogger.com)

b) Paid CMS Systems Web Site Tonight (http://www.domainsatretail.com/websitetonight.html)

2) Custom Developed Content Management used to only updates certain sections of the site.

Any web designer that can design custom programming scripts can set your site up with a database and custom admin screen that allows you to login, make some changes and your site automatically updates. The custom developed content managers work best on sites requiring certain areas to only change, and a need to keep content updated while keeping the look and feel the web designer has intended.

Where do custom scripts work? If you have a news box on the left, where all you wish to do is update a new line of news to display every day, an interface can be built for you to simply enter the new news text you want, and from that interface it saves and updates your site. In this manner, you have no way you can make the rest of the site fail or look broken and have that area of content always up to date.

Where else? If you have specific needs where you want to be able put some PDF files on your web server, and your web page to display a list of all PDF files automatically. The web designer can custom build a script that would update the content of the page to always list all the files you have put on the web server.

Custom Developed CMS usually require more of an initial cost, however with the savings you make on having to pay web maintenance fees and your abililty to have the content updated right as you want it, it is worth it.

Now you have seen which ways you can go with managing your content, and keeping up with fresh content on your site. Don't be left behind by other web sites. Ensure yours is dynamic and displaying fresh content to keep users coming back!

Michael Kralj runs the web sites: Domains at Retail and Emenki Web Solutions.

Domains at Retail offers cutting edge web product solutions including domain name, web hosting and web site builders.