The Importance of Training When Managing a Website

Submitted by Sara Parks on 09/18/2014 - 09:26:am

Wordpress is usually the preferred CMS for non-technical users because of the little amount of training needed to take a site from start to finish. When moving to more complicated platforms like Drupal, the transition is harder but it doesn't have to be.

I want to make the case of providing training in any form necessary and emphasizing that piece as much as any other stage of construction. This will make the website very easy to use and the transition will be automatic.

Why is Training Necessary?

If you are using WordPress or Drupal, or even Joomla, you need training in order to be fully proficient at it. The amount of training differs between platforms, but there is always some training required as these CMS platforms are probably not intuitive for the average person.

With the more complicated platforms, you most likely hired a development team to help with construction. The responsibility of the development team shouldn't stop with building the website and designing pretty interfaces, but should continue to providing training and resources so everyone knows how to use new CMS.

What Gets Included in Training?

There are a few key areas to emphasize in the training. Keep in mind that this is not a one-time deal but a continuous investment that the development team is merely giving you a crash course in so you can keep going on your own.

Here are some possible topics to cover in the training process:

  • Writing Online Content - If you haven't heard it before, online users read a lot differently and the content you write has to cater to that or they will bounce and not even bother to read it. Learning the rules will pay off in more engaged users.
  • Using the Administration Dashboard - This is the central location where you can easily get to all the content and tools available to you. In this area, you can do things like access all the content visible to the external user, view analytics data and adjust where blocks appear on certain pages.
  • Managing Content on the Website - Every website has its own terms and jargon as well as rules and limits, so knowing how to move within that system will help you to ensure the site remains secure and you site keeps working properly.

Wrapping Up

These are just some of the ways to improve the experience when moving to Drupal. This way, people will feel more capable using the new system, which is how Wordpress made them feel in the first place.

 

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