Over the last several years I’ve been hearing that SharePoint is not as user friendly as other content management systems (CMS).  When I stand back and look at the challenges I see our content managers encountering, I’ve decided that those challenges are present regardless of the CMS product implemented … SharePoint or otherwise.
 
When we were first introduced to content management systems, it seemed that the content managed page with the rich-text-editor was the answer to everything.  Have a handful of locations to list on a page?  Create it within the rich-text-editor.  Have some product features to list out?  Create it within the rich-text-editor.  Need to create a job board?  The answer … create it within the rich-text-editor.  The rich-text-editor became the answer to every content need because it was cheaper than getting IT to build a solution that would display the information.
 
Fast forward a few years ...what have we learned?  In most cases, your organization changes site information on a regular basis, but not daily. If you are the content manager for your company’s website, you may have learned how to build out all of the pages at your initial go-live, but have forgotten how you created certain pages because it’s been months since you’ve had to do it.  As a result, you struggle to come back up to speed on how to edit those pages.  Or, you create a new page, and while it’s similar to the other sibling pages, it just doesn't look quite the same.
 
So, with the benefit of experience in our corner, we have learned that there is a balance between leveraging the rich-text-editor to build everything and using some of the other CMS solutions at your disposal to create an easy-to-manage solution that provides consistent visual delivery.
 
Here are some of the things that Skyline is doing in SharePoint to make our content managers’ jobs a little easier:

1. Use lists, content query webparts, XSLT, and jQuery for consistent, repeatable results.  Not only will your pages all look the same, but these tools will help your content managers with content entry.  It’s a lot easier to enter data into a SharePoint list than is it to use the rich-text-editor. (See a similar approach in DNN)

2. Speaking of SharePoint lists … save the list as a template if you needs to create more lists with the same structure.  Users can create a new list based off the template, add a content query webpart to the page, and point it to the list.

3. Use reuseable content. If you have content that is used frequently throughout your site and you don’t want to have to reenter it again and again or snag the HTML from the original page, reusable content is the answer.  You can set it to update from the central location or leave the content alone when changes are made in the central location.

4. Put webparts on page layouts.  If you want to have a certain webpart on your pages, putting it on the page layout is a great way to ensure that it will not be forgotten as users create new pages. Yes, the content manager can add the web part easy enough, but if you can save them some time so they can focus on more important things, why not?

5. Put data on the page layouts.  For example, set up the page layouts so that when a page is in edit mode the content manager can enter in the meta keywords, description, browser title, and page title.

Do the above items put some restrictions on your content managers?  In some cases, yes. But, as long as you’re balancing those restrictions with saving the content manager time, it’s worth it.  While tormenting our marketing manager is one of our favorite sports here at Skyline, I really don't like seeing her struggle with adding content to our site.  Wouldn’t you rather have your marketing manager spending time developing web content or dreaming up new promotions to draw in new customers versus fighting with the borders around images or overlapping span tags within the rich-text-editor? 
 
If you have seen any of my CMS presentations in the past, you’ve probably heard me quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman … “With great power comes great responsibility.”  The point I’m trying to make is that if you implement a content management system, content managers shouldn’t expect that the system will function like Microsoft Word or Photoshop.  Content managers have to make an investment in learning how to best manage content and leverage the CMS to accomplish their tasks.  Conversely, your IT department, web agency, or whoever is implementing your website on your CMS can do a few things to make the management of your website content easier.