ExpressionEngine: Easy Content Management

Sarah Shuda

About ExpressionEngine

ExpressionEngine was first created in 2002 by EllisLab. It’s a commercial platform, but also open source which has a few benefits from being 100% free and open source. To publish and build a website using ExpressionEngine, you must first purchase a license which can range anywhere from $99 to $299. Every business needs to accept payment to keep moving forward to pay it’s employees and support team. EE has this and more. The license fees go towards the support and momentum of the product itself.

EE has an incredible community with people willing to help each other when questions arise. Since EE is also open source, it allows developers to customize and develop new add-ons that extend the product even further. This is a huge benefit for any business. Nobody wants to be pigeon-holed in what they can accomplish on their site because of platform limitations.

One of the most powerful features of EE is the fact that there are few limitations to what you are able to accomplish using the CMS (content management system). If the add-on for functionality you may need doesn’t already exist, there is likely a developer who can help create it. It’s a smart business model.

5 Reasons EE is King for Content Management

So, what does this all mean for you?

1. Easy to Edit & Publish Content

ExpressionEngine makes content management a breeze! Below is a sample of what a page entry may look like. This one is fairly basic, but you can see how easy it looks to enter in and edit the content. Fields and the descriptions for each field are 100% customizable so you don’t have to guess what should go in a certain field.

Make a mistake? ExpressionEngine allows you to save revisions on any page you may be editing. We’re human and mistakes do happen. It’s good to have a safety net should things go awry.

2. Organization

When you are running a growing business, every minute is crucial, especially when you have a small team. EE makes it easy to organize files by folder and by type. Your developer can setup the platform so that specific sections of your site are automatically synced with certain file folders. This way you have no choice but to stay organized! This is a big time saver for teams that may be a bit more disconnected virtually. It takes less time to explain where certain files should be going. A big time saver!

3. Beautiful & Smart Interface

ExpressionEngine’s interface has been designed quite well. When managing a website, you really only need to find yourself in one or two of the available sections. ExpressionEngine’s backend can be customized in a number of ways to make it even easier for your staff to edit content. You can setup specific user groups and hide content that isn’t relevant to those staff members. This way they aren’t confused by excess information they don’t need. You also then decrease the risk of having other parts of the site altered.

Each content entry page can be customized as well, to make it even easier to edit and publish new content to your website.

4. Custom Templating System

Templates? Sometimes people get the wrong impression when they hear that word. Templates don’t need to look like templates. They also don’t have to constrict the type or amount of content you need to work with to solve your goals. ExpressionEngine works on a templating system. What this means is that you can repeat certain templates or portions of a page very easily, without the need for excess code.

Let’s say you are looking to create landing pages that will have a few common elements. You could have your designer/developer create a template that allows you to enter in the content you need to get your point across. The page may look and feel completely different from the next landing page you may create, but the structure and styling of typography remains consistent from page to page.

Just because it’s a template. Doesn’t mean it has to look like one.

5. SEO Friendly

This is one of the most common questions asked by business owners. Is the platform good for SEO? ExpressionEngine can be customized to allow for very easy SEO management. Take control over your title tags, meta descriptions and the URLs you are utilizing on your website. Custom fields can be setup on each of your page entries so you can determine what title tag, URL and descriptions you are using for any page.