| By :
Dirik Hameed
There are many reasons to choose UK web hosting and each provider will have their own unique benefits. Once you have made that decision you will also have many web applications to choose from to get your site up and running. Fortunately they are very user friendly and most of them can be used by novices without coding knowledge. The following would probably be the five best CMS or content management systems. Most of these would have specific pros and cons and it is difficult to determine which is the best. From the point of view of overall functionality and ease of use we would probably start with WordPress and Drupal. Joomla webhosting, Expression Engine and Silver Stripe are pretty much on the same level however. These are all bases on PHP and use MySQL. Drupal is very easy to install but maybe doesn't push to the web as easily as other programs. It is also perhaps not quite as intuitive to use but it does allow for a greater deal of customization. It is unique in that it uses a control panel at the top of each page rather than having a dedicated page for administrative control. It has advantages for SEO as does WordPress and Silver Stripe. There are some issues though such as having to install a module in order to be able to do rich text editing. How content is managed on all of these platforms is quite individual. Drupal has all its content arranged in blocks with each being assigned to a type of content. Joomla also assigns according to content but this is also tied to a specific page location. Its admin page is also separate and has all of the functions laid out intuitively. Joomla is very straight forward to understand but it does not offer as much customization. All of the functions are very intuitive but don't always offer as much as other platforms. Creating pages is simple but then it is not as easy to link that page to more than one menu. This platform also presents the most challenges for configuration. The interface on WordPress is almost a hybrid of the previous two systems. It has the ease of use and a single admin page which can be intuitively interpreted but it offers greater functionality that Joomla. The interface can also be customized. WordPress CMS is not the same as the service for blogging which is one thing you should remember. There are a large number of templates that can be selected from in WordPress. These also combine very simply with widgets which make it easy to add functionality. They can also be moved around without having to change code at all. One of the easiest of these platforms to use is also Silver Stripe. With a WYSIWYG interface you can make changes very quickly. Customization also makes use of drag and drop functionality. Navigation is tree based and security and permissions are also easily customized. One of the web applications that offers ease of use and unlimited functionality is Expression Engine. It is still very easy to use but does require knowledge of PHP. Any one of these platforms would make it easy for most people to create a page once they have found UK web hosting.
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