Using Perch as our CMS

Once you login to your CMS you’ll be able to make edits to the text, images, embedded videos and other content that might be housed on your website. Your content management system should also provide you with an easy way to edit site functionality too, like re-arranging links in the main navigation bar or adding meta titles and descriptions to pages to allow you to customise how Google perceives your website.

Wordpress is the best isn’t it?

Every agency you speak to will have a preference for a particular CMS, and Wordpress is a very common CMS platform that you’ll find throughout the internet, powering a range of websites.

Wordpress started off as a blog platform but now tries to cover all the bases as a CMS for everyone. In our experience this approach leaves editors confused and every additional plugin added to the software adds a layer complexity. This ‘bloat’ can slow your site down leading to poor performance on Google and frustrated users alike.

In contrast, our more modern CMS of choice (Perch) takes a fresh approach and includes a core set of functionality that every website administrator needs. The software then allows your digital agency to only add the additional functionality that a site requires - leaving the site fast and easily editable.

Perch makes life easier

Why did we choose Perch though? The internet is full of different CMS software vendors but we’ve now been working with Perch for over 8 years and currently have the software installed on around 100 websites we’ve produced during that time.

In essence Perch fits perfectly with our development style - its ‘no-fuss’ approach allows us to build you a website that is fast, efficient and completely bespoke. Perch allows us to design and build custom templates for your website without having to consider the software we’re using. Other CMS platforms tend to use a theme system that can dictate how sites are coded and to some degree how they look - Perch leaves those decisions to us.

Most importantly Perch makes your life easier - as a website editor you shouldn’t have to worry about updating the software or whether the latest content you’ve added might break the website layout. Perch allows us to customise the tools available to you in the software and it even gives us the ability to help you out with descriptive text and notes dotted around the interface to point you in the right direction.

Editing regions in Perch is easy

Editing content regions

Instead of trying to force the editing of pages into one standard text block Perch gives us a range of tools to make editing a page simple for you. Pages are broken up into regions of content and each of these regions then comes with customisable content editing blocks. So we can allow you to edit the title and introduction text in one region but then give you full control to edit other regions on the page (images, videos, repeating sections) to build up your page design.

Adding new pages is easy

With Perch we can provide you with easily accessible set of page templates for your website. Adding new pages that are ready to go is then just a few clicks away. With the templating system in place you can choose which page layout suits your new page best and customise where the page lives in the navigation of the site.

Editing the page is then a case of filling in the same region based system as on the other pages. Within seconds you can have a new page live on your website without the need to contact your digital agency, easy!

Adding new pages in Perch is easy

What about complex functionality?

Without getting too technical, Perch provides developers with an API to extend it’s base functionality. This ensures that whilst at its core Perch is very simple - and remains simple for editors to use - your digital agency can also build custom applications that live inside your CMS to tackle more complex requirements you may have.

Over the years we’ve developed applications that allow users to manage stockists, add recurring events and administer login areas of their websites all from within their CMS. This ability - coupled with the apps already available for blogging, e-commerce, forms and email management (to name a few) - ensures that no matter what complex requirement your website requires we can develop a tailor made app to help you edit things in one interface.

Don’t take our word for it

We’ve a number of happy customers using Perch and in some cases these customers have come to us after using another CMS. Feel free to have a look at some of our more recent website releases, all built with Perch below.

• Imagination Museum - featuring blog, case studies and forms apps

• SHD Composites - featuring case studies, careers and products

• The Beonna - featuring blog, events, forms and recruitment apps

We’ve only touched the surface of what makes Perch our platform of choice. We’ve always been delighted by the feedback we get from customers and we look forward to building on the platform for many more years to come. 

If you're finding your CMS frustrating to use then get in touch - we'd be happy to demonstrate why Perch is an improvement on other platforms.