This past spring (2008) I had the opportunity to work on a project where a web based CMS was going to be implemented. I was excited about the opportunity to learn something new and get another tool in my bag of tricks. I had spent some time looking into the many web based CMS out on the market (joomla, drupal, textpattern, expression engine, light cms, etc) and was fairly happy to see that the PM decided to go with Joomla. The newest version had just come out and it was open source (how bad can that be right?). Well, shortly after beginning the site build, I realized that it basically sucked. As a designer I was not happy with how rigid and non standards compliant it was… I knew that Joomla was not my CMS of choice.

A few months later I again had another opportunity to work on a site where a web based CMS was going to be implemented and the PM decided to go with Expression Engine. I had been hearing quite a few rumblings about the latest Elis Lab’s creation and was excited again to learn something new. I was familiar enough with codeignitor to know that EE had to be on the same level. Unlike Joomla, I grew to love EE for many reasons… granted we stretched EE to its limits, but I was impressed by how flexible it was and powerful. I know there are people out there who balk at the fact it costs money, but it is well worth the investment. Here are a few reason why I will continue to use EE on probably just about every site where a CMS is needed:

1 - Full Design Control
Being a designer first and programmer second, I design and develop website with that same mindset. So naturally, I want a CMS that can be as flexible as the designs I may come up with. I don’t want to be limited by my CMS as to how I design and structure a site. You can do that with EE, it does not delegate how and where your html should be placed. You do, which is what I want when I design, control and freedom.

2 - Simple Mark-up/Language
The expression engine CMS has it’s very own language. At first glance that may seem overwhelming… but I quickly found out that it wasn’t. Why? It uses a very similar approach to markup as HTML. This was beautiful for me, since I was already very well versed in HTML, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by having to learn an entirely new language and entirely new mindset.

3 - SEO Friendly URL’s
When I build a website for a company one of the first questions they ask me is how I can help them get listed higher on search engines. When you appraoch SEO you have to remember that the URL is very important in search engine rankings. Having a descriptive and readable URL is important. EE uses valid URL that are static and descriptive. It rarely uses numbers and you as the developer are almost always the one who delegates what is in the URL, not the CMS.

4 - Information Architecture
I believe that Mike Boyink is the first place I heard this term, but the idea isn’t new… When developing a site, you need to have a common sense approach to how you organize the different sections to a website. This is basically asking yourself, “what goes where and why?” EE simple approach to posting, storing, and organizing, information provides a nearly limitless amount of levels to organize and structure a site’s content. And the best part is again that I have full control over all of this.

5 - Amazing Tech Support
This is not least because it is last. It is my top one or two reasons for sure! One of the things I learned really quickly was that the EE Support Forums are the number one resource for getting help. If i run into a problem with my site, the first place I go is to the forums to see if someone else has had the same problem and what the fix is. Not only is the community that frequents it helpful, but EE has paid staff who spend time on the forums helping you trouble shoot issues with the CMS, and they are fast. I have had several major issues they have helped me work through and pin point within hours of posting my issue.

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