Quite simply we love ExpressionEngine (EE) so much so that most of our clients’ websites are created and managed by EE. Why? Down to it’s fantastic plus points as a content management system.

Our clients love it’s user interface. It’s design, layout and structure is clean, simple, logical and easy to learn. Once you understand how to edit one type of content, you can easily grasp how to edit the rest of the site.

EE makes it simple to manage complex sites and complex content- it’s perfect for sites with multiple types of content and layers. One of it’s great features is it’s ability to give clients full control over what they add and edit, but refrain from boggling them with tons of styling capabilities where they could easily jeopardise the design and layout.

However, for the more technically minded, you can have full stylistic control if you wish. EE allows you to control the level of editing ability on a per member basis – so certain people can have limited control, whereas others can have the full kitchen sink of styling controls. There’s a variety of fantastic plugins we use, from Playa – which helps you easily manage relationships between content, to Structure which enables you to easily generate pages and navigation through a simple interface. Matrix is another, which gives you freedom over managing content, breaking free from simple static fields. Here’s an example of using Matrix to manage a slideshow on The Queen’s Foundation website:

EE is great for member management- whether you simply want different types of permissions and editors, or whether you want to have a members area- allowing users to create accounts to access private content, interact with your site and more.

Because it’s a commercial product, it’s very robust, secure and up-to-date and has full support. But it’s entirely affordable. They have 1000s of users with licences, including some very big entities such as Nike – so have a responsibility to ensure it’s always stable.

Another great feature of EE is it’s scalability. As your site grows older, the system is still capable- you don’t have to update it every few months. And when you do, it’s relatively straightforward. For larger entities, EE enables you to manage multiple sites- keeping all of their content in one place. You can even share and relate content, structure and styles between your different sites or applications.

If we had built a content management system, this would have been it!