Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Social Media Consultant

So as I promised, over the weekend I installed CushyCMS on one of my clients websites. The process couldn’t have been easier. Here are the steps to install CushyCMS on an existing site:

1. Sign up with CushyCMS.
2. Setup the website in question by providing FTP login information. I had this on hand, so it was very easy, but you may have to track down an email or something to get it implemented.
3. Download the website source files to make the appropriate CSS changes or use a local copy if you have the latest version of the site.
4. Open one of the files in question and update the content areas where appropriate. I had to change some items like:

   <div class="content">Content Content Content</div>
   to
   <div id="content" class="cushycms">Content Content Content</div>

5. Obviously, you have to change the CSS to reflect these changes as well, but a few “Find and Replace”s later, every page in the site is updated with the appropriate CSS and HTML changes.
6. Login to CushyCMS and add each file you want to be able to edit via the CushyCMS interface. This was actually the longest part of the process. This website had about 30-40 pages and it took me about 10-15 minutes to add all the pages. No big deal, but I’d suggest that CushyCMS perhaps add a “bulk assign” function so that I can assign several files in a directory to a website and it will take the name of the file as the “Page Name”. Like I said, not a big deal for a small site.
7. Verify everything is working properly when editing.
8. Add a few editor roles (i.e. my clients) to be able to edit pages as necessary.
9. And Viola! You’re done.

I’m currently waiting feedback from the client to see if they like the new editing interface or not. They are not HTML savvy and the interface removes the need for that and all that is necessary is a knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of products, which most people are familiar with.

All in all, I’d recommend this to anyone creating a small website who has to support a client with either limited maintenance budget or little in terms of technical expertise, or both. It’s super easy, and with a Pro account, you can even brand the editor as your own interface.