Every day, millions of content creators in Africa share their work using different content management systems. The widespread application of content management systems (CMS) has gradually increased over the last decade. This development revolutionized how business owners manage their websites
To further these conversations CMS Africa and Google partnered to discuss and improve the challenges faced by users of open-source CMS. This collaboration aims to develop new ways of making CMS more user-friendly, better performing, and more engaging.
The partnership’s first project is ‘Developers for Africa’ or DFA. It invites African developers to participate in creating solutions actively by identifying and filling in the gaps in their chosen CMS. The Developers for Africa project intends to provide a long-term community through education, funding, and tech support.
Developers For Africa – First Edition.
DFA1 was a virtual event held from the 15th to the 16th of April this year to discuss how to make websites that are run on Content Management Systems (CMS) run better. The event was held in Nairobi, Kenya, and had speakers from Google, Joomla!, WordPress, Typo3, CMS Africa, and Drupal.
The event was attended by 48 developers from Kenya but there were representatives from all over Africa. There were presentations coming from Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria, and even South Africa.
Throughout the discussions at DFA 1, it was easy to agree that the questions, concerns, and proposed solutions for the CMS Community are similar and it will take the entire CMS community in Africa to create solutions and solve the problems they continue to face.
The issues discussed revolved around;
DFA1 focused on conversations around web vitals – loading, interactivity, and visual stability – sharing frustrations, pain points, ideas for improvement that they shared in varying contexts. The result of which are ongoing proposals and support towards making these ideas a reality in their CMSes of choice.
Most available online WYSIWYG editors have quirks and problems that result in: “What you see is almost what you get!”
Other members discussed issues of ‘overkill’ when using CMSes. For example, smaller sites don’t need access to the full range of technologies provided by a CMS.
CMS products inhibit your ability to create semantically structured source code. That is, the intended purpose of the code is not used or disregarded by the web designer especially when designers use themes and templates. A cursory overview on Chrome UX Report (CrUX) and HTTP Archive, paints a different picture of how end users are experiencing their websites.
In the meantime we are continuing the conversations online on CMS Africa social media channels. You are welcome to connect and share with fellow developers as go towards our next virtual #DFA2021 event
The need, willingness to contribute to, improve on and create more robust CMS communities on the continent is evident. CMS Africa and Google through #DFA2021 are committed to continue these conversations. Therefore, a follow up, DFA 2 is scheduled to take place focussing on developers from Nigeria and South Africa. Registration is now open. While focussing on these 2 countries, we are still open to have any developers on the continent register here. Developers with interesting ideas for improvements will be invited for a virtual summit on a date that will be announced soon.
Every day, millions of content creators in Africa share their work using different content management systems.
The widespread application of content management systems (CMS) gradually increased over the last decade. This development revolutionised how business owners manage their web properties.
A content management system allows users to create, edit, publish, collaborate, and store digital content.
Business owners now reap the rich benefits of creating and updating their web content without constantly involving the web development team.
Top Content Management Systems Used in Africa
New research by W3techs and CMS Africa finds that WordPress is the most popular content management system. It owns a large slice of the African Market. WordPress’ share is still increasing.
A few countries do not use WordPress as their primary content management platform.
These exceptions include The Republic of Congo, which favours Drupal. Niger is leaning towards Joomla, which owns 31.6% of its market share. WordPress gets only 21.1% of Niger content creators.
In Mauritania, WordPress came third after Drupal and SPIP, in that order.
To summarise the research findings, 68.0% of Africa runs on WordPress. Joomla is the second popular CMS at 8.9%. Drupal holds the third-largest share of Africa’s websites at 3.9%. Blogger is less used, and only 2.7% of African content creators use it. Shopify, loved by SME’s, commands 2.3% of the market share.
Regardless of how the market is segmented, CoreMedia and Drupal are clear favourites for high-traffic sites.
Another surprise from the survey came from a WordPress plugin. WooCommerce is holding fine on its own. It appeals to 5.9% of the African use base, compared to Joomla’s 2.6%.
In the eCommerce scene, Shopify is the leader. Online business owners love it as a hosted system. 2% of all the websites in Africa use Shopify. This percentage is higher than the sites hosted on wordpress.com, which is only 0.6%.
Specialised CMS such as CivicEngage for governments are quickly gaining ground. There is healthy optimism for similar CMS to gain traction.
A Review of Africa’s Favourite Content Management Systems
The most popular content management systems are the ones that let anyone with basic knowledge build a website. In a world without CMS, you would need to learn JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.
WordPress- Africa’s Most Popular CMS
WordPress powers 68% of Africa. As a free and open-source CMS, there is no limit to what it can accomplish. WordPress offers total control over your content and the freedom to customise however you want to.
The fundamental qualities of WordPress make it a popular choice for tech-savvy people and developers. Even then, non-tech people can just as easily use WordPress.
One of the features that make WordPress so popular is a dynamic library of over 57,000 plugins. You can effortlessly increase the functionality of your site.
Other excellent features of WordPress include:
- Easy access
- Customisable design
- Scalable content
- SEO-friendly
- Excellent media management tools
- Powerful performance
The apparent downside of WordPress is that there is no exclusive customer support. Nevertheless, there is an extensive network of developers, site owners, and content creators who troubleshoot on community forums.
If you choose WordPress, you will use a third party for domain registration and a hosting plan.
Joomla
In the rankings, Joomla retains the spot for the second most utilised CMS in Africa. Joomla controlled the CMS market share from its inception until 2010. WordPress toppled the market and overtook Joomla’s spot to this day.
Joomla is unique because it is the only community-driven open-source CMS. It performs well despite zero corporate backings.
Let’s take a look at what makes Joomla so beloved:
- Advanced user access management
- Flexible to accommodate non-standard content
- Multilingual support, so no need for a third-party plugin
- Switch between templates dictated by the type of content
Drupal – A Popular Alternative to WordPress
Drupal is a free and open-source CMS that is popular among developers, agencies, and marketers.
The CMS provides multiple page templates and content classes. It is also well-equipped to handle complex user permissions.
Industries such as healthcare, FinTech, eCommerce, travel, and more use Drupal to manage sensitive content securely.
Some of the best features of Drupal include the following:
- Strong security
- Managed content as a service
- Automated marketing
- High-performance CMS
- Scalable and easy accessibility
- Elaborate personalisation options
For content creators who are looking for an open-source CMS but do not like WordPress, Drupal will do just fine. Drupal is likewise favoured to manage high-traffic sites thanks to its superior performance.
Shopify
The growing number of SME’s need a CMS that cater explicitly to their eCommerce needs. Most businesses use Shopify to sell their products online, and it doesn’t matter the size. Shopify accommodates all online business needs.
Let’ take a look at the reasons why Shopify CMS is the best ranking in Africa eCommerce.
- Manage and sell products from your website, social media, and other online marketplaces.
- Shopify offers an array of in-built marketing tools
- A user-friendly dashboard to handle products, orders, payments, and shipping
- Over 4,000 apps to use to add rich features to your site
- SSL Certificate
- Unlimited product
- 24 hours support
- A marketplace that offers experts for hire to help with store setup or SEO
Positive Progress For CMS In Africa
Google and CMS Africa have an ongoing partnership to discuss and improve the challenges faced by users of open-source CMS. The association aims to develop new ways of making CMS more user-friendly, better performing, and more engaging.
The partnership’s first project is called Developers for Africa. It invites African developers to participate in creating solutions actively. Local developers identify and fill the gaps in their chosen CMS.
The Developers for Africa project intends to provide a long-term solution through education, funding, and tech support.
Google and CMS Africa held a highly successful CMS Africa Summit on five occasions. Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and South Africa hosted the previous meetups. The latest CMS summit is scheduled for 15th -17th September this year.
Due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic and various travel restrictions, it will be a virtual meet.
Conclusion
The rise of social media, eCommerce, and content corporations demand highly evolved CMS. These systems must develop to handle the demands of modern content creators. Current CMS withstand high page views per visit and have high engagement while offering scalability and security.
In the words of CMS Africa, founder, Oduor Jagero, “Speed, scalability, and security have become more critical. With ever-diminishing user attention spans, websites should deliver what their visitors request faster, reduce waiting time, and improve user experience.”
]]>The Project
DFA is a project that partners with developers in Africa in order to contribute to the improvement of open source CMS cores by introducing solutions that match the challenges of modern users on the open Web..
Through the Developers for Africa project, Google and CMS Africa are inviting developers in Nigeria and South Africa to help bring these solutions to life. Later, this event will go to the rest of the African countries.
Google has partnered with CMS Africa before, for events such as CMS Africa Summit, and with Developers for Africa we are setting up a long-term engagement to enable unique CMS-improving solutions through education, technical support and funding.
The South African and Nigerian event will bring together developers with the critical brainpower needed to identify gaps in their chosen CMS and propose solutions for them!
Participants.
Meetup participants will benefit from networking opportunities, support for their unique solutions, and several projects may be eligible for funding through Google’s Opens Source Fund.
E-commerce sites and giant blogs receive a high number of pageviews per visit, high engagement, and increased loyalty. This often stems from better performance and intuitive user interfaces.
“With DFA, we hope that African developers will continue to come together to think of ways to improve the core of open source CMS in the following areas: performance. security, scalability and API-Driven infrastructure.” says CMS Africa founder, Oduor Jagero.
DFA principle partner, Google, believes that Africa has a huge potential for growth.
“There is no region with quite the same untapped potential for growth for the Web like Africa, and CMS are the key to unlocking this potential. We couldn’t be more excited to partner up with CMS Africa on this journey of making the Web more performant, private and capable for developers and users in Africa and worldwide,” Andrey Lipattsev, CMS Partnerships, EMEA Lead, Google.
How You Can Join In
CMS Africa appreciates the contribution of the open-source community and offers a chance to developers to change the Web and make open source CMS better.
If you are passionate about open source CMS and would like to contribute to improving their user experience, then you should come on board.
Apply for the upcoming Developers for Africa project and help your preferred CMS platform serve the world better.
]]>Through the Developers for Africa project, Google and CMS Africa are inviting local developers to help bring these solutions to life.
Google has partnered with CMS Africa before, for events such as CMS Africa Summit, and with Developers for Africa we are setting up a long-term engagement to enable unique CMS-improving solutions through education, technical support and funding.
We kick off the project with the first Developers for Africa Meetup, which will be held in Kenya on April 15-16, 2021. The event will bring together developers with the critical brainpower needed to identify gaps in their chosen CMS and propose solutions for them!
We are hoping to build on this with more meetups in South Africa and Nigeria, as well as, eventually, Uganda, Rwanda, and Egypt. Meetup participants will benefit from networking opportunities, support for their unique solutions, and several projects may be eligible for funding through Google’s Opens Source Fund.
“There is no region with quite the same untapped potential for growth for the Web like Africa, and CMS are the key to unlocking this potential. We couldn’t be more excited to partner up with CMS Africa on this journey of making the Web more performant, private and capable for developers and users in Africa and worldwide,” Andrey Lipattsev, CMS Partnerships, EMEA Lead, Google.
The State of the CMS
The growth of online opportunities has created the need for better-performing CMS. E-commerce, social media platforms, and giant content corporations demand efficiency that CMS built in the past cannot meet.
“Speed, scalability, and security have become more critical. With ever-diminishing user attention spans, websites should deliver what their visitors request faster, reduce waiting time, and improve user experience”, says Oduor Jagero, the founder of CMS Africa.
E-commerce sites and giant blogs receive a high number of pageviews per visit, high engagement, and increased loyalty. This often stems from better performance and intuitive user interfaces.
To bring the opportunity into the CMS space African developers are coming together to think of ways to improve the core of open source CMS in the following areas: performance. security, scalability and API-Driven infrastructure.
How You Can Join In
CMS Africa appreciates the contribution of the open-source community and offers a chance to developers to change the Web and make open source CMS better.
If you are passionate about open source CMS and would like to contribute to improving their user experience, then you should come on board.
Apply for the upcoming Developers for Africa project and help your preferred CMS platform serve the world better.
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