**Before going with a CMS, test it!**
- Is it SEO friendly, ie pretty links
- Is the CMS secure? also security features
- check if CMS will work with the configuration and hosting server
- Allows to create, delete, edit and organize pages (not all cms have that)
- Text editor:
- Doesn't give too much control (eg styling) to the client
- allows html tags (can affect design)
- preview of changes would be nice
- Good accessibility and usability
- Has good assets' managing:
- images should be provided <alt> tag
- has image editing (cropping, resizing, rotating)
- how are uploaded files used (how are they displayed to the end user: can descriptions be attached to the files? is the search function capable of indexing them?
- Search:
- how often does the search engine index your website? (important if site changes often)
- does it index everything (incl images, and docs)
- speed!
- can u refine the search results? (incl ranking)
- can u control how results are displayed?
- Customization:
- can you retrieve news stories in reverse chronological order?
- can you display events in a calendar?
- is it possible to extract the most recent user comments and display them on the home page?
- User interaction plugins: (if needed)
- user feedback, ratings?
- chat / comments / forums?
- can you send email newsletters? newsletter usergroups?
- what about news feeds and RSS?
- USER MANAGEMENT: resetting passwords? setting permissions? export user info to other systems?
- Permissions (multiple roles)
- Versioning
- Multiple website support (MUST HAVE) eg
- for narrower audience
- site for mobile devices
- Multilingual support