Not sure where to put this, so please move if it is wrong forum to post this.

I'm thinking about which system to use to manage website. So, how many of you have used any Content Managment System (CMS) and what is yout experience with them? At the moment I think I will try out SilverStripe.. I will also give my opinion about it for anyone that might be interested.

Also, which road should I take on designing the site? Should I go with regular style, which people are used to. Or should I go with something different, so people will remember this site. I think I will try both, easy to use, yet looking different.. dont know how to do it really. So any ideas are welcome (also sites you think look/feel good)!

EDIT: Looks like SilverStripe has some stupid system that you have to pay them to get custom template.. So now Im testing Drupal

I think different is good as long as it's useful and pleasant to navigate. Now if different means crazy colors and a confusing layout then I would say stay away but it really depends on what you mean when you say "different". And of course you can always ask for a review in the Site Review forum as you're testing different layouts.

I have never used a CMS but just make sure that the pages the system generates is search engine friendly. I think most systems are now making the pages so they are, but you definitely want to do your research beforehand.

Joomla is also another popular open source CMS you may want to check out. Some members here have given good reviews on it.

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By different I don't mean anything with crazy colors and confusing layout. Just something that will look different from regular website.. Look that people will remember. I don't know yet what I mean by that myself really, but I try to work it out..

And yes, I tried several CMS's and Joomla was the one I chose to use. Joomla has some SEF options, but most of CMS's have them, like you said..
I think I will try out some more CMS's, something more lightweight and more customizable. I don't need a lot of features, just something I can display news with, also picture/video gallery wont hurt, but these can be found separately
Drupal was also decent, but I found it too hard to make most simple actions.

Hey MC...have you had a look at www.ning.com ? Pretty cool from what I can tell. Best of luck.

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I'm building my sites with Joomla 1.5. I'm finding it relatively easy to create my own custom template.

I think I found what I was looking for. I actually overlooked it many times. It's called MODx, it claims to be very search engine optimized and customizeable from what I can read from homepage. Going to try it out right now

http://www.modxcms.com