Welcome back! If you're new to this series have a look at [Part 1 here](https:/ /nomadphp.com/blog/1925/code-with-me-challenge-custom-cms-development-with-php-and-mysql)

Today we are going to beef things up a bit and we will focus on the backend and some key CMS functionality.

It's time to get excited, this is where you'll start to see your barebones structure morph into something extraordinary!

Tired of my intro? That's ok! Let's jump into it!

## Getting the DB on board

Before we delve into this, it's imperative that we take a minute and plan things out.

The database tables that are vital to any CMS are the menu, the user table, and the content table.

Our menu table will start of as follows:

```

CREATE TABLE 'mydbname'.'menus' ( 'ID' INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT , 'menuname' VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL , ...


#### Welcome back! If you’re new to this series have a look at [Part 1 here](https:/ /nomadphp.com/blog/1925/code-with-me-challenge-custom-cms-development-with-php-and-mysql)

Today’s focus is on templating, the aesthetic that will make or break your web application.

Having a clean design with well defined CSS that’s responsive and user friendly goes a long way.

Developers often stick to their lane but delving into templating will bode in your favor, you can indeed

create a functional and launch-worthy application all on your own!

Let’s jump into it!

## Structured structure

Everything you tackle should be found with ease down the line. Therefore careful planning is fundamental to the success and sustainability of your project. You’ll also find that clearly defining your work lends itself to more productivity over...


#### Welcome back!, if you’re new please be sure to read [Part 1 here](https:/ /nomadphp.com/blog/1925/code-with-me-challenge-custom-cms-development-with-php-and-mysql).

This tutorial will focus primarily on Security and will touch on how to plan functionality.

Planning out an application and seeing progress regularly is a good strategy as you are most likely to complete your tasks in a timely fashion with this approach.

Ready?, ok let’s jump into it!

### DISCLAIMER

> We highly recommend that you follow these tutorials on a localhost testing server like Uniserver. Read through [Part 1 here](https:/ /nomadphp.com/blog/1925/code-with-me-challenge-custom-cms-development-with-php-and-mysql) to look at our recommendations. These tutorials follow a phased approach and it is highly recommended that you do not make snippets of code live prior to co...


It took me quite some time to settle on my first blog post in this series and I found myself thinking about the most requested functionality in my career – The good ‘ol Custom CMS – typically geared towards clients that want a straight forward, secure solution that can be expanded upon in a modular format and that’s their IP.

This will be our starting point. A blank slate to build something epic with clean code and even cleaner design. And in the spirit of building from scratch, I will refrain from using classes or a framework. The main reasoning behind this is to truly get everyone acquainted with and excited about PHP development.

Join me as I transform rudimentary code into something extraordinary that can be morphed into just about any Content, PHP, and MySQL driven project. So without further ado, let’s jump into ...