The CMS that supports your digital presence isn’t necessarily something that business owners need worry about. As long as your content is out there, surely that’s enough? However, as the range of online channels increases, so do the pressures on a business CMS. You may have heard about the benefits to headless CMS and wonder how this could work for your organisation. So we look at the things that you actually need to know about headless CMS.
Features of Traditional CMS
A traditional Content Management System is designed to be a single solution that manages both the front end and back end of a website or platform.
Features of Headless CMS
Headless CMS is designed to detangle content from code so it can be reapplied in a variety of forms. The ‘head’ that’s removed refers to the presentation layer of a website or platform.
Business Benefits of Headless CMS
Clearly, headless CMS has many attractive features. However, what are the business reasons for implementing this type of solution?
1 - Futureproof
Separation offers the kind of module flexibility that is key in futureproof technology. A headless CMS approach enables freedom to adopt any future tech that works for your organisation. Teams of programmers and developers can integrate different technologies and evolve your online presence. This avoids the disruptive downtime caused by making single large scale updates.
2 - Organisation Growth
A digital presence must reflect the growth of an organisation. As your business grows, you may require improved website functionality, rebranding, or more platforms. With headless CMS in the background, these changes can happen incrementally to support your business growth rather than simply react to it.
3 - Centralised
With centralised content ready to be pushed out to customers across different media, marketing teams can turn their focus elsewhere. This means increased productivity and time for strategic and proactive working. As traditional CMS stores content and code intertwined, repeated edits would need to be made individually. Conversely, headless CMS requires just one edit.
4 - Functionality
Don’t underestimate the impact of developer empowerment. With headless CMS, developers can build the functionality that exactly matches your business needs. Freedom of front end tools, frameworks and languages will lead to better results for the business. As long as an organisation has access to a front end development team, their user functionality can really stand out from competitors.
5 - Loading Speed
With a separated front and back end, a website uses fewer resources in loading which speeds it up. Additionally there is no delay to page loading typically caused by installed plugins. This improves both user experience and Google core vitals.
Workforce Benefits of Headless CMS
There’s more to headless CMS than the benefits that it can bring to a business. For many developer and marketing teams, it is a hugely preferable system to use. It’s worth taking a look at the detail of why this is.
1 - Design
As centrally stored content is raw and unformatted, its final presentation isn’t limited by a front-end system. With flexible design and language at the front end, this opens up the aesthetic potential of a marketing campaign. In this way, dynamic content can be published across a range of platforms and devices with branding cohesion.
2 - Updates
For multiple development teams working in parallel, headless CMS can enable efficient working practices and joined up collaboration. Any updates that need to be made to specific areas can take place without having an impact on other areas. This is great for organisations that need to rapidly update new software in a responsive and agile way.
3 - Accessibility
Content is simply more accessible when stored centrally. Without the need to labour over content maintenance, resources are instead spent on great content creation. This central content can then be adapted and localised by different teams for different purposes.
4 - Responsiveness
With content and editing in just one place, headless CMS can enable more rapid scaleability. Should your organisation growth demand a change in developer tools, more flexible changes can be made. This streamlines process and optimises change.
5 - Branding
We recognise that headless CMS makes editing content easier. So how about the effect that this has on branding? Unification improves the consistency of your brand across all of your media presence, which is easier to implement.
Who uses Headless CMS?
With the uptake of headless CMS increasing, it is helpful to consider which types of business or organisation use this approach. It really depends on your circumstances, business size, personnel infrastructure and strategy.
To realise the potential that headless CMS can bring to your organisation, get in touch.