By Lisa Powers, i2Integration
There’s a saying when it comes to the web: content is king. That is true enough, but it’s also true that many business websites have volumes of content that is obsolete or content that is wholly irrelevant to large swaths of their visiting audience.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if the content being provided was custom tailored to each individual visitor as they arrived based upon their interest, their demographic, device used, and appeared or disappeared based on a schedule? It’s here now, and it has a name: the headless CMS.
It’s a terrible name. Why throw in a word that conjures scary thoughts for something that is actually very cool? That’s what happens when tech people make marketing decisions!
What is a headless CMS (content management system)?
If you’ve used WordPress, Drupal, DNN or other similar tools before, you already know what a traditional CMS is. Those types of CMS’s have two parts:
- Part 1: the back-end content. This is the text, documents, images and stuff you create.
- Part 2: the front-end display. This is the page or screen where your content is displayed.
A traditional CMS manages both parts, controlling the content and the display.
In contrast, a Headless CMS deals with only Part 1, the actual creation and management of the content. With a Headless CMS, you just create and manage the content, set the rules of who should see versions of the content and from there, it’s sent to display wherever you want it to whether that’s a mobile app, a website, an application, a smart watch/speaker, VR or other devices and platforms.
Here’s some advantages of a headless CMS:
- Create content once and have it automatically distributed across a wide number of devices, platforms and applications. Saves administration time.
- Assign rules to content. For example: display tailored content if the visitor is a registered member, lives in a certain location, has visited certain pages, and is signed up for an upcoming event! If need be, you can get incredibly granular in how custom the content is. This definitely helps to better engage and talk directly to members.
- Because you’re just managing content (instead of content and the entire website), it’s easier to delegate content administration with less training required.
- Content can be scheduled to automatically appear or disappear, decluttering your website and apps.
As organizations increasingly look to use analytics and segmented marketing to better acquire and retain members, Headless CMS is a potentially powerful new tool to place content as king once more.
Want more info on what a Headless CMS can do for you? Contact Lisa, Director of Business Development, at lpowers@i2Integration for details.