Let’s Talk About Headless Content Management Systems
When you think of a Content Management System, what’s the first word that comes to mind? WordPress, right?
You’ll find WordPress Content Management Systems powering nearly 41% of sites on the web (Zippia), but competitors such as Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy and Joomla have also seen massive growth in users over the last few years.
But what if we could harness the flexibility of all of these Content Management Systems in one? What if we could build a platform that adapts the website experience to the visitor? A platform that makes frontend and backend development, scaling and content management easier on editors? A platform that performs faster for developers and site visitors?
Boy, do we have news for you. Enter Headless Content Management Systems.
What is a Content Management System?
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s address just what a Content Management System is. A Content Management System stores and presents your website data and elements such as text, videos and images.
In a traditional Content Management System, content is manually entered into pages-- think blog posts, landing pages and structured, internal pages. Editing is typically more rigid and follows a templated approach.
A Headless Content Management System functions the same way that a CMS does. It’s built to be a content repository, but with Headless CMS, we’re able to store content into “buckets'' that look a bit more unorganized. Your content and information exist in a Headless CMS, but the frontend of your website isn’t hosted in the same location that your content is.
These content buckets are decoupled, so what you’re seeing on the frontend of a website is completely different from the backend of a website, and located completely elsewhere too. Through API connections and new, UI rendering capabilities, the frontend of your website can coexist with a decoupled backend. Crazy, right? But don’t grab a bucket to put out a fire, because there isn’t one.
Hold up, what’s an API?
API stands for Application Programming Interface. In essence, APIs exist to connect two applications together so that they can share data.
A traditional CMS bucket (templated page) has a singular use for a singular page, but Headless CMS buckets (cloud-based, API integrations) are designed to meet multiple needs across multiple devices.
By utilizing GraphQL, a query language for APIs, Lapero’s Headless Content Management Systems enable editors with content management and delivery to third-party systems.
In short, we’re talking about limitless device support, user reach and continuous updates. Content isn’t stored where it’s being presented and is treated like data – allowing a Headless CMS to pull the content in and provide one-to-many functionality, versus a traditional CMS’s one-to-one approach and scheduled CMS updates.
Why do I need a Headless Content Management System?
Utilizing a Headless CMS not only provides increased flexibility when developing and editing your website, but also provides incredible scalability when looking at the future of your website. It also makes sure your content is optimized for websites, web apps, e-Commerce and evolving digital experiences.
How fast is a Headless Content Management System?
Fast… like really, really fast. Headless Content Management Systems feature increased responsiveness and lower load times, thanks to their cloud-based API connectivity.
A Headless Content Management System’s decoupled architecture allows the frontend of a website to be hosted separately, and fetch its data from multiple APIs. The speed benefit comes from taking advantage of newer, UI rendering techniques in the frontend framework, such as Next. js and the frontend hosting can be performed on CDN nodes that are close in proximity to each site visitor, drastically cutting down on network latency.
Traditional Content Management Systems are stored on a managed server environment, which makes for higher load times and a ‘What You See is What You Get’ environment. Traditional Content Management Systems are limited in their device reach, so they function as one-to-one experiences, which can be slowed down drastically if the server environment is having technical difficulties.
Technical jargon aside, you’ll experience faster site editing, the ability to manage more content channels, enhanced site security, real-time development environments and easier site scaling on Headless CMS. Need we say more?
Headless Content Management Systems are the future – and the future is built to last.
Learn more about Lapero’s Headless CMS solutions by dropping us a line at [email protected] or give us a call at 813-336-2082.