Five things your next website needs
The year is 2023, and the website you acquired four years ago has aged. You haven’t altered it since it was first implemented, it’s starting to need a facelift, and you are considering a replacement.
TL;DR [too long; didn't read] 🤯
Your next website needs to be
- Accessible
- Composable and scalable
- Reusable (with content modelling)
- Governable (with roles and permissions)
- Integrated (with APIs and webhooks)
You can’t deny that your website has served you well, but there are a few things you’d like to add to the front-end to help it compete in the marketplace, and your digital team have a wish list as long as their arm for changes to the back-end CMS.
- The sales team wants a modern website that will delight your customers.
- The developers want the freedom to work in the languages and frameworks they prefer using.
- The leadership team want a website that can grow with your company.
- The website editors want their experience to be slicker and more efficient.
That’s a small wishlist to make everyone happy, at best.
It’s hard to know what more you might need from a new website without doing research, so we’ve done the legwork to provide the top five things you need with your next website project.
They’re not nice to have; they are more of a need and necessity to help your business get ahead of the competition and meet your goals and objectives.
Let’s dive into the top five things a modern website needs.
1. Accessibility
If nothing else, your website and content management system (CMS) must be digitally accessible to the consumers, the editors and the developers of your website.
So many organisations overlook digital accessibility, but offering inclusive and accessible user experiences with a website shouldn’t be a nice to have.
Accessibility is something we’re passionate about and is never truly done; you need to constantly work on, test and improve to ensure you’re always inclusive to all web users. What might look nice on a website to an everyday web user could hinder the ability of a disabled user to access your product and services.
Basics such as correct heading structure, alt-text prompts and page validation all ensure you’re working to create a more inclusive web experience for your website visitors. But also having an accessible back-end website means you’re not excluding anyone in your team from working on your website, too.
If you’re unfamiliar with accessibility or unsure how to get started, we have plenty of resources to point you in the right direction.
2. The ability to adapt and scale
Next up isn’t one particular feature of your next CMS but a collection of features. A platform that can adapt and grow as your organisation does is essential if you want your website and digital presence to keep evolving as you do.
For example, having multiple websites or “projects” in your CMS gives flexibility for the future and a single place to manage all your content. Keeping track of numerous passwords to different systems to access your website, intranet, apps, and microsites will be a thing of the past.
Have a multi-national brand? Then you’ll probably want multilingual capabilities in your central CMS, too.
Scalable CMSs are often called composable or API-first; they have a headless CMS architecture that allows you to plug and play your CMS with other systems.
API: An application programming interface, or API, is a software interface that connects an application with other applications and services. They are used to communicate, integrate, exchange, and relay data. For example, the Management API in Contensis allows you to import content from your favourite external apps and services such as Google Sheets.
APIs grant access to specific parts of an application – usually the parts that the creators of the application think other developers will want to use – and normally require a unique code, or "key", to work. This increases security whilst reducing the development work required to get data into and out of the application.
These are just a few features that give your business room to grow. By choosing a website and CMS that can scale as your organisation does, you can continuously improve your digital presence to exceed customer expectations.
3. Content reuse
Ever heard of the term, ‘work smarter, not harder’? Content reuse, or content modelling, takes that phrase seriously.
It’s a game changer for large organisations with loads of repetitive content. Gone are the days of repeating the same information in multiple places, only to find that when an address or phone number changes, you must find them all and update them manually—a content editors' nightmare.
Not with content modelling; it’s an underrated feature that makes your website's editing experience more efficient and enjoyable.
New to content modelling? It’s a simple concept to model and map your website's content, so you have reusable chunks of information that you can use on landing pages, blogs, and product pages. The possibilities are endless.
Our webinar on demand can introduce you to the basics of content reuse.
Breaking your content down into smaller chunks is fundamental to making your content easy to reuse and manage across your websites or applications.
4. Roles and permissions
Hands up if you have multiple users and editors on your website, but not all those website editors were born equal. It happens; not everyone will be part of the core digital team that manages the web content. Still, they need access to update particular product pages, add blogs, or simply spot a typo and want to amend it.
It can cause headaches and hassle trying to gatekeep your content, but with roles and permissions, you can keep your web content on brand all day long. Need a digital paper trail of who has edited what and when? With roles and permissions, you have just that. Content governance just got easier.
Roles specify what level of access they have in the CMS, whether they’re the site admin or just a page viewer. And permissions specify where they can edit, publish or approve content.
When hundreds of staff members access your website, roles and permissions are a godsend.
5. APIs and integrations
Last but not least are APIs and integrations. The modern feature every CMS needs and every marketing, digital and development team wants.
APIs [Application Programming Interfaces] are changing the website game; they’re powerful and robust and improve the lives of developers and digital teams.
Content APIs make it easy to get content in and out of your CMS, whether you want to use content from other systems or software, such as your previous CMS, to make migration easier. Or you want to link up your CMS with your third-party apps, such as your CRM, e-commerce catalogue and ERP systems, for a seamlessly integrated tech stack; APIs make it happen.
APIs, integrations and webhooks make day-to-day working life easier and slicker. Who doesn’t want to be notified in Slack when their website has had a web form filled in with an enquiry?
Composable or API-first, headless CMS’ make it easier to integrate and scale your website without overhauling and redeveloping the site when new functionality is required.
Wrap up
Modern websites need these functions and features to adapt and change as the rest of the world does.
Make sure your next website is evolving by referring to this list for the top five things your next website and CMS need when the time comes for a new one.
If you’d like advice on choosing your next CMS, our team would be happy to help.
