Alternatives to a traditional CMS
Okay. So you don’t want to use a traditional CMS. Good call. But what can you do instead?
Here are two options that will solve all of your CMS woes.
Alternative #1: Use a static website
At the beginning of the internet, the static website was the only option.
No one knew what the heck a CMS was yet. And they didn’t care.
They just learned the language of computers and designed a website that did what they wanted it to do. But, over time, marketers and salespeople and entrepreneurs wanted to be able to design their own websites without spending years learning the language of their robot counterparts.
Which is exactly why and when the CMS was created. The traditional CMS was built to cater to people who wanted to easily build, run, and maintain their website.
And, to some degree, that worked. But more and more people started becoming interested in static websites as the awareness of tradition CMS solutions, and their shortcomings skyrocketed. Here’s the Google Trends interest data in “static website generator.”
A static website is great… for some businesses.
If you’re the kind of business that only makes monthly changes to your website and you have a reliable front-end developer who can make these changes for you quickly and easily, then a static website is a good option.
As interest in static websites surges, so too does the market for them.
Jekyll is probably the most popular option for people interested in generating a static website. But Hexo is another option to consider and so is Hugo. The other thing you can do is simply hire someone to design a static website for you.
Copywriter Jacob McMillen uses a static website for his landing page.
He worked with a designer to create it, and it does exactly what he wants it to do. It ranks on Google for “expert copywriter,” and because of that, it consistently generates leads.
Jacob’s website works because he rarely publishes new content on it. If he does, he can simply reach out to a front-end developer and ask them to update it for him.
Of course, a static website won’t be for everyone. Most likely, your business’ website requires consistent iterations and content creation. If that’s you, then a static website just won’t cut it.
A static website will allow you to customize it however you like. But the disadvantage is that doing so is usually quite slow. It takes a long time to publish content since there’s no user interface to work with.
The solution?
A headless/cloud CMS.
Alternative #2: Use a headless or cloud CMS
What if there was a CMS with a helpful user interface that allowed for all of the customizations your front-end developers could possibly dream of? What if the CMS still allowed for easy content creation while also allowing UX and UI teams to use their full developer skillset?
Well, there is.
And it’s called a headless/cloud CMS.
Basically, it’s the customization potential of a static website mixed with the usability of a CMS. As you know, when it comes to CMSs, you have three options.
The first is a CMS that’s built in the cloud and managed by the vendor of your website. The seeming advantage of this solution is that your website will be flexible to change when you need to change it.
But the reality isn’t quite so compelling.
The reality is that any updated code that you send the vendor still needs to go through their processes to get tested, altered, or approved before the actual change is made. These vendors will often claim that the processes within their system are fast, but they likely aren’t. And your business will end up paying the price for that lack of agility.
In short, these CMSs are customizable but highly inefficient.
The second option you have is a basic, traditional CMS, which basically means you “buy” the technology – think Magento or Drupal.
We’ve already discussed many of the problems that these types of CMSs pose, such as website-slowing code discrepancies created by a convoluted mixture of themes, plugins, updates, and other web applications.
The CMS is packaged in a pretty box, but it doesn’t get the job done for a business that needs to move quickly. In fact, this kind of CMS makes building out your website more complicated than a website built by a front-end developer.
They are highly efficient, but only if you don’t want to make many customizations to your website. Which, if you want to build a successful business with a supporting website, you do.
And the third is the option you’ve been waiting for.
The majestic unicorn of all CMS solutions: the headless/cloud CMS. It offers a friendly UI combined with all of the customization potentials you could possibly want for your website.
By working with a front-end developer regularly who will help you make hefty changes to your website, a headless/cloud CMS will offer the developer what they want, the designer what they need, and the content creator what they require.
Most notably, a headless/cloud CMS will save you money in the long run.
How?
Because it incorporates multi-tenancy. Which basically means that since the website is built in the cloud, the processes for handling higher traffic and a bigger customer base won’t cost you any extra money like it would using a website hosted by a vendor.
Plus, your business will be able to efficiently make changes and keep up with the rapid pace of the internet — a requirement of any successful business today.
It’s still a CMS. Just not one that you’ll get stuck within.
Our platform has pre-built web applications – more than 80 of them – meaning that you can quickly deploy and easily maintain your website. Plus new features are added every week without the need to “update” on your end.
Headless CMS lets UX and UI developers to customize your website while also streamlining content creation and website maintenance. Which means you’ll stop losing customers because of a hefty load of confusing “solutions.”