Chopping the head off of something can be effective, if not a little off putting, and whenever you are thinking about a headless CMS system (a headless content management system) then you might be a little worried about what you are going to attach to your website. However, a headless CMS is one of the best ways to manage your content and ensure that your website is always up to date.
Before we delve into what a headless CMS is, we need to look at what a CMS is, and then learn about the differences between a traditional content management system and a system without its head. The traditional CMS approach takes all of your content and such as images, webpages, HMTL pages, and more, and then all of that content is stored into one big bucket that is co-mingled with the code of the website.
Then, all of that content is manually entered into a page template and then is sent to your website. This is all well and good, except that all of your data is still intermingled with the code of the website. This means that all of your data can only go to your website, and not on phones, tablets, or other devices. This can be a problem if you need to get your content out on multiple devices.
How Can Being Headless Help?
The term ‘headless CMS’ is a back end only content management system, which separates the front end or head of the website from everything else. Instead with a headless CMS, the content is stored in unstructured buckets and then the APIs take over. Instead of manually moving the items over to your website, various APIs work to move your content to any digital channel that you want. A phone, a computer, a smartwatch, or a tablet.
A Headless CMS allows you to manage all your content in one place while not being tied to just a website on your front end. Instead, you can put all your content on your website on your phone if you want to. This is great if you have a website where a large percentage of your users are finding their content on their mobile devices.
A Headless CMS will give you the limitless potential for how your content can and cannot be displayed, unlike simply posting your content to a website where you have a very tight leash on how you can display all your content.
It All Comes To APIs
Now, if the Headless CMS is headless, then you might wonder how to get the data from the CMS to the frontend system of the website. This is where APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) come in because they are the bridge that connects the back end to the front end, allowing everyone to exchange data. If you have a good API, then that makes your headless CMS even more effective.
Can You Use A Headless CMS With Structured Content?
If you have unstructured content, which is content that cannot be broken down into smaller blocks that can be repurposed across the various channels, then you will have trouble with a headless API. Because the unstructured content is mingling with the content and code that creates the webpage, so you only can post it on the website on your computer.
However, structured content can be broken down into small and organized building blocks and it can be classified with the metadata of the webpage. These building blocks can be all the various elements of the page. Every image, description, webpage, your e-commerce information, definitions, and even more can be assembled to create the same webpage.
However, you can also take each one of these pieces and create dozens of different types of web pages, moving everything around in different positions to create different web pages. This is one of the benefits of structured data, and it works the best with a headless CMS because of the customization and personalization it offers among various devices.
Using Headless CMS For Your Content
If you want to make your content endlessly reusable and customizable for your audience, then having a headless CMS will be the best for you. Plus, it will be easier to manage and update your website for all of the available devices, not just the computer version of the website. So don’t be afraid to connect your business to a contentful agency to ensure that your content gets to where it needs to go, no matter the platform.
