The modern website strategy guide: How content infrastructure is accelerating digital products
The humble website has finally evolved. Gone are the days when companies built websites as a collection of published pages shaped by the rigid templates of legacy CMS. The modern website has emerged as a full application in its own right, designed to deliver the same sophisticated interactivity and immersive experiences typically seen in mobile applications and desktop software. Websites now offer greater opportunities for companies to leverage exciting new digital technologies to transform their business.
As business leaders shift the way they think about their websites, they’re also changing their approach to web development. In the past, websites were massive engineering projects with set budgets, timelines and launch dates. Each member of a temporary project team focused on contributing their own piece of the site from the perspective of their organizational silo. Once the site launched, everyone moved on to other projects. Typically, the website operated in maintenance mode until the next major “site refresh.”
A modern website is built like the thing it has become—a software product. When a website is treated like a product, it is supported by focus, resources, and long-term strategy. This enables it to continuously deliver value as business needs and user expectations evolve. As a living software application, the website product is built and managed by a team of cross-functional specialists that work on it full time.
Today’s website product teams favor modern practices and technologies that enable them to move quickly. Common approaches include agile development, which prescribes a flexible working style that enables product teams to continuously build and ship updates. New architectural approaches, such as microservices and serverless, help developers integrate best-in-class cloud services into their web applications to improve development speed and user experience quality.
One of these services is content infrastructure, an API-driven approach to delivering an ongoing pipeline of content throughout the website’s lifecycle. Content infrastructure enables developers, content editors, designers, and stakeholders to work together to continuously ship updates to keep the website working hard for the business.
As a result, end users get a regular cadence of fresh content that keeps them engaged. Developers are free to focus their talents on building software without having to deal with the complexities of legacy CMS. Content creators and editors get self-service control over their narratives and can push content live in real time without needing support from engineers.
If you are looking to modernize your website strategy, download our new white paper: The modern website strategy guide: how content infrastructure is accelerating digital products.
You’ll learn:
The product-centric approach to building websites
How traditional CMS hinders fast software delivery
Key technology trends and best practices favored by website teams
The role of content infrastructure in modern web development
We hope the information presented in the white paper is valuable to you. Please feel free to contact us with any further questions about Contentful, content infrastructure or the modern approach to web development.
