Overview
Professional service businesses are trusted to provide a high standard of service to organisations and often their clients; but with it, they inherit a responsibility to be secure. That security starts with the technologies your business uses in the public domain, including your website and it’s integrated technology.
New technologies are disrupting the traditional way of building websites, making ‘out of the box’ web builders such as WordPress, with their thousands of proprietary vendors’, a thing of the past.
Instead, headless CMS systems are being employed to minimise the vulnerability to malicious attacks and to improve the final user experience.
Read on as we share our insights on how a headless CMS can keep the service sector secure while generating an engaging digital experience.
What is a ‘headless’ content management system?
Best described as a composable solution, a headless CMS leverages the composability of web technologies to create a bespoke website stack that meets the desired functionality, flexibility, and configuration required by the business.
For professional service providers, a headless CMS provides the opportunity to focus on the customer and their experience while still delivering a secure website. By taking back control of the selection of systems, with API and microservice providers, a headless CMS gives you the power to create a unique digital experience for both your clients and internal team.
Benefits of a headless CMS
Autonomy
The most obvious benefit of a headless CMS is that it gives you complete control over the technology stack and the environment in which your website runs. This means you can select best-of-breed software for each layer of the system.
However no matter the software you chose, the decoupled architecture and content delivery offer incredible advantages.
Security
By its very nature, a headless CMS is more secure than traditional systems as there are no plugins or themes that can be exploited. The approach decouples the front-end delivery layer from the back-end content management system, meaning businesses can secure their website against the most common ‘injection’ attacks, wherein the malicious code is injected into an application to take control.
Not only is a Headless CMS not susceptible to this type of attack, but it’s also possible to further protect against DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks that can take down an entire website. Again, this benefit drives from separating the front-end and back-end systems, and serving content from the edge using a Content Delivery Network.
Faster performance
Headless systems are not restricted by the need to render HTML pages on the server side. Instead, they can take advantage of server-side rendering. This reduces the time it takes for pages to load, as well as the amount of data that is transferred between server and client.
In competitive industries, the difference of a few seconds can be the difference between winning and missing out on six-figure opportunities. For mobile users especially, who expect a fast and responsive website experience, a three-second delay while loading a page can see up to 53% of visitors abandon the page.
It’s easy to see how revenue could be heavily impacted by flaws in legacy systems, either through lost opportunities or by reputational losses caused by security breaches.
Discoverability
Google’s web vitals are a set of page speed metrics used to determine how well a page performs. They are based on real-world data collected from users as they interact with websites.
If your website loads quickly, it will be rewarded with higher search engine rankings for queries related to your services. A fast website will also see an improvement in conversion rates as users are more likely to stay on the site, interact with the content and submit inquiries.
Customer Experience
A Headless CMS gives you complete autonomy on the structure and experience of your website, whereas traditional ‘out of the box’ systems limit your designs to reused templates that limit how your users interact with your site.
The ability to design a bespoke customer experience, that is unrivaled by your competitors, will give you a significant advantage when acquiring new customers. A Headless CMS would allow you to A/B test and implement functionality, that legacy systems would need complex workarounds or the use of multiple plugins that could slow down your website.
Scaleability
A headless CMS system is better seen as an investment in ongoing business development. Your business can capitalise on content marketing without the additional expense or time delays of employing developers every time you want to make a change, simply by designing an interface for your non-technical team members.
A traditional CMS system quickly becomes a burden as your website grows and the need for additional functionality increases. A Headless CMS can be integrated with any number of software applications meaning it will always have the flexibility to meet your business’s needs.
Summary
If your business is reviewing its digital experience and looking to utilise content marketing to generate new opportunities, then a headless CMS could be for you. Get in touch with our team today to find out more.
Read our recent Headless CMS project with CornerStone GRG here.
