Revolutionizing the way digital marketers work, headless CMS has become a popular term thrown around in the industry since it emerged in 2015. In the simplest terms, a headless CMS allows for the separation in the process of creating and managing content from how it is presented on websites or applications.
This unique separation leads to enhanced flexibility to deliver content to various platforms and devices, which in turn allows for faster loading times and the ability to create customized experiences.
How it Works
Traditionally, digital marketers had to wait for their development team to push changes to the production site, leading to potential lag times and workflow interruptions. The advent of headless CMS platforms made this worry a thing of the past. Content creators and publishers can publish or edit new or existing content on their headless CMS, which in turn sends it to the main website via API integration. The development team creates the necessary sections for the content to populate.
Benefits for Organizations and SEO
The adoption of the headless CMS concept has presented an array of benefits for organizations and search engine optimization professionals.
It brings scalability to content production as SEO professionals have more freedom and collaboration abilities with content creators, allowing them to scale content across different platforms and channels with ease. The separation of the CMS and core web platform also leads to the creation of a more harmonious working environment, as SEOs can optimize content for visibility while development continues without disruption.
The headless CMS also comes with SEO-friendly integrations and features, including customizable URLs and structured data support, that aid SEOs to apply their strategies seamlessly. This ultimately strengthens online presence, creates better user experiences, and leads to improved search engine rankings.
Other benefits include enhanced web security, as the CMS separation protects the backend infrastructure from direct exposure to the internet, leading to faster load speeds and more efficient web applications.
What Google Thinks
Google is agnostic to which CMS is used, as per John Mueller, the Senior Analyst at Google. Google doesn’t look for specific CMS tools or signals to use in their algorithm, which limits the direct impact of headless CMS on SEO efforts.
SEO Best Practices for Headless CMS
To ensure maximum efficiency and productivity, certain practices can be employed while using a headless CMS.
Firstly, it is essential to make sure that schema, metadata, URL structure and titles transfer correctly when using headless CMS plugins. Developers can use API to pull these data points to ensure proper compilation.
Secondly, testing content for mobile-friendliness is crucial, as certain images may not translate well to the mobile format. Always make sure to spot-check content for mobile optimization before publishing.
Thirdly, content should be compiled to a webpage before fetching and rendering to ensure it includes all content and has minimal changes between the fetch and render stages.
Lastly, working with development teams to ensure that any new or updated content reflects dynamically in the XML sitemap boosts efficiency further.
Conclusion
In conclusion, headless CMS adoption is essential in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, leading to increased efficiency, collaboration, scalability, and customizability. The separation of the CMS from the core web application fosters a more harmonious working environment, creating a win-win situation for all involved parties.
We want to thank the thought leader John McAlpin as the source for this content and such awesome teachings on the subject, and we hope that this article can help you and your business! Here’s the link to his post: https://searchengineland.com/headless-cms-seo-success-428202
