The digital marketplace of 2024 places a critical demand on brands to transcend the confines of static, rigid templates and deliver exceptional, personalized customer experiences. Content Builder in Craft CMS emerges as a revolutionary tool, enabling businesses to create customized, engaging content without the constraints of coding. This innovation allows for the crafting of immersive experiences tailored to the unique needs and preferences of consumers, marking a significant leap towards greater flexibility and creativity in content creation.
The shift away from one-size-fits-all website templates to dynamic, personalized content reflects the evolving expectations of today’s digital audiences. With Craft CMS’s Content Builder, brands are empowered to construct captivating, code-free content landscapes, fostering deeper connections with their audience. This tool is indispensable for any brand aiming to stand out in the competitive digital environment of 2024, offering a pathway to crafting content that resonates and truly engages.
Why Do You Need a Content Builder?
Using Craft CMS’s Content Builder brings several key advantages that can transform how you create and manage content:
Making Content Creation Easy for Everyone:
Content creation isn’t just for developers anymore. A 2023 report from HubSpot shows that 74% of marketers see creating engaging content as their biggest challenge. The Content Builder lets people without technical skills, like marketers or business owners, jump into content creation. This change means quicker content updates, more flexibility, and content that really connects with your audience. Imagine your marketing team putting together dynamic landing pages or your sales team customizing product pages on their own, without needing a developer.
Letting Your Creativity Flow:
Forget being stuck with standard templates. The Content Builder gives you the freedom to drag and drop elements, designing layouts that show off your brand’s personality and meet your audience’s interests. Use text, images, videos, forms, and more to create anything from interactive landing pages and personalized product showcases to engaging blog posts or fun learning modules. This tool lets your creativity shine, helping you stand out.
Boosting Your Website’s SEO:
In today’s online world, being visible on search engines is crucial for drawing in organic traffic and leads. The Content Builder helps you cleverly include keywords, headings, and links in your content. This not only engages your audience but also boosts your site’s search engine ranking, bringing more potential customers your way. Great content leads the way, and the Content Builder equips you to craft content that’s both engaging and discoverable.
Building Your Content Piece by Piece:
Here’s how to make the most of the Content Builder:
Choosing Your Tools:
Craft CMS offers a wide range of field types to help you put your content together. There are Matrix fields for flexible layouts, Rich Text fields for stories, Assets for beautiful visuals, and even Live Data fields for up-to-date content. Picking the right tools is the first step to captivating your audience.
Mapping Out Your Content:
Before you start creating, take some time to plan. Think about the layouts you want, identify elements you might reuse, and consider how to guide users through their journey on your site. Know what your audience enjoys, set clear goals for your content, and understand how it fits into your wider marketing strategy. Good planning makes sure your content always lands well.
Making It User-Friendly:
Design with your audience in mind. Aim for layouts that are easy to get around on any device, use visual cues to draw attention, and make sure your calls to action stand out. The best content looks great, is easy to access, and gets users to take action.
Adding Extra Features:
Take your Content Builder further with plugins. Look into SuperTable for detailed layouts, Feed Me for auto-updating content, or Formidable for interactive forms. Plugins are your secret weapon, enhancing your Content Builder and giving you new ways to connect with your audience.
By making content creation more accessible and allowing for greater creativity, Craft CMS’s Content Builder is essential for businesses aiming to make an impact in the digital world of 2024.
Real-World Success Stories:
See how the Content Builder has already made a big difference for businesses and their customers:
RedSky Travel
This popular adventure travel agency started using the Content Builder to make unique landing pages for each travel destination. These pages have fun interactive maps, custom trip plans based on what the visitor likes, and forms that update in real time to let you book your adventure right away. This approach makes it easier for travelers to find exactly what they’re looking for, leading to more people reaching out to book trips. In fact, RedSky Travel’s inquiries went up by 30% after they began using the Content Builder, proving it’s a game-changer for offering personalized experiences and getting more bookings.
Green Thumb Garden Supply
This online gardening store uses the Content Builder to put together product pages that not only look great but are also interactive. They feature galleries full of images, detailed specs, and care guides for plants that change based on where the customer lives. This hands-on way of showing products boosts customer interest, helps them understand products better, and, most importantly, increases sales. Green Thumb Garden Supply noticed a 25% increase in the value of the average order after bringing in the Content Builder, showing how it can make product pages more engaging and encourage customers to spend more.
Crafting the Future with Galaxy Weblinks
In 2024, making your website stand out is crucial. With Craft CMS, you can create a site that really connects with your audience. This isn’t just about technology; it’s about bringing your digital vision to life.
Galaxy Weblinks is here to help you do just that. We have the expertise in Craft CMS to help you build a website that not only looks great but also engages your visitors. Think of us as your partner in making your website more than just another URL.
Ready to make your website truly engaging? Get in touch with Galaxy Weblinks. Let’s make your site something special together.
We are not saying that we do not like WordPress but old man has to move the order to pave way for new and what better than Craft CMS to do so.
The key difference is how both the CMSs approach development. WordPress is a have-it-all and pick what you need approach, while Craft is ripped to basics so that you have a blank slate to build what you need.
Craft CMS is minimalistic, it’s simple, it’s dynamic, and offers key features. In fact, our developers have chosen right and wrong enough times to pick a final side.
You might not believe us right away so here’s what made us a fan.
Fields in Craft
Craft is a boon if you love neat organization. With Custom Fields you can get second level of control over your content type. Different content types ask for different formatting and layouts. Custom Field lets you define those types.
Craft’s Custom Fields & Sections make it easier to manage different types of content while WordPress makes up for it using plugins like ACF (Advanced Custom Fields).
Matrix block model in Craft
Matrix is like Legos, you can use the building Blocks to create a desirable layout for your content. It is a fun way to create complex layouts with ease. The rearrangement of these blocks is even easier. The blocks can be rearranged with a simple drag and drop without affecting the code in the template. You can define field types in the blocks.
WordPress’ ACF plugin adopts heavily from the Matrix content blocks of Craft for custom layouts but it isn’t as efficient as the Matrix.
Live Preview in Craft
Craft’s Live Preview allows you to make changes in real time. You can see the changes as you make them. It splits the screen, showing you the changes in real time on one side of the screen while you make those changes in other.
Craft’s Live Preview lets you review the changes in real time while in WordPress you will have a separate tab open for every little change you make.
Sections in Craft
With Craft you can create different sections for different content types:
‘Single’ section for unique content requirement.
‘Channel’ section for streamlined content with an order.
‘Structure’ section for content type which follows a predefined structure.
As Homepages have unique content requirements, they’re made in the Single section. News and Case Studies need to be ordered by date so they are made in the Channel section while a page like Services needs a predefined structure which can be achieved in the Structure Section.
Craft completely focuses on Content Management and makes it easier for your users to consume content & design distinctively. WordPress on the other hand doesn’t have any such feature.
Localization in Craft
When in Rome, speak as Romans do. Because Craft conveniently lets you. Localization is a powerful Craft feature. It lets you present content on a website in a specific language to target specific audience. The feature proves to be very useful when your audience is of different nationalities. Localization can be achieved by setting up and enabling locales. You can simply switch to the desired locale from the sidebar of the edit entry section, even in a particular section.
Localization translates your page’s content according to your target audience. WordPress relies on heavy plugins that interrupt with the security too.
Relations in Craft
Craft’s relationship engine allows you to form relations between posts with entry fields. You can create relations within the entries. Make an entry field determine the field type and update the template code. Drag, Drop, done. It’s that easy in Craft.
Craft’s Relationship engine allows you to form relations between post types while in WordPress you will be creating a separate category and some PHP tweaks or a plugin.
One-Click Updates in Craft
Craft’s update feature is highly underestimated. It provides the critical updates vis-a-vis features, improvements, bug fixes, security enhancements, and plugins in a single easy-to-install package.
Whenever there is a new update in Craft, it will appear in the control panel as a notification badge. You can download the update just by clicking on the badge. Craft even takes the precautionary measure of taking a backup of your data before installing any update package. Pretty clever! Isn’t it?
You can just go through the brief about the bug fixes, security enhancements, and improvements which come with the package before actually installing the package.
Craft’s One-Click update feature literally updates everything in a single click while in WordPress you have to update every other element almost exclusively.
Security in Craft
Since Craft’s one-click update feature is so efficient, users don’t delay the most important part of keeping a CMS safe, Updates.
It’s just a matter of a click and Craft takes care of the rest.
Craft CMS provides freedom of customization, central update system, and state-of-the-art security, all at a one-time fee of $299. WordPress on the other hand is free, at least initially. For the added security — which is a necessity — you’ll have to pay up to $500/month.
Looking at the vulnerabilities that the dependency on plugins bring, Craft CMS does not only look like a safe bet but also a smart decision.
Google recently announced Mobile-First Indexing after a year and half of extensive experimenting and testing. The search engine giant will start migrating sites that follow best practices for Mobile-First Indexing.
Google’s algorithm will now prioritize websites with a mobile version when searched from a smartphone. It will now consider mobile sites as the first node to the websites, especially when a query is fired from the mobile platform. This will surely increase the traffic for companies having mobile websites being crawled from the Smartphone Googlebot.
Websites that only have a desktop version will experience a major downfall in mobile traffic, even if they have a high ranking on the search engine because Google does not maintain separate indices for different version of the websites.
The websites using responsive web design or dynamic serving will generally be set for mobile-first indexing. For sites that have non-AMP and AMP pages, Google will prefer the mobile version of the non-AMP page for indexing. To make the change easier and smooth, Google will be notifying sites that are migrating to mobile-first indexing via Search Console.
What does it change for you?
Companies with ‘desktop-only sites’ will have downfall in their primarily mobile audience. It might not affect your ranking but you will need responsive websites and mobile-friendly content to perform better in mobile search results.
The update is a part of Google’s announcement that said that beginning in July 2018, slow loading content will perform less as Google will be optimizing for speed.
Long story short, you will have to make some amends!
For more details on how you can get your website optimized for better performance after the update, contact us.
When one of our clients introduced us to his friend’s London-based design agency, the one which cannot be named (Voldemort and NDA have things in common), it was a classic case of once bitten twice shy.
The first meeting with James, the CEO, made it clear that he was reluctant to hire a remote team. On one hand, he urgently needed an experienced team of developers. On the other hand, the last vendor left him pretty bruised and he wanted to avoid another ordeal. There were some projects left unfinished & stranded by their previous agency.
James was having a struggle managing clients and the deadlines. In addition to that, Kate, the Creative Director, needed someone “in or around London” this time.
Needless to say, we were not the ideal fit demographically.
After the first round of conversations, it was clear that even though they were convinced with our proposal and portfolio, they were still not keen for a distributed team. But we really wanted to work with James and Kate. We loved their working style, the communication was coherent, and our value systems matched perfectly.
Amidst all the skepticism around, we went on and proposed a pilot project to James & Kate.
It was just the right thing to do.
Season 1 Episode 1: The Pilot
It was an incomplete WordPress Web Development gig and Kate was dealing with an anxious client. The designs were ready, wireframes were approved, and the initial layouts were finalized.
But as the last vendor ghosted, Kate needed a team of designers & WordPress developers to get going. She couldn’t find a reliable resource for simple tasks like plugin development et al. She contacted several WordPress freelancers and dev shops but they were either too expensive or hard to communicate with. Some offshore vendors went so far that they were willing to do the work for free just to get the business. That almost made her feel suspicious on their abilities. The search was turning into a struggle.
When we got in touch, we made her feel like her inhouse team. The communication was crisp and process was as transparent as it could possibly be. We set the expectations from beginning and assigned a team that included a project manager along with a dedicated team of developers and designers. The tasks, small or big, were done pretty quickly.
Kate’s expression was almost this.
‘One exclusive team for every project’ is our mantra.
Our developers provided with responsive and clean HTML codes. The designs were perfectly rendered and the teams got the website running up and tight after a few rounds of iterations.
Kate approved the project!
The Chemistry of the Crew
Kate could effectively communicate with the Project Manager and as they were in constant touch during all the development phases. There were zero communication hassles. Even though the teams were in different timezones, Kate was able to track & manage each and everything happening in the project. The feedbacks were quick and the sprints were managed effectively. She never felt that the team working is 1000s of miles away.
Spielberg even called to praise the casting.
All of this was possible due to our proprietary project management software. More on it later in our exclusive next special. Hit the follow button and watch this space for more.
The Season Contract
The pilot took off well and we all were ready for a great season ahead. We signed further contracts for small to medium sized projects over the next few months. The projects varied from simple landing pages to built-from-scratch custom WordPress sites.
James and Kate had some quick client projects that were awaiting finalisation and an extended development team just made everyone’s life easier.
Here’s the cherry on the cake, amid the hustle that client projects were, James realized that having us alongside gave him a window for bigger and better projects. He had been postponing expansion owing to absence of a consistent development partner. As the design and development partnership seemed working out this season, he opted for a spin-off.
We scheduled a quick meeting and finalized the agreement. This was the smoothest negotiation in the history of negotiations and we closed the deal.
Also, the partnership gave Kate more time to focus on design. Lesser woes, more creative freedom, and a collective sigh of relief.
Coming Up Next
Post the partnership, our first gig is quite up close and personal. James and Kate are redesigning the agency’s website and we are handling the development duties. We are not only working on their new website but will also team up for client projects simultaneously. HTML conversions, mock-ups, design elements, and web development & maintenance services remain the central plot.
The Cliffhanger
If you wanna know what eventually happened with James and Kate, stay with us here to get the inside story right away.
