The development of content management has evolved significantly over time. In the early 2000s, there were only a few digital channels available for content distribution. Digital content was primarily focused on websites, and the content itself (product data and backend) and its presentation (interface and frontend) were tightly integrated.
With the emergence of smartphones, tablets, digital displays, and other devices, there has been a sharp growth in available digital channels. Today, we have everything from traditional internet browsers to the Internet of Things and digital signage, from social networks to smart home appliances.
This multichannel reality paved the way for headless CMS, flexible content management systems that allow assembling various interfaces based on the same content and instantly connecting them to new promotional channels. At the same time, the challenge arose to create "universal" content. But how is it possible?
How does "structured content" work?
To make content universal and adaptable to different channels, it needs to be prepared or structured.
"Structured content" is organized considering all possible use cases and is typically classified using metadata.
In Animotech, metadata (sets of attributes, rules for their input and usage, and their relationships) are used to describe your products, forming a flexible structure. From this structure, you can assemble the necessary interfaces for each channel as if using a constructor.
For example, let's say your product is related to cooking. In such a situation, a natural content type would be a "recipe." It could be a field with formatted text for the recipe, but with additional metadata indicating where it is appropriate to use it (e.g., "breakfast," "lunch," or "dinner," as well as "meat," "vegetarian" dish, "dessert," etc.).
Using metadata, you can automatically determine where and in what format to deliver the recipe – to different parts of your website, as a textual recipe in a mobile app, on the screen of a connected steamer for preparing a special dish, or on external websites.
Structured content transforms into any channel.
Updating structured content doesn't require overhauling entire pages, blog articles, or mobile applications. In Content.Studio, we refer to this as the principle of atomic content design. When content is broken down into the smallest parts, you can change each part separately while still using the rest and without disrupting the integrity of content display in each channel.
Atomic content design is a content model in which structured content is broken down into the smallest components ready for reuse in larger contexts.
Benefits for businesses
Why is structured content and headless CMS essential for the future of your online sales?
Speed of launching new channels and delivering information to customers
Structured content and its automatic delivery open up new opportunities for businesses. Deliver up-to-date content to any point of digital interaction with customers and partners. Provide services and satisfaction, staying ahead of competitors.
Cost savings on development and marketing
Your marketing and IT teams will save time and resources by centrally creating, publishing, and maintaining content. There will be no need to rewrite a website for the new model of a popular smartphone or manually synchronize product descriptions and services in online channels.
Scalability
The future is fragmented: new customer interaction channels emerge every year, and competition grows. Implement changes without stress or IT system restructuring with Content.Studio.
Enhanced data security and quality
When content is centralized, structured, and has strict description rules, you automatically achieve a significant increase in data quality, a reduction in manual input errors, a decrease in the risks of attacks, and an improvement in data processing speed in all IT systems and services working with structured content.
