Articles - Page 37

Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

janus-boye

New partnerships continue to emerge across the digital stack, and CMS platforms are reaping the benefits. Recently, SEMrush, a leading search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing platform <a href="https://www.semrush.com/news/semrush-and-yoast-announce-integration-partnership/">announced a strategic partnership with Yoast</a> – the most popular and widely-used SEO plugin for WordPress.
The partnership kicks off with an updated release of Yoast’s SEO plugin for WordPress, the leading open source content management system (CMS). Yoast SEO will now feature a tight integration with SEMrush’s extensive keyword database and SEO services, giving Yoast users access to smarter, SEO-focused keyword suggestions and data within the CMS post editor – and enhancing search engine indexability to drive qualified traffic.
For the <a href="/gutenberg-2-years-later-is-wordpress-better-off/">WordPress</a> community, Yoast is practically a household name. For years, this handy plugin has enabled users to control a multitude of attributes across websites, including meta descriptions, keywords, titles, and more. Yoast has proven to be a go-to solution for driving traffic from major search engines like Google and Bing to leading social media channels like Facebook.
SEMrush has long been regarded as a trusted brainstorming tool for keyword strategy. With standout features such as link building and site auditing, SEMrush provides users with a go-to checklist of features and capabilities for improving technical and on-page SEO.
“At a time when all businesses are becoming even more reliant on their digital strategy to thrive and survive, it is hard to overstate the significance of this partnership between SEMrush and Yoast, two highly regarded names in SEO,” said Eugene Levin, SEMrush’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We are thrilled to announce the seamless integration of one of the largest keyword databases on the market with Yoast’s unrivaled reach into WordPress-powered sites. As many of SEMrush clients run websites with WordPress, this partnership is an important one for our customers. We look forward to cooperating further with Yoast to help as many people as possible become the best digital marketers they can be.”
Yoast founder and Chief Product Officer Joost de Valk added, “As more and more people get online, we see that these people need help with keyword research. Previously we could not give our customers information regarding how people search, specifically which related searches there are for important search terms. Our integration with SEMrush not only makes this possible, it shows it right when and where you need it. I look forward to building out this feature to help people write better content, faster.”
In order to benefit from the new features in the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, users will need to have either a free or premium SEMrush account. The full set of SEMrush features available in Yoast SEO will help customers access related keywords that are similar to a user’s query, gather useful metrics for every keyword, and uncover new keyword ideas for their content.
You can download the Yoast SEO plugin <a href="https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/">here</a>.
Sign up for a free or premium SEMrush account <a href="https://www.semrush.com/signup/">here</a>.

SEMrush and Yoast Partner to Enhance WordPress SEO and Digital Marketing

paris-tuzun

If you’re a child of the 1980s – or just a fan of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80057281">Stranger Things</a> – you might remember the directory sign at your local mall. It was the one place you could find exactly what you were looking for in a sea of stores, and they’re still a fixture to this day.Unfortunately, most site searches can’t even get you to the food court. In many cases, you’re left sifting through a morass of results, wondering if you’ll ever find your way to that rad new pair of acid-washed jeans.Like malls, site search has been around for a long time. But now, it’s becoming an even more vital part of the digital experience. After all, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/search-and-you-may-find/">more than half of people are now “search dominant</a>”, meaning they will use a website’s search over the navigation to find what they’re looking for.From an SEO perspective, navigation is key. But modern search tools can add a complementary layer of insights and analytics. These cutting-edge, AI-driven technologies can energize your marketing by understanding how your customers are searching – not just what they’re searching for.One of the best site search tools we’ve seen is Swiftype, which was <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/09/elastic-acquires-swiftype/">purchased by Elastic in 2017</a>. This powerful SaaS platform has positioned itself as a clear leader in the site search landscape and has evolved to include app search and a host of other features.In this article, we’ll take a close look at Swiftype’s features and explore how you can customize your search results, leverage analytics, and even build marketing strategies within the platform. It’s like a mall for best-of-breed site search capabilities – and we’ll show you exactly where to shop.<h3>Goodbye, Google Search</h3>Back in the day, Google Site Search was the defacto standard. Not only was it easy to implement, but it brought the world's leading search technology down to the website level. Unfortunately, Google deprecated the service in 2018, forcing thousands of websites to scramble for a new solution.Quite a few niche players answered the call, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.algolia.com/">Algolia</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cludo.com/">Cludo</a>, and others. Enterprise brands also muscled their way into the game, with <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/">Amazon CloudSearch</a> and Google Search Console offering alternatives.What was missing was the best of both worlds – a cost-effective, cloud-based service that offered core site search with scalable enterprise features. That’s where Swiftype comes in.<h3>What is Swiftype?</h3>Swiftype is a cloud-based SaaS platform that enables organizations of all sizes to create and manage a tailored search experience with real-time feedback, user insight, and search trend analytics. Users are able to monitor which content visitors are searching for and which results they’re engaging with as they browse your website.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-analytics-dashboard.png" />Swiftype is incredibly easy to install and customize. Once you sign up and enter your website’s address, Swiftype automatically indexes your site and renders your custom search engine in real-time. In addition to providing a “marketer friendly” no-code experience, Swiftype also gives advanced developers access to resources including their API.Swiftype offers two main products – Site Search and App Search – which can be added to websites and CMS platforms. We’ve explored both in more detail below.<h3>Swiftype Site Search</h3>Swiftype Site Search provides all the tools you need to deliver more relevant search results for your website users. It's simple to set up and use, and has some dynamite out-of-the-box features, including:<ul><li>Autocomplete: Guide users to the content, answers, or products that matter most with real-time results – right as they type.</li><li>Search Refinements: Dynamically expand on simple search, allowing your users to refine results by attributes such as date, price, author, location, or content type.</li><li>Comprehensive Documentation: Swiftype has clear and simple guides that can help you build the perfect search experience. You'll have all the materials you need to become a master of high value search experiences.</li><li>Advanced Search Algorithm: Powered by AI/ML, Swiftype Site Search is built on an advanced search algorithm that delivers relevant results for even the most complicated queries.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-site-search-features.png" /><ul><li>Search Controls and Analytics: Site Search surfaces the most important data points and performance indicators for your search. It also gives you the tools to take action and improve performance, including patented technologies that allow you to tweak your search engine’s output globally or on a per-query basis.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/search-controls-and-swiftype-analytics.png" /><ul><li>Developer Tools: One of Swiftype’s strengths is its ability to appeal to marketers with a no-code experience. But it also provides a robust, developer-friendly API for creating custom record schemas, indexing data in real-time, embedding search into any user interface (such as a website or CMS), and programmatically tracking events. You can view the API documentation <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/overview">here</a>.</li><li>Real-time Search Analytics: Swiftype allows you to see what your users are searching for, clicking on, and engaging with as it happens – so you have more actionable insight about their behaviors. With its powerful real-time search analytics, you can track the highest performing content on your website or app, assess which autocomplete queries are most popular, and learn what content was most commonly chosen from autocomplete suggestions.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/real-time-search-analytics.png" /><ul><li>Tracking conversions and autocompletes: Search conversions tell you where your users go after performing a search.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tracking-conversions-and-autocompletes.png" /><ul><li>Find out What Users Aren’t Finding: Swiftype shows you common searches that return no results – so you can optimize your content strategy. Swiftype’s custom result ranking feature lets you add results to these search terms to help visitors find more of what they’re looking for.</li></ul><h3>Swiftype App Search</h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-app-search.jpg" />While Site Search provides a powerful solution without a steep learning curve, Swiftype App Search goes deep with developers. You get access to a robust set of APIs that allow you to customize your search experience – all backed by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.elastic.co/elastic-stack">Elastic Stack</a>.Swiftype App Search harnesses the power of Elasticsearch, built on the constantly improving foundation that Elastic provides. It includes features like typo-tolerance, stemming, bigram and phrase matching – as well as search customization capabilities like Curations, Weights, Boosts and Synonyms.Together, these tools help you fine-tune relevance based on your business objectives in conjunction with data from App Search’s Analytics platform.Other key features include:<ul><li>Real-time Analytics: Measure how users interact with your search engine and track everything in real-time, revealing unique insights into user behavior.</li><li>Relevance Tuning: The App Search Dashboard makes relevance tuning as simple as point-and-click. Make customizations in the web-based interface and preview their impact in real-time – all with no code.</li><li>Schemaless Indexing: App Search supports dynamic schemas and real-time reindexing. Simply send JSON to the API and Swiftype analyzes it for whatever search application you build.</li></ul>You can see the full list of App Search features <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/app-search/features">here</a>.<h3>How to Add Swiftype Site Search to Your Website</h3>One of Swiftype’s main selling points is its ease of installation – and based on our experience, it delivers as billed.Swiftype’s website claims it takes as little as five minutes, and for the essentials, that was pretty much spot on. The tools were a quick study, and the interface is clean and lightweight, making it pleasant to work in.To set up Swiftype on your website, you first need to <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/users/sign_up">create your account</a>, then an Engine (short for “Search Engine”). After beginning your Site Search trial, enter your website's URL when prompted.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-create-engine.png" />Once the scan is successful, provide your Engine with a name and select its default language. You can choose from over 13 different languages, including English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and German. For the full list, see Swiftype’s documents on <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/crawler-configuration/language-optimization">language support</a>.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-choose-engine-language.png" />The final step is adding the search experience to your website. Once you click on the Installation button, you’ll need to configure the design of your Search Field and Result Container. From there, you can choose how to style your results, configure autocomplete, and tune an array of options.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-style-your-results-and-other-configurations.png" />Once you have the basic configuration in place, you’ll receive an embeddable JavaScript snippet. Place that snippet on each webpage to enable the search. The snippet will look like this:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-javascript-snippet.png" />And that’s it. If you’re savvy and committed, it can take just a few minutes – and that’s pretty slick.<h3>How to Add Swiftype Site Search to Your CMS</h3>Content management systems often miss the mark on their own search capabilities. By adding Swiftype, you can instantly improve a CMS experience and add your CMS content automatically using Swiftype’s <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/tutorials/add_search_to_any_cms">Site Crawler</a>.On the more advanced end, you can even set up callbacks that can be used to hook into content, alerting Swiftype that new content is available to index.While the installation process is relatively straight-forward – and works well for most CMS platforms based on their documentation – there are a few more steps involved. But Swiftype offers some great <a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/tutorials/add_search_to_any_cms">step-by-step guidance</a> to build out the experience.<h3>Customer Support</h3>Swiftype offers broad customer support, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.g2.com/products/swiftype/reviews">according to the reviews</a>, it offers one of the best experiences around.Swiftype Standard and Pro support is focused on making sure your Swiftype Engine is working as expected – and is fully available. To that end, they offer:<ul><li>Analysis of the state of your engine</li><li>Actions you can perform to stabilize or tune your engine</li><li>Pointers to Swiftype documentation or forums if your question is outside the scope of the platform itself</li></ul>Elastic reported their response time and hours below:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-customer-support-plans.png" />In addition, they provide a lively community of support for Swiftype users. With the community forums, you can get your more in-depth questions answered.<h3>Pricing</h3>Swiftype has two separate plans for Site Search and App Search. The Site Search plan starts at $79/month and App Search starts at $49/month.Site Search:There are three plans for site search: Standard, Pro, and Premium.The standard plan gives you all the core search features and analytics, as well as multilingual support.With the Pro plan, your website gets crawled twice a day instead of once per week. Additionally, you get cross-domain search and PDF/document indexing.The Premium plan is their enterprise-level search and security.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-site-search-plans.png" />App Search:Just like the Site Search plans, Swiftype’s App Search plans offer Standard, Pro, and Premium Packages.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/swiftype-app-search-plans.png" /><h3>Conclusion</h3>While good navigation is important, people always seek the path of least resistance. That’s why site search is so essential: it enables more control over intent, allowing a user to search for specific content quickly and easily – and even discovering new stuff along the way. In that sense, it’s another layer in your personalization strategy.While Swiftype is easy to set up, marketer- and developer-friendly, and offers a broad range of tools, it’s not the cheapest solution on the market. But if you’re looking for a platform that makes search a more strategic part of your experience, Swiftype is at the top of the list. It offers unmatched control and scalability, and brings more power and presence to site search as a strategic asset. With world-class customer support to boot, it’s really a solid platform on every level.You can start a <a target="_blank" href="https://app.swiftype.com/signup?product=ss">free</a> trial today. Acid-washed jeans not included.<h3>About Swiftype</h3><a target="_blank" href="https://swiftype.com/">Swiftype</a> is a search and index company based in San Francisco, California, that provides search software for organizations, websites, and computer programs. Notable customers include AT&amp;T, Dr. Pepper, Hubspot and TechCrunch. Swiftype's site search can be used for faceted search, full text search, real-time search, and concept search queries. The company's plans offer on-demand and live recrawls and indexing of websites. Other features include drag-and-drop result customization, real-time analytics and adjustable weights. In an effort to further grow outside of site search, Swiftype introduced an enterprise search service in February 2017.<h3>About Elastic</h3><a target="_blank" href="https://www.elastic.co/">Elastic</a> builds software to make data usable in real time and at scale for search, logging, security, and analytics use cases. Founded in 2012, the company develops the open source Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash), X-Pack (commercial features), and Elastic Cloud (a SaaS offering). Elastic is used by organizations including Cisco, eBay, Goldman Sachs, NASA, Microsoft, Mayo Clinic, The New York Times, Wikipedia, and Verizon to power mission-critical systems.

Swiftype Review: Add Powerful Elastic Search to Websites, Apps and CMS Platforms

By Janus Boye, <a href="https://boye-co.com">Boye &amp; Co</a>
There’s a million different ways to select a new content management system and having been a part of the marketplace for the past two decades, I thought I had almost seen them all.
Still, the recent CMS selection as a part of the <a href="https://w3.org">World Wide Web Consortium</a> (W3C) redesign project was a different one. A project done out in the open, with a controversial tool selection and an emphasis on accessibility.
Given the public profile of the W3C, this naturally led to increased attention among agencies, analysts, vendors and other industry pundits alike.
<a href="https://craftcms.com/">Craft CMS</a> came out the winner, but let’s take a step-by-step look at what happened and see what others might be able to use in their own selection processes.
<h2 id="finding-a-modern-and-accessible-cms-starts-by-getting-some-help">Finding a modern and accessible CMS starts by getting some help</h2>
A good place to start to get an overview of this process is the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2019/11/website-redesign-rfp.html">W3C website redesign phase 1 RFP</a>. This was issued back in November 2019 and as you see, W3C asked for help with more than selecting a CMS. To quote from the project summary
<blockquote>“W3C is looking to incrementally redesign its Website and revise the information architecture”</blockquote>
As the customer, W3C asked for cost estimates on services like design, SEO, development and consulting on things like migration strategy. Objectives included:
<ul>
<li>Solidify brand authority, consistent design, uniform appearance</li>
<li>Create an engaging and easy to navigate experience</li>
<li>Increase engagement</li>
<li>Create a long-lasting partnership with a web design agency to continue to work with us as our needs and organization evolve</li>
</ul>
The specific requirements included this bullet with three sub bullets:

<ul>
<li>Provide advice on a modern replacement for the custom CMS used for the current site
<ul>
<li>We need a CMS that is long-lived and easy to maintain, because we run our systems for decades.</li>
<li>Full change histories identifying who made each change.</li>
<li>The CMS may need to enable collaborative editing</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

Finally, the RFP also included this sentence on budget:
<blockquote>“The average cost estimate of $200,000 is based on figures given by people who are in the ecosystem. We would like vendors to propose what they recommend even if it exceeds $200,000.”</blockquote>
Several agencies responded during December, including UK-based <a href="https://www.studio24.net/">Studio 24</a>.
Studio 24 which was awarded the contract in early February. Although slightly delayed by a few weeks, given the holidays, that’s not a much longer response time than many other projects.
If you look at the project tweets from W3C, you can see a more detailed timeline for selection
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card">
<blockquote>
Our W3C Website redesign RFP has now concluded. 
We awarded the project to <a href="https://twitter.com/studio24?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@studio24</a> who we are very much looking forward to working with. 
Thanks to the 31 other bidders for the excellent quality of their proposals.<a href="https://t.co/RCtmGY6VBn">https://t.co/RCtmGY6VBn</a>
— W3C (@w3c) <a href="https://twitter.com/w3c/status/1225796276555567105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
</figure>
You might also want to see the <a href="https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-website-redesign/2019Dec/att-0024/W3C_Website_redesign_RFP_Proposal_Studio_24.pdf">winning proposal from Studio 24</a> (PDF)
My take:
Nothing out of the ordinary in the opening. A high-profile customer. A reasonable budget to relaunch a notable website. The project pretty much looks like any other website redesign including a new CMS to power the website. Also worth mentioning, that a customer showing an ability to make decisions at the beginning is a good starting point.
<h2 id="cms-strategy-to-inform-the-selection">CMS strategy to inform the selection</h2>
The project kicked off in mid-March and following user group research and design discussions, then moved onto CMS strategy and requirements in May.
This led to the creation of a comprehensive <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/cms-strategy-and-requirements/">CMS strategy and requirements document</a>. This covers technical requirements, accessibility, content editing, forms, search and much more. 
There’s also a section on licensing models. To quote:
<blockquote>“W3C has a strong preference for an open-source license for the CMS platform.”</blockquote>
And later in the same chapter:
<blockquote>“We will consider commercial software that fits the requirements for W3C.”</blockquote>
The document also outlines questions to be answered for each potential system as well as a section on headless CMS and static site generators.
My take:
While there’s no set formula for how a CMS strategy should look like and any rules on required chapters, I found the work done here comprehensive and understandable, also by non CMS experts.
From the perspective of an analyst or customer, I would also consider the importance of the ecosystem around the system and the quality of the documentation. Depending on who you ask, some might also consider a look at company/community vision and roadmap. Are they aligned with what you want to achieve?
<h2 id="narrowing-down-the-shortlist">Narrowing down the shortlist</h2>
As the project moved forward, the time also came to narrow down the list of potential systems.
Given the public nature of the project, you can read more in this document: <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/w3c-cms-selection-process-update/">W3C CMS platform selection - full status update</a>. To quote from the chapter on shortlisting:
<blockquote>“We then looked at a series of CMSes from a high level. We looked at their marketing material to understand their philosophy and their main features; got a sense of the level of activity of their development team and community; scanned their user and developer documentation.
Based on this first review, we for example excluded all static site builders (e.g. Gatsby, Jekyll). Jekyll and Gatsby can have performance issues when building large sites, which we would rather avoid. Others such as Hugo are built on technology we are not familiar with in the studio.”</blockquote>
This led to a shortlist of three candidates, all based on the PHP technology stack familiar to the W3C:
<ul>
<li>Craft CMS</li>
<li>Statamic</li>
<li><a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/wordpress">WordPress</a></li>
</ul>
Later in the document, there’s strengths and weaknesses with each of the three finalists. To me they looked balanced, but I in particular noticed this sentence on WordPress:
<blockquote>“Because we have a lot of experience with WordPress, we are also very much aware of its limitations in the context of a project of this size and longevity.”</blockquote>
My take:
This is a phase of the project, which can be either extremely difficult without outside help or left to random circumstances. Working with an agency with real implementation experiences like Studio 24 provides valuable insights to finding the right system.
It’s refreshing to read how marketing material provides a starting point for understanding the systems. In other processes, industry analysts like Forrester, Gartner or Real Story Group are also pulled in to provide insights to making the technology decision. Either via their reports or through their analyst services.
According to Simon Jones, the Gartner Magic Quadrant was reviewed as a part of the process, although this wasn’t noted in the project documentation.
As a part of our conversation for this article, Simon also mentioned that the PHP technology stack was a big decider on limiting CMS choice. Using the tech stack to narrow down the list is quite common.
<h2 id="not-selecting-wordpress">Not selecting WordPress</h2>
Judging from the outside, it looks like the most controversial part of the process was removing WordPress from the final three.
In the <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/w3c-cms-selection-process-update/#the-review-process">CMS selection review process</a>, Studio 24 wrote this about the process they used to test the finalists:
<blockquote>“This is how we tested Craft and Statamic (we didn’t submit WordPress to that test as we already have extensive experience working with it).”</blockquote>
And later in the document this quote:
<blockquote>“We have already rejected the use of Gutenberg in the context of this project due to accessibility issues.”</blockquote>
A few weeks later in the <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/updates/weeknotes-11-sept/">CMS selection project weeknotes from 11 Sept</a>, there’s this sentence:
<blockquote>“We have shortlisted two CMS platforms at present.”</blockquote>
In other words: WordPress was out.
This created quite some debate in the community. Let’s look at the timeline:
<ul>
<li>24 September: WordPress Tavern - <a href="https://wptavern.com/w3c-drops-wordpress-from-consideration-for-redesign-narrows-cms-shortlist-to-statamic-and-craft">W3C Drops WordPress from Consideration for Redesign, Narrows CMS Shortlist to Statamic and Craft</a></li>
<li>25 September: Web consultant focusing on standards and accessibility Adrian Roselli expanded a Twitter thread to this post:  <a href="https://adrianroselli.com/2020/09/gutenberg-accessibility-costs-wordpress-the-w3c-work.html">Gutenberg Accessibility Costs WordPress the W3C Work</a></li>
<li>26 September: Member of the WordPress Accessibility Team Amanda Rush - <a href="https://www.customerservant.com/w3c-is-prioritizing-accessibility-over-its-open-source-licensing-preferences-why-is-that-a-bad-thing-again/">“W3C Is Prioritizing Accessibility Over Its Open Source Licensing Preferences”. Why is that a bad thing again?</a></li>
<li>27 September: Accessibility consultant and WordPress contributor Joe Dolson was cited in the WordPress Tavern article and published this piece as a response: <a href="https://www.joedolson.com/2020/09/the-w3c-drops-wordpress-from-consideration/">The W3C Drops WordPress from Consideration</a>.</li>
<li>29 September: WordPress Tavern with this update - <a href="https://wptavern.com/w3c-selects-craft-cms-for-redesign-project">W3C Selects Craft CMS for Redesign Project</a></li>
</ul>
Simon Jones from Studio 24 also responded with <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/updates/on-not-choosing-wordpress/">a separate update on not choosing WordPress</a>. This post includes chapters on the challenges of Gutenberg. Specifically, the issue with Gutenberg for agencies that create bespoke websites is the development process. To quote Marie Manandise from Studio 24:
<blockquote>“It is very difficult to create custom blocks and make it profitable. And that is due to the necessity of using React for making any changes, including simple ("front-end") changes to the markup rendered by Gutenberg.”</blockquote>
In the post, Simon also addressed the topic of licensing and the different types of open source.
This tweet also sums up the issues around front-end complexity or “Reactification of frontend development.”
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card">
<blockquote>
"The use of React complicates frontend build. We have very talented frontend developers, however, they are not React experts - nor should they need to be. I believe frontend should be built as standards-compliant HTML/CSS with JavaScript used to enrich functionality" <a href="https://twitter.com/simonrjones?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simonrjones</a>
— Ben Furfie (@frontendben) <a href="https://twitter.com/frontendben/status/1310137650955911168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
</figure>
My take:
It’s far from unusual for vendors or even champions of open source projects to respond negatively to not making the final cut. As a customer it’s good to be prepared for this and the tactics tend to come in different shapes and sizes.
In the case of a very public project done out in the open, it’s no surprise that the discussion made it to Twitter, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24596769">Hacker News with 100s of comments</a>, and other websites. Simon from Studio 24 spent quite a bit of time responding to different questions and comments.
To quote Simon Jones:
<blockquote>“it's not easy working in the open but it's a really good thing to do.”</blockquote>
Finally, it is worth noting that while the WordPress community came out loud, the Drupal community responded much more understandingly and with positive feedback, even though they were also not on the final shortlist.
<h2 id="the-importance-of-accessibility">The importance of accessibility</h2>
As is now clear, accessibility became a major theme in this selection process. Still, accessibility was not more of a decisive a factor as the development process for example.
According to Studio 24:
<blockquote>“The reason we had to spend so much time looking into accessibility is because information about the level of accessibility of software is very hard to come by. CMS developers themselves are often not in a good position to give that information. It requires a lot of time and niche expertise to make that assessment. And also because none of the CMSes out there fit the bill, we had to be creative in coming up with a solution to meet the accessibility requirement.”</blockquote>
There’s now also an <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/atag/report-tool/">ATAG Report Tool</a>, which was released in June. The tool helps evaluators report on the accessibility of authoring tools and guides you through the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) requirements.
The Web Accessibility Initiative (a working group in W3C) are trying to use this tool to help create a list of accessible authoring tools (e.g. CMSs). This list doesn't exist yet since they don't have enough data.
In a recent talk on <a href="https://talks.hiddedevries.nl/2AxSl2/advancing-authoring-tool-accessibility">advancing authoring tool accessibility</a> by Hidde de Vries he looks at how better “authoring tools” can improve accessibility (for content editors and for web users), and share some of the new resources that the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is working on.
My take:
These days, it’s far from unusual for accessibility to be a topic when it comes to website design, also due to government regulations. Still, it’s quite rare that editor accessibility is such a decisive factor in selecting which platform to choose.
When we covered this case study in our recent <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts">CMS Expert group</a> meeting, we talked about accessibility not being high enough on the list for most customers.
Kudos to W3C as a standards organization for raising the topic!
<h2 id="final-thoughts-improving-the-cms-marketplace">Final thoughts: Improving the CMS marketplace</h2>
In our conversation with the CMS Experts, several vendors said that their clients are asking more and more for an accessible CMS. This increased focus on accessibility is now visible on roadmaps and will hopefully lead to tangible improvements soon.
On the agency side, one of the Boye members had to switch the CMS at the last minute in order to use an accessible tool.
As a community, we are big fans of this type open of sharing and reflection. While vendors move quickly and clearly keep innovating, more openness about the process can help us all push the marketplace forward.

What can we learn from the W3C CMS selection process

Contentstack, a headless Content Experience Platform (CXP), has <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/partnership-with-gatsby-to-build-fast-enterprise-mach-enabled-websites">announced</a> a strategic partnership with Gatsby – a modern React-based, open source framework for creating high-performance websites and applications. The partnership will enable customers to leverage the combined power of both platforms to build high performance, blazing-fast websites to deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences at scale.
The partnership between Gatsby and Contentstack is the latest in a year of significant moves across the CMS landscape, including the <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">recent purchase of Optimizely by Episerver</a>. As competition continues to increase, platforms are seeking more strategic avenues – including partnerships – to position their offerings.
For Contentstack, Gatsby represents a powerful channel of opportunity for accelerating website performance with a headless CMS that is purpose-built for omnichannel experiences. The partnership offers an enterprise-class, cloud-native solution to provide the best possible speed, security and flexibility for creating digital experiences.
<h3 id="going-headless">Going Headless</h3>
Over the last few years, headless CMS platforms have become far more prevalent, evolving from template-based platforms to API-driven and decoupled systems. Unlike traditional content management systems where the content is tied to the frontend, headless CMS platforms separate the content from the presentation – allowing creators to pull, store, and display their content any way they want, using the frameworks or programming languages they prefer.
As an API-first headless SaaS platform, <a href="/contentstack-introducing-headless-cms/">Contentstack</a> is at the intersection of content management and digital experiences, enabling business and IT to “remove the silos” and more easily collaborate. Their microservices architecture provides an extensible framework for scaling across endpoints, from websites to devices to frontend apps, giving content creators more control over an expanding world of channels and services.
Gatsby also takes a headless approach to content, leveraging modern web technologies such as React, GraphQL, and Javascript to provide a faster frontend experience powered by a headless CMS. The result is a dynamic, lightweight website that improves the user experience without compromising control from the CMS layer.  
"In today's digital world, speed matters – losing customers to a slow, low-performing website is not acceptable," said Peter Fogelsanger, Global Head of Partnerships at Contentstack. "Ensuring that the storytelling from the content creators is delivered to customers quickly and seamlessly is critical to every company's success. This partnership with Gatsby makes it possible. Businesses can bring together their marketing and development teams to deliver blazing fast websites and applications with the best, most up-to-date digital content for their customers."
Together, Contentstack and Gatsby are providing a complete solution for improving website performance and unifying both marketing and development teams. By adopting the MACH (Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless) approach delivered by both platforms, businesses can now create faster, more scalable websites that enhance the customer experience.
"Working with Contentstack allows marketing and content to harmonize with the development team," said Linda Watkins, Vice President of Partnerships at Gatsby. "When both business and technical teams are enabled by a microservices-based architecture, the agility in adapting and improving customer experiences is a game changer. Gatsby Cloud enables businesses to integrate seamlessly with Contentstack's API to manage content and control publishing. Our joint customers can more easily deliver the best digital experiences and truly stand out from their competition."
As part of the partnership offering, joint customers will have access to an API-connector between the Contentstack and Gatsby technology platforms. Contentstack <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/sample-apps/build-a-sample-website-using-gatsby-and-contentstack/">offers</a> a tutorial, providing step-by-step instructions on how to create a website using Gatsby and Contentstack. Gatsby also has an exclusive <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/guides/contentstack/">guide</a> for integrating Gatsby with Contentstack.
<h3 id="about-gatsby">About Gatsby</h3>
<a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.org/">Gatsby</a> is a web development framework that brings together all the best, modern ways to build on the web. Specifically designed to help frontend engineers leverage the advantages of cloud native architecture, Gatsby provides the most collaborative, secure, and performant way to build websites with access to a broad ecosystem of tools and enhancements via easy to setup integrations. Used by Fortune 500 companies including ButcherBox, Capital One, DraftKings, IBM, and Impossible Foods, the company is backed by Index Ventures, CRV, Trinity Ventures, Dig Ventures, Mango Capital, Fathom Capital, and prominent angel investors.
<h3 id="about-contentstack">About Contentstack</h3>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Contentstack</a> is a headless SaaS Content Experience Platform (DXP) that enables enterprises to manage content across all digital channels. The preferred API-first CMS for SAP customers, Contentstack was designed from the ground up for large-scale, complex, and mission-critical deployments. Contentstack is a founding member of the MACH Alliance, an industry organization that advocates for an open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless.

Contentstack and Gatsby Announce Partnership to Power Ultra-Fast Websites with Headless CMS

Agility CMS has <a href="https://agilitycms.com/resources/posts/agility-pricing-structure">announced</a> a new pricing model for their all-in-one headless content management system, aimed at helping a broad range of customers ­– from developers to the enterprise – expand their digital strategies. 
Founded in 2002, Agility CMS has positioned itself as a “Content-First” SaaS headless platform, giving users a significant amount of flexibility over their digital experiences through powerful, lightweight APIs. This includes the full array of JAMstack (Javascript, API, Markup) and browser-based frameworks – including static React site generators like Gatsby – that simplify and accelerate website performance while acting as a unified content hub.
Agility’s new pricing tiers reflect a shift in the CMS market, where platforms are offering both developers and enterprise organizations expanded options while simplifying the procurement process. As licensing has shifted to more subscription and SaaS-based models, many CMS platforms have raced to add more value to their offerings, including free entry points and streamlined pricing at multiple levels.
"We want to give [users] more, yet simplify things,” said Jon Voigt, CEO of Agility CMS. “We kept hearing that people are upset with the complex pricing models out there; we wanted to provide a better free edition and an unlimited community-supported edition that was based on value."
The chief reason behind the pricing change is to provide greater access to the Agility CMS across the marketplace, allowing users to increase productivity and collaboration between marketing, sales, and development teams. In addition to their advanced headless capabilities, unmatched load speeds, rapid development, and low-code content management, each of Agility’s paid packages are loaded with features.
<h3>The New Agility CMS Pricing Model</h3>
Agility is now offering four pricing tiers: a free Developer option, a Standard package for small teams, a Pro tier for high-performing businesses, and a custom enterprise option. 
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/agility-cms-pricing.png" /></figure>
Let’s take a look at these <a href="https://agilitycms.com/pricing">packages</a> in more detail:
Free: Agility CMS offers a free package for web developers. This plan includes 5 users, 10GB bandwidth, 2,500 content items, and community support – and it’s free forever. You can even <a href="https://account.agilitycms.com/sign-up?product=agility-free">sign up</a> without giving your credit card information. This plan is ideal for users who want to learn web development and content management, do some general tinkering, and have fun building. If you feel like you reached the limits of the free package, you can easily upgrade. 
Standard: For $47 per month, this package delivers unlimited users and content items. Community support and 500GB of bandwidth is also included. Starting with the Standard Package, every Agility CMS tier includes Content Management, Ecommerce, Ticketing, Search and User Generated Content. If you're running a small site with 500 pages or less, this package is ideal. 
Pro: At $579 per month, the Pro package is designed for high-performance business websites and includes unlimited users, unlimited content items, 1TB of bandwidth, and direct support from the Agility CMS team. With Pro, you can sell more products with rich eCommerce, generate custom reports, manage federated search over multiple domains, and more. 
Enterprise: Starting at $2,500 per month, the Agility CMS Enterprise package is for large-scale organizations that need highly customized setup with world-class support. Enterprise includes more direct support, a dedicated account manager, and greater control over the granular needs of your organization. Pricing varies based on the bespoke requirements of an organization; for a custom quote, contact their sales team.
All Agility CMS plans – including the free tier – include these features:
<ul>
<li>Roles &amp; Permissions     </li>
<li>Approval Workflows</li>
<li>Content Modelling and Versioning</li>
<li>Rich Text Editor</li>
<li>RESTful API &amp; Webhooks</li>
<li>Open Source SDKs (Javascript &amp; .Net)</li>
<li>Single Sign-on (SSO)</li>
<li>24/7 Monitoring</li>
<li>Unlimited Languages/Locales</li>
<li>Unlimited Content Definitions</li>
<li>Unlimited Asset Requests</li>
<li>Unlimited API Requests</li>
</ul>
<h3>Focused on Developers</h3>
One of the best parts of Agility’s pricing is its free tier for developers. Like most “freemium” models, it’s limited in its scope and capabilities. But it can still power an actual production solution, including access to APIs. An enterprising coder can build a basic proof-of-concept for a project or even power a small website – all for free. But be warned: the API will not charge overages for this package, so if you hit your limits, your calls will be blocked.
With a path for easy upgrades – and even alerts to tell you when you’re approaching your limits – Agility helps its users to scale more seamlessly based on their needs. As a headless platform, this is even more advantageous, as developers have more freedom to create in the language or framework of their choice and shape digital experience across a multitude of channels.
Because it’s a multi-tenant SaaS-based solution, Agility appears to have more control and flexibility over their pricing, and they’ve endeavored to make it easier to understand. However, because it’s a multi-tenant SaaS-based solution, it might be a limitation for organizations that require on-prem hosting or security governance for all of their websites and CMS platforms.
You can try Agility CMS for free <a href="https://account.agilitycms.com/sign-up?product=agility-free">here</a>.
<h3>About Agility CMS</h3>
<a href="https://agilitycms.com/">Agility CMS</a> is a SaaS headless “Content-First” platform with fast, flexible development and familiar authoring tools. Designed for developers, marketers, and enterprise organizations, Agility CMS is trusted by customers in the US, Canada, and across the globe – including Visit Orlando, PepsiCo, Polaroid, Hockey Canada, California State University Long Beach, Cineplex Entertainment, Scotiabank and more.

Agility CMS Introduces Simplified Pricing Tiers For Headless Content Management

Hyland, an enterprise content management (ECM) and process management provider, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-enters-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-alfresco/">announced</a> that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alfresco Software – an open source content services platform.
Both vendors appeared on the <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms#:~:text=In%20its%202019%20Magic%20Quadrant,vision%20and%20ability%20to%20execute.&amp;text=For%2010%20years%20in%20a,(ECM)%20and%20content%20services.">Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM in 2019</a>, with Hyland ranking as a “Leader” in the overall category. With Alfresco firmly in a challenger position, the combination brings a number of market-leading advantages to Hyland’s global growth strategy – particularly as it looks to the cloud.
“With this acquisition, Alfresco brings significant geographic and industry experience to Hyland, as well as an open-source community as a new source of product innovation,” said Jay Bhatt, president and CEO of Alfresco. “Both companies share the same passion for customer success and innovation and together will offer increased value for customers and partners.”
Hyland’s news is the latest in a recent “buying spree” that’s been playing out across the digital experience landscape. In just the past few months alone, <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">Acquia received a major investment from Vista Equity Partners</a>, <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">Episerver announced</a> plans to buy Optimizely, and just last week <a href="/nordic-capital-invests-in-siteimprove-plans-international-expansion-and-development/">Nordic Capital acquired 70% of Siteimprove</a>.
A leading ECM provider, Hyland is best known for its Onbase and Perceptive content management products, which securely centralize enterprise content and deliver relevant information to users across a wide variety of industries – including healthcare, finance, insurance, higher education and manufacturing.
Headquartered in Boston, Alfresco offers a modern, cloud-native Digital Business Platform that delivers enterprise content services and solutions to connect, manage, and protect critical information for organizations. Alfresco’s cloud capabilities may be a big ingredient in Hyland’s recipe for success as they eye a more cloud-centric strategy to scale their growth.
<h3 id="a-legacy-of-strategic-acquisitions">A Legacy of Strategic Acquisitions</h3>
Alfresco is one of Hyland’s many purchases, which have included a number of smaller digital optimization tools. Just this year, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-rpa-software-provider-another-monday/">Hyland acquired</a> Another Monday, the robotic process automation (RPA) software, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-streamline-healths-ecm-business/">Streamline Health ECM</a>, and <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-blockchain-credentialing-provider-learning-machine/">Learning Machine</a>, a company that develops and markets blockchain-secured digital credentialing solutions. Other acquisitions include OneContent, Perceptive (which became one of their flagship products) and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/company/acquisitions">many more</a>.
“We continue to grow our business and advance our platform organically and via acquisitions,” said Bill Priemer, president and CEO of Hyland. “This acquisition will expand our global reach, enabling us to help more organizations achieve their digital transformation goals and become more informed, empowered, and connected.”
Alfresco has also had its own share of acquisitions, <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/news/press-releases/alfresco-acquires-content-services-specialist-technology-services-group">purchasing</a> its long-time services partner, Technology Services Group (TSG), to leverage their deep expertise in the insurance, manufacturing, life sciences, and compliance verticals. They also purchased <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/news/press-releases/alfresco-acquires-integration-specialist-pernexas">Pernexas</a> to add their portfolio of SAP capabilities.
<h3 id="why-the-alfresco-acquisition-is-important">Why the Alfresco Acquisition is Important</h3>
Over the years, Alfresco has grown into a respected and innovative enterprise content management provider with an array of proven solutions. But perhaps their most prudent and prescient decision was embracing the cloud – and partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to scale their service offerings. Within the ECM industry, this has proven to be a uniquely strategic asset, and one that Hyland can use to accelerate their journey to a more modern, cloud-native posture. If properly integrated, this could be a game changer for Hyland – the kind that puts them in the leadership position on the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
<h3 id="about-hyland">About Hyland</h3>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> is an enterprise content management (ECM) software platform, combining integrated document management, business process management, and records management in a single application. Hyland software allows organizations to manage, control, and share digital content with employees, business partners, customers, and other constituencies.
<h3 id="about-alfresco">About Alfresco</h3>
<a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco Software</a> is a commercial, open-source software company. The Alfresco Digital Business Platform accelerates the design and delivery of “cloud-first” solutions for the enterprise that are process and content-intensive. It is a single, integrated platform built from the ground up to digitize processes, manage content, and securely govern information. Alfresco helps more than 1,300 industry-leading organizations, including Cisco, Pitney Bowes, Capital One, US Department of Navy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and NASA, to be more responsive and competitive.

Hyland Acquires Alfresco, Focuses On Cloud and Global Expansion Of Enterprise CMS

CMS Summit 25

Find out at CMS Connect 25, August 5 - 6 in Montreal, Canada. Seats are limited.

CMS. Content. AI. Where is it all headed?

#ffffff

In yet another active week for technology movers and shakers, Nordic Capital has signed a deal to become the majority shareholder in Danish-based <a href="/siteimprove-seo-provides-all-in-one-capabilities-for-enhancing-search-performance/">Siteimprove</a> – an enterprise SaaS company with solutions for improving website governance and performance.
Founded in 2003, Siteimprove has been focused on web usability, providing an all-in-one, cloud-based Digital Presence Optimization (DPO) platform. Their suite of tools and services help organizations enhance their digital accessibility, data privacy, compliance management (such as <a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/">GDPR</a>), content quality and search engine optimization.
<h3 id="leaders-in-website-accessibility">Leaders in Website Accessibility</h3>
Siteimprove has built a strong reputation around their industry-leading accessibility solutions, helping websites deliver an equitable digital experience to people with disabilities. 
One key to Siteimprove’s growth has been an elevated demand for accessibility scanning and monitoring, as websites in places like the U.S. have been under fire for <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/ada-website-litigation-likely-to-increase">ADA compliance litigation</a> – particularly in the public sector. As accessibility awareness has grown, Siteimprove has also matured its training and partner programs, and developed integrations with content management systems (CMS) to help accelerate adoption.
Additionally, Siteimprove’s SEO and analytics tools are powering digital marketing programs and helping brands to enhance their overall website performance. As more businesses pivot to digital transformation in a COVID-19 world, the value of search and website health are becoming more critical than ever.
<h3 id="why-did-nordic-capital-decide-to-invest-in-siteimprove">Why did Nordic Capital Decide to Invest in Siteimprove?</h3>
Nordic Capital stated that Siteimprove has significant long-term growth potential, driven by increasing market penetration, expansion in key customer segments, and past investments in product development and platform solutions. Their goal is to fund Siteimprove’s continued innovation and expansion while elevating awareness for their social mission.
“We have long admired Siteimprove as one of the top SaaS companies globally, with great potential for further growth due to its world-class product offering, strong customer base, and expanding market coverage,” said Fredrik Näslund, Partner and Head of Technology &amp; Payments, <a href="https://www.nordiccapital.com/">Nordic Capital Advisors</a>.
“Nordic Capital will draw upon its significant experience and success in developing technology companies, working closely with the management team to continue Siteimprove’s journey as a strong and sustainable company. We are impressed by the Company and how its products reduce inequality in society by helping people with disabilities gain access to a digitalized world and drive growth across essential digital disciplines.”
<h3 id="more-acquisitions-and-outside-investment">More Acquisitions and Outside Investment</h3>
The last few years have certainly seen a “buying spree” across the digital experience and eCommerce landscape, with Adobe <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2018/Adobe-Completes-Acquisition-of-Marketo/default.aspx">acquiring Marketo</a> <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2018/Adobe-Completes-Acquisition-of-Magento-Commerce/default.aspx">and Magento</a>, Acquia <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">receiving a major investment from Vista Equity Partners</a>, and Episerver recently <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">announcing</a> its plans to acquire Optimizely. 
In a fierce race to acquire customers and compete against commoditization, leading platforms are relying on M&amp;A and outside equity to grow their market value. Leading enterprise platforms – from CRM to email marketing – also appear to be consolidating, offering more all-in-one solutions in a monolithic manner. MailChimp, ConstantContact, and <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a> are just a few platforms that are now offering digital marketing, CMS, and other capabilities all in one place.
With this recent announcement, it appears Siteimprove is the latest player to enter the investment game in a world gone digital.
<h3 id="about">About</h3>
<a href="https://siteimprove.com/">Siteimprove</a> offers the world's most comprehensive cloud-based Digital Presence Optimization (DPO) software. The Siteimprove Intelligence Platform provides eye-opening insights that empower more than 7,500 teams to create higher quality content, drive better traffic, measure digital performance, and work towards regulatory compliance – all from one place. They also offer best-in-class technical support, academy courses, services, and technology integrations.

Nordic Capital Invests In Siteimprove, Plans International Expansion and Development

In another dramatic shift to the content management and digital experience landscape, Episerver <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform">has announced</a> its plans to buy Optimizely. 
Episerver, the customer-centric digital experience platform, is recognized as a leader in the <a href="https://www.episerver.com/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>. With the acquisition of Optimizely, an innovator in experience optimization, Episerver appears to be ramping up its competition with enterprise DXP players like <a href="https://www.adobe.com/marketing/experience-manager.html">Adobe</a>, <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">Acquia</a> and <a href="/sitecore-updates-experience-platform-and-experience-commerce-releases-new-sitecore-content-hub/">Sitecore</a>.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/gartner-magic-quadrant.png" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/09/gartner-magic-quadrant.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/09/gartner-magic-quadrant.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/09/gartner-magic-quadrant.png 1432w" /><figcaption><a href="https://www.episerver.com/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a></figcaption></figure>
In today’s data-driven market, experimentation has become essential. Today's brands need to adapt to consumer changes faster than ever and create more personalized experiences based on data. By combining Episerver’s content and commerce capabilities with Optimizely’s experimentation and optimization, marketers will now be able to build custom digital experiences that get smarter over time and drive more purchases and conversions. 
<h3>Better control of layouts, logic and more</h3>
Together, Episerver and Optimizely will enable organizations to run better experiments across both frontend layouts and backend logic with easy-to-use, tailored recommendations. According to Episerver, the combined power will give organizations the ability to optimize the entire experience across multiple touchpoints while increasing revenue, improving productivity, and realizing cost savings. 
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/layouts-and-logic.png" alt="Layouts and Logic" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/09/layouts-and-logic.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/09/layouts-and-logic.png 785w" /><figcaption>Layouts and Logic</figcaption></figure>

<h3>Improved Outcomes</h3>
A/B testing has long been an established practice for marketers, helping teams to develop more unique, highly targeted digital experiences for each customer – while scaling to thousands. These "experiments" can help drive transformation, enhance customer engagement and improve brand differentiation.
Embracing a culture of experimentation is driving improved outcomes for many brands, particularly those leveraging the enhanced capabilities of a digital experience platform. Leading platforms like Adobe and Sitecore have integrated deep personalization and analytics into their offerings, and testing has become a key pillar of the experience optimization stack. 
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/outsized-results.png" alt="Measure the outcomes of every action" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/09/outsized-results.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/09/outsized-results.png 785w" /><figcaption>Measure the outcomes of every action</figcaption></figure>
That said, companies are no longer limiting their experiments to A/B testing, and instead are expanding their efforts (A/B, C/D and so on) across all aspects of the digital experience. Episerver's move to incorporate Optimizely into their platform demonstrates a growing demand for more insight around consumer data, as well as greater speed and control over adapting the digital experience. 
<h2>Optimizely: A Proven Platform</h2>
Optimizely is a leader in experimentation and progressive delivery. Founded in 2009, it became synonymous with A/B testing, subsequently building a broader suite of testing tools for marketers. Its proven platform has run over 2 million experiments across the user journey to optimize the customer experience for some of the world’s most prominent brands like Peloton, Nike and Uber.
The union of Episerver and Optimizely will combine an advanced set of customer-centric digital experience capabilities with more freedom to experiment, enabling digital teams to replace guesswork with evidence-based outcomes.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/dLMqzpXcZNNUoM1_OxXHAQW1ztCKyaZL4aVhaJAVs1_UVxT0KktqrmanWkG0uW0SU0QF346MtL2UJUhVp2dv5XCrDERdCgK9E-lUEC6ns7owJUTODlJOOsATD1DccyehEvOnINOn" /></figure>
<h3>About Optimizely</h3>
<a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a>'s leading platform offers a complete set of digital experience optimization technologies – including AI-powered personalization and experimentation – which encompasses A/B testing, multivariate testing, and server-side testing. Optimizely enables brands to deliver more relevant experiences driven by data, including Gap, StubHub, IBM, The Wall Street Journal, and many more. To learn more, visit optimizely.com.
<h3>About Episerver</h3>
<a href="https://www.episerver.com/">Episerver</a> empowers businesses to scale through the most customer-centric approach to digital experiences. Its Customer-Centric Digital Experience Platform™ features best-in-class content management and robust commerce, both backed by AI-powered data and personalization solutions. The platform has consistently earned industry, analyst, and media recognition for its vision, capabilities, and customer commitment. Episerver’s 900+ partners and 825+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 8,000 brands enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue, and grow their brands.

Episerver To Acquire Optimizely, Adding Experimentation And Optimization To DXP

In a year that’s already seen major shifts in strategy from enterprise software vendors, Sitecore is shaking things up with the appointment of <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2020/09/sitecore-names-steve-tzikakis-as-chief-executive-officer">Steve Tzikakis as its new CEO</a>. 
Effective immediately, Tzikakis will take the reins from Mark Frost, who over the last three years successfully led Sitecore through a radical transformation of its business, transitioning to a multi-product company with managed cloud and SaaS offerings. Frost worked closely with the Sitecore Board of Directors during the past several months on the transition plan and will remain on in an advisory role. 
Tzikakis is an experienced digital transformation technology leader with a strong track record for translating vision and strategy into world-class, go-to-market execution – and the ability to bring together teams and ecosystems to drive rapid growth. A 13-year veteran of SAP, Tzikakis spent the last five years as President of SAP’s South Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, spanning more than 43,000 customers, 19,000 partners, 4,700 employees, and 85 nationalities. While in this role, Tzikakis doubled business in the region. 
This announcement follows a <a href="/sitecore-updates-experience-platform-and-experience-commerce-releases-new-sitecore-content-hub/">major release to Sitecore’s flagship products</a>, Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 10 and Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) 10, as well as the launch of <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2020/07/sitecore-leverages-ai-for-smarter-management-of-images-and-video">Sitecore Content Hub 3.4</a> – which offers enhanced Digital Asset Management (DAM) and smarter orchestration of images and video.
“Global Markets today are undergoing monumental shifts, and the need for digital experiences that fabricate and define Human Connections are becoming more important,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tzikakis_today-is-a-very-special-day-on-my-journey-activity-6706590350095523840-ndmi">said</a> Tzikakis. “Our customers and partners can expect to see us accelerate our global expansion plans and innovation of more market-leading cloud and SaaS solutions, while further increasing our customer-centric DNA.”
Given Tzikakis’ background and experience, it’s clear that Sitecore is shifting its focus to global reach and brand awareness. This may be due in no small part to rising opportunities within digital transformation. The market’s reaction to COVID-19 has resulted in significant turmoil and budget slashing, but areas like eCommerce have been bright spots as businesses adapt to new B2B and consumer behaviors. With a new product model and the introduction of managed cloud and SaaS, the company seems poised for growth.
<h3 id="about-sitecore">About Sitecore</h3>
Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world’s smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. A highly decorated industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Carnival Cruise Lines, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalized experiences for their customers. Learn more at <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore.com</a>.

Sitecore Names Steve Tzikakis as Chief Executive Officer

The principle of “think global, act local” has been used in a wide variety of contexts, from tackling environmental issues to managing business strategies. At its core is a simple, perhaps even algorithmic idea: that solving big problems requires an understanding of the smaller components.There’s no question that we live in a global economy – one where international companies are thinking across time zones and driving supply chains that stretch across our planet. While digital transformation has made our world more accessible, websites have struggled to provide a truly localized language experience.Translation: we want to think global, but often miss the local.That’s where Weglot comes in. The France-based translation solution is providing a dynamic alternative to the deprecated (but now resurrected) Google Translate, and elevating the role of localization. With over a hundred languages and a bevy of backend features, this easy-to-use service will have you saying “thank you” (or merci, gracias, dankie) in no time.In this review, we’ll explore Weglot, dive into its pros and cons, and touch on some of the CMS and eCommerce plugins available on the market. But let's start with some of the foundational concepts that impact website translation – and how Weglot is answering these challenges.<h3>The Value of Website Translation</h3>It goes without saying that English has become a global language for many applications, particularly in business and technology. But it’s simply not enough to have your website content available in a single language. Again, this is part of the charter to “act local” even if you’re connecting or selling on a global scale.Take eCommerce as an example. If the details for a product are in a language you don’t understand, are you more inclined to buy it… or seek out another source?The fact is, if you can’t communicate with your customers, you’ll be losing out on sales. With so many diverse languages being spoken across the globe – or even across the street – it’s clear that translation is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity.Here are a few more reasons why you should add translation to your website:<ul><li>Attract new customers: Simply put, a multilingual website can help you reach a broader audience. While most content online is written in English, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262946/share-of-the-most-common-languages-on-the-internet/">only 25% of internet users are native English speakers</a>. By adding more languages to your website, you’ll reach a larger segment of customers both in new regions and within your own. As an example, Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S. – so by going multilingual, you could expand your reach both domestically and internationally.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weglot-website-audience-stats-per-language.png" />Source: Statista<ul><li>Increase sales: As noted above, people are more likely to buy products when they’re presented in their own language. When you provide a translation for your customers, you’ll make it easier for them to search and find the products or content they’re looking for. You’ll also build trust and enhance loyalty.</li><li>Reduce bounce rates and increase conversions: According to CSA, 72.1% of users spend all their time on websites that are in their own language – and <a target="_blank" href="https://csa-research.com/More/Media/Press-Releases/ArticleID/31/Survey-of-3-000-Online-Shoppers-Across-10-Countries-Finds-that-60-Rarely-or-Never-Buy-from-English-only-Websites">60% of people never buy from English-only websites</a>. Based on these stats alone, it’s clear that your website visitors are less inclined to bounce – and more inclined to convert – if they have access to their own language.</li><li>Improve SEO: In almost every case, Search is what brings people to your website. With a multilingual SEO, your website will be indexable and optimized in multiple languages. And if your competitors aren’t offering translated content, you have even more of an advantage from a search perspective.</li></ul><h3>What about Google Translate?</h3>Historically, there have been two options for translating websites in multiple languages: build and maintain separate websites, or add a translation tool like Google Translate.While the former solution provides significant manual control over the frontend experience, it also requires more management. This might be OK if your products are markedly different depending on the region or country – or if you’re maintaining only two languages. But what about 50? And how do you track hundreds of changes across different dialects without losing control?For this reason, many companies have relied on Google Translate to provide a quick, easy, and free solution for translating content at the browser layer. While Google Translate features a wide range of language options, there’s no manual control over the translation itself. Further, the rendering on a webpage is clumsy at best, making the frontend expression less desirable.To confuse the matter, Google deprecated their Translate service in early 2019, meaning it was no longer available for new applications. With no sunset date in sight, companies were scrambling to find an alternative solution. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-translate-widget-is-free-again-for-some-websites-to-use/370104/#close">But according to Search Engine Journal</a>, Google is resuming support as of May 2020 in an effort to support the global response to COVID-19.<h3>The difference between translation and localization</h3>While translation typically refers to the automated process of converting text on a website or webpage (like Google Translate), localization is the ability to adapt your website’s content to a specific region through language, design, and even cultural elements.Localization can go much further than altering the dynamic text on your website’s frontend. In a truly localized application, the entire customer experience is geared to a user’s regional and linguistic preferences. That might include landing pages, emails, logo graphics – multiple dimensions of their journey.Obviously, automating all of these components requires varying degrees of human support. For that reason, translation serves as the bedrock, and companies can elect to further enhance their localization posture as desired. But the more localized you can get, the more relevant and compelling the experience.<h3>What is Weglot?</h3>Weglot is a platform-independent website translation tool that helps users and organizations transform their websites into multilingual experiences. Weglot finally delivers the best of both worlds, allowing you to have both manual and automatic states for your translations.Easy to use and quick to install, Weglot is designed to work with almost any kind of content management system (CMS) or website. It’s also unique in that it provides professional translation and multilingual SEO services as part of their offerings.<h3>Features</h3>Here are some of the top features you get with Weglot:<ul><li>Quick installation: Weglot is compatible with all CMS and website technologies. All you need to do is install the plugin to your website and configure it all with no code.</li><li>100+ languages: Weglot features one of the most robust libraries of language translations.</li><li>Team collaboration: Invite your team members and collaborate on translations together inside Weglot.</li><li>Context Editor: When translating a page, you need to see where the content resides and what kind of content it is (e.g. title or text). Weglot’s context editor allows you to translate inside an editor and see the website design and structure.</li><li>Automatic, manual, and human translation: In addition to rapid, automatic translation, you can edit translations manually. If you need help or additional bandwidth, you can order professional translation services and get the translated content in 48 hours.</li><li>Visitor auto-redirection: Weglot can detect a user’s language and redirect them to feature content in their language – automatically.</li><li>Localized all along the way: Weglot can translate everything from your landing page to the e-mail confirmation in your customers’ language, providing a deeper level of localization.</li><li>Dedicated customer service: Problems? Weglot offers world-class customer support via email.</li></ul><h3>Optimized SEO</h3>As we mentioned before, SEO is crucial to driving visitors to your website. With Weglot, you can optimize your SEO across your translations and improve your search performance. Here’s how:<ul><li>Create a unique URL for each version of your page. For example, with a Spanish version of your pages, you will have an “/es/” subdirectory.</li></ul><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/kjC8q74LcJtKtkzYNEqNexSnTX4xvyFW3zAXwF6yfVMQueY-be6UAYAKkTeqIgNIO1c5ZP2oT-m1aCS2BfYr0ab5RKe_nQkn4FkQIu6nBaMxvko_h3Kks1awOUcvP34ffp7u6vsPlVTShnaGqw" /><ul><li>Adding hreflangs in your source code. These tags let Google know you have different versions of the same page and favor indexing of these pages.</li></ul><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weglot-hreflang-attributes.png" /><ul><li>Have your content translated into the source code and not just dynamically. Weglot translates the content on the server side so your content is translated in your source code – not at the browser layer.</li><li>Detect and translate SEO tags. For example, here are two websites in English and Kazakh:</li></ul><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vkJycrQRCjUJU2z7YsR5zP6rg-jtWjiXffKj1WNc3DQXqJmogDfaSBW0b2I46ylirY1s-Iuqomv9zT6laPcskgtXGRSFRX4ENrDEmsu2aqa5vfXxWTXT1jdqByQNj1BCoxdszig4VXy1IG0K7A" /><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_BQHkMVhzi8K_SWuOXsgbDkPfm1LsUKD5c-xXZkUh6PLrkHdy_nFSnVvio2Vs3fNH0Dcr7IOtIlOqFFHtZn8nur40WqlU0_qtX-d3I3hxM9lkTPSheNstpuLV65mzjTiRe_KNNiETf5y7kiTZg" /><h3>How to add Weglot to your website or CMS</h3>Integrating Weglot is very easy – and it doesn’t even require touching any code. All you have to do is install the plugin and configure Weglot to start translating.When you install the app, you’ll get an API key from your Weglot account. Copy paste the API key in your CMS and you’re good to go:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/how-to-add-weglot-to-your-website-or-cms.png" /><h3>Pricing</h3><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/weglot-princing.png" />With Weglot, pricing is generally based on how many languages you want to offer, and the number of words you need translated. Pretty simple to understand, and very easy to upgrade in the future.It’s worth noting that Weglot offers a free plan that translates up to 2000 words for one language. Not bad if you have a very small site with a single additional language.Weglot offers monthly and annual pricing plans. With the annual, you get an extra 2 months of free translation, which is a nice bonus. Each monthly plan offers a 10-day free trial, and there are 5 tiers:<ul><li>Starter: € 9.90 / month for 1 translated language and up to 10,000 words</li><li>Business: € 19 / month for 3 translated languages and up to 50,000 words</li><li>Pro: € 49 / month for 5 translated languages and up to 200,000 words</li><li>Advanced: € 199 / month for 10 translated languages and up to 1,000,000 words</li><li>Enterprise: € 499 / month for unlimited translated languages. The word limit is not listed on the website but you can contact Weglot to learn more about your custom translation needs.</li></ul>You can sign up for a trial for <a target="_blank" href="https://dashboard.weglot.com/register?fp_ref=solodev">Weglot</a> here.<h3>Final Thoughts</h3>There’s no question that Weglot is one of the most practical, user-friendly translation solutions on the market today. It supports 100+ languages with automatic, manual, and professional translation capabilities. It’s incredibly easy to install on both websites and in CMS, and it’s currently available as a plugin for platforms such as <a target="_blank" href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.shopify.com/">Shopify</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wix.com/">Wix</a>.Like any software, there’s always room for improvement. Weglot's translations can sometimes be a bit fickle when it comes to dynamic content – specifically anything that loads via Javascript. iFrames can also be a little difficult to troubleshoot, and there seems to be a lag time of a day or two before you can manually override a translation. The good news is that their support is incredibly responsive.When it comes to pricing, Weglot can get a little pricey for websites with lots of pages. For an enterprise, this is more than manageable. But for mid-tier sites going from free Google Translate, there could be some sticker shock.That said, it might just be worth every penny. Or centavo.<h3>About Weglot</h3><a target="_blank" href="https://weglot.com/">Weglot</a> is a SaaS tech start-up that helps businesses turn their websites multilingual. They offer a fast, simple and user-friendly way to translate and display your translations without bothering your developers.

Review: Weglot brings powerful translation for multilingual websites and CMS

2020 has been both a challenging and active period for content management platform providers. Despite battling the persistent headwinds of COVID-19 and the looming specter of economic uncertainty, it’s clear that businesses are embracing digital transformation at all levels of the market – and shifting resources from physical to virtual.
This has been a transformational period for some vendors, particularly those focused on digital experience (DX). In fact, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/five-fifty-the-quickening">a recent study by McKinsey</a> suggests that we’ve just experienced 10 years of eCommerce growth in the last 3 months.
As the study suggests, that pain you feel in your neck might just be digital whiplash.
Market challenges aside, this has clearly been a dynamic news cycle for the CMS industry. Soon after Acquia <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">released its new Open Digital Experience Platform</a> with the vision of bringing marketers and developers closer than ever, Sitecore announced a major release to its flagship products: Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 10 and Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) 10.
What’s more, both releases follow the recent launch of <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2020/07/sitecore-leverages-ai-for-smarter-management-of-images-and-video">Sitecore Content Hub 3.4</a>, which offers enhanced Digital Asset Management (DAM) and smarter orchestration of images and video.
Based on these releases, it seems like the pandemic hasn’t slowed down the rise of digital experience. On the contrary, with DX becoming the lifeblood of many organizations, companies are working harder and faster than ever to provide the best customer experiences online. Sitecore’s latest updates reflect this goal, bringing marketing and IT teams together and allowing them to work more efficiently.
<h3 id="what-you-can-expect-from-sitecore-s-new-releases">What you can expect from Sitecore’s new releases</h3>
As a legacy leader in the CMS space, Sitecore commands a strong footprint in the enterprise market. This is both an advantage and disadvantage, as their monolithic ecosystem has been challenged over the past few years by mid-level market solutions with smaller pricetags. As digital and content professionals demand greater freedom and control over their martech stack, they have embraced API-driven and <a href="/contentstack-introducing-headless-cms/">headless platforms like Contentstack</a> to shape experiences across a broadening landscape of endpoints and devices.
What’s evident is that Sitecore is responding to their market shifts, investing heavily in the transformation of their products and services to meet a changing world – one where flexibility is essential. At the enterprise level, there continues to be demand for well-architected, highly integrated solutions that provide the trusted scalability for distributing content across a multitude of channels, and making the “Holy Grail” of personalization less of a myth to marketers.
If you’re not familiar, Sitecore is composed of four integrated products: Sitecore Experience Platform, Sitecore Experience Commerce, Sitecore Experience Manager, and Sitecore Content Hub. When combined, they form Sitecore Experience Cloud: the end-to-end content, commerce, and personalization platform.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5T7qzvHbEcE7rzExxw3BkwoQQBUel03jMcvE_mKuofsJTpiINkmy4uQLWIsh6u7sBE7QYlujU4stKWnS2v0jT1QeNN7SyMsNRgPrsJ1Vbh3YafLk4T3VDP1BLANbQkWvOQ0HdiTRT2tfsyyQwg" alt="" /></figure>
If you’re interested in diving deeper into each of Sitecore’s products, <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/products">click here</a> for more details.
<h3 id="sitecore-experience-platform-xp-10">Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 10</h3>
The new Sitecore XP 10 comes with updates such as enhanced analytics reporting, ASP.NET Core headless development, and Sitecore Containers – which provide greater efficiencies across teams. Now, IT and marketing can accelerate customer success by aligning workflows and timelines, evolving customer experiences quickly, and deploying data-informed updates or new experience elements faster than ever.
Sitecore XP 10 features new innovations around usability and performance. The updated editing environment offers an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, and provides real-time insights for multisite and multilingual experiences as content is created and published – giving marketers the knowledge they need to drive improved conversions.
In addition, Sitecore XP 10 includes enhanced reporting that enables marketers to make informed decisions with more granular visibility, specifically with how personalization is driving performance. It also includes improvements to out-of-the-box forms and enhancements to email and marketing automation.
With full container support, XP 10 eliminates that problem with smooth deployment flows between environments through consistency, isolation, and reproducibility.
XP 10 also makes collecting, analyzing, and acting on enhanced customer data faster for marketers, providing even deeper insights for audience segmentation to strengthen personalization capabilities across channels and grow customer loyalty.
Other XP 10 updates include:
<ul>
<li>Enhanced data capabilities coupled with the ability to extend targeting with auto-personalization.</li>
<li>Horizon editing interface, providing in-context insights across multilingual and multisite experiences.</li>
<li>Updated connector functionality for sending current visitor Experience Database® (xDB) information to Salesforce Marketing Cloud in real-time, enhancing Salesforce marketing automation.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="sitecore-experience-commerce-xc-10">Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) 10</h3>
The new Sitecore XC 10 release truly reflects the market shift towards eCommerce. It provides more tools to drive higher average order value and revenue with dynamic product bundling and new promotion capabilities.
For example, using the new product bundling capability, brands can sell related and complementary products and services together at one price, driving higher order value and selling more products and services.
Sitecore has also been doubling down on their container infrastructure for deploying their solutions. To accelerate time-to-value and increase agility, Sitecore XC 10 includes broad support for <a href="https://www.docker.com/">Docker</a> and <a href="https://kubernetes.io/">Kubernetes</a>, making the deployment process more lightweight and faster than ever. Containers are generally complex, particularly Kubernetes, and require an advanced level of expertise to manage successfully.
<h3 id="sitecore-content-hub">Sitecore Content Hub</h3>
Formerly Stylelabs – which was acquired by Sitecore in 2018 – the new Sitecore Content Hub provides a 360º view of your content landscape, helping you manage every dimension of your marketing content through a single, integrated solution.
More than a DAM, Content Hub provides a broad array of features. Along with housing all of your digital assets, media, and content elements, Content Hub allows users to “feed” their Sitecore personalization with AI/ML content tagging and Image Similarity. The entire system is designed to integrate with Sitecore CMS and Experience Commerce, so you can seamlessly organize your assets and plan around content production and operations – and power your campaigns for the right channels, regions, and audiences.
The other cool aspect of Content Hub is its marketing resource management, allowing teams to sync more effectively and collaborate across workflows. Content Hub also features product content management, so you can control versions of catalogs and eCommerce items and more personalized web-to-print capabilities.
If you’d like to try out Sitecore, you can request a demo <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/request-a-demo">here</a>.
<h3 id="about-sitecore">About Sitecore</h3>
Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world’s smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. A highly decorated industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Carnival Cruise Lines, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalized experiences for their customers. Learn more at <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore.com</a>.

Sitecore Updates Experience Platform and Experience Commerce, Releases New Sitecore Content Hub

It’s impossible to deny Wix.
Just ask supermodel Karlie Kloss, the star of their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4meDcOLeWSs">2019 Super Bowl ad</a> – and founder of a <a href="https://www.kodewithklossy.com/">code camp for young women</a>.
In 30 seconds, she shared her personal Wix website with millions of viewers, highlighting features like the Wix Pro Gallery and SEO Wiz (both catchy names for an event that involves a lot of catching). 
Needless to say, it was a touchdown.
Kloss isn’t the first celebrity to promote Wix as the world’s premier website building and content management platform. A quick YouTube search will bring up the likes of Jason Statham and Gal Gadot in a 2017 Big Game spot. And it’s no surprise they can foot the bill for these heavy hitters and massive media buys: at last count, Wix is host to 160 million websites.
That’s worthy of a Super Bowl ring. Or five.
Wix has certainly established itself as the go-to solution for small, do-it-yourself entrepreneurs (think local florist or photography studio), competing with other “pre-fab” solutions like <a href="/squarespace-7-review/">Squarespace</a> and <a href="/weebly-review-2016/">Weebly</a>.
Like these platforms, Wix has always lead with simplicity. Basic templates and attractive themes allow for mobile responsiveness and limited control over images, color, content, and other dimensions. You can easily add features like photo galleries or browse the Wix App Market for some nifty integrations. It’s also one of the only platforms that allow you to animate elements and offers an AI-driven design bot that (sort of) assists with simple tasks.
When it comes to offering more advanced designers the freedom to explore and customize – while still delivering a low-code experience – Wix has generally fumbled the ball. But the game might be changing with Editor X.
<h3 id="introducing-editor-x">Introducing Editor X</h3>
Previously available as a closed beta program, Wix recently launched its new Editor X, specifically built for web designers and digital agencies that are seeking to push the aesthetic limits without the hassle of coding from scratch. Much of the emphasis has been on adopting drag-and-drop feature sets, which has been the main focus of many CMS platforms – the most popular being <a href="/gutenberg-2-years-later-is-wordpress-better-off/">Gutenberg</a>.
Wix has now entered the competitive field with Editor X, combining advanced drag-and-drop capabilities with cutting edge responsive design, flexible grids with full breakpoint control, and advanced CSS editing and control (in fact, you don’t even need to know CSS). For designers who are seeking to create more bespoke, hand-crafted experiences, Editor X could be a win.
“Gifted and talented creators have the ability to see the invisible and create the unimaginable,” said Wix Co-founder and CEO, Avishai Abrahami. “Until now these creators’ only option was platforms with restricted design freedoms or limited business web infrastructure that demanded code and multiple plugins. With Editor X, we’ve built the world’s best CSS editor and designed a radical new creative landscape for designers and web professionals, one in which the technology keeps pace with designers’ visions and enables them to swiftly create breathtaking websites, applications and digital experiences that continually raise the standard of the web.”
Here's a short video introduction to Editor X:
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card kg-card-hascaption"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bpEHKYd51cY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><figcaption>Introducing Editor X</figcaption></figure>
<h3 id="what-features-come-with-editor-x">What Features Come with Editor X?</h3>
<a href="https://www.editorx.com/">Editor X</a> is made with designers and agencies in mind. It offers advanced layout capabilities that allow you to create more complex website designs for any device – all without using code.
While that’s the main selling point of Editor X, it actually comes with a number of additional features and capabilities for development, business solutions, digital marketing, and SEO.
Main Features
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/HVzjSdXdJCfiAg_T3SxrcCqzypCRDEhp2tyjBcSsc9noz5agWsbPDz5Jx8FF9TM1NZdXVsjScpkEqT0kGvdA5uavmE79DPZWq34zUt8xXy-RAd2MAG142nDy-xCZGKxv_qdnwBMwZA8GNJUPng" alt="A picture containing electronics, table, monitor, deskDescription automatically generated" /><figcaption>Editor X Responsive Views</figcaption></figure>
Editor X manages to solve some of the biggest challenges facing modern designers and web professionals – from custom code to no code. The core <a href="https://www.editorx.com/features">features</a> include:
<ul>
<li>Breakpoint Precision: Create custom breakpoints, rearrange layouts, choose what to show or hide, and fine tune sites at every viewport.</li>
<li>CSS Grid: Design with CSS – without even thinking about CSS! Editor X brings a truly accessible, easy-to-use gateway to CSS.</li>
<li>Flexbox Technology: Let your content automatically adjust to every screen in single, multiple, and repeating layouts.</li>
<li>Custom Code: Integrate custom code and connect to internal/external APIs.</li>
<li>Integrated Business Infrastructure: Access Wix’s expansive range of business solutions to manage multiple sales channels, set up online bookings and scheduling, improve SEO performance, and more.</li>
</ul>
Design &amp; Layout
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/2F6sAkhXXmMn6_jYC4rKjBcvMrQfnsK-lqI1ACjWUfHJL-aKce6TkUJ-tfyqBaSf4RcVQ_v5grWu8mHz_YnusRc_VjLQ0V_BJhbVQU7vjQu36VQ0GZ3Od_aY9ya29C-dnFy3DWliYPFzrbGzow" alt="A screen shot of a computerDescription automatically generated" /><figcaption>Editor X Aligning Elements</figcaption></figure>
Editor X was built to expand the Wix design potential. It offers granular layout capabilities that allow you to create complex website designs for any device, all without using code. Some of the coolest design features include:
<ul>
<li>Grid Layouting: An advanced two-dimensional layout system based on CSS grid.</li>
<li>Docking: Anchors elements to a specific position as the viewport changes.</li>
<li>Stack &amp; scale: Reorient media for seamless responsive behavior.</li>
<li>Text scale: Create scalable font sizes as part of a design solution.</li>
<li>Flex Layouter: A smart layout system that relies on Flexbox technology for automatic reorganization of content while resizing.</li>
<li>Custom Breakpoints: Tailor designs to any viewport, not just classic devices.</li>
<li>Flexible canvas: Leverage resizing handles to instantly see and customize your design across viewports.</li>
<li>Advanced sizing control: Define your element as fixed or fluid, using wide support for modern CSS units.</li>
<li>Wix Design System: Features sections with built-in responsive behavior matched to the color palette of your site.</li>
</ul>
Development
Editor X also provides plenty of tools for developers who want to add custom code and build data rich websites. Some of these features include:
<ul>
<li>Dynamic Pages: Design one-page layouts or create unlimited pages – each with their own content, URL and SEO.</li>
<li>Database APIs: Use data APIs in your website’s front-end or backend code to manage and organize data.</li>
<li>Built-in IDE: Make coding more productive using the built-in IDE, equipped with syntax highlighting, code completion and more.</li>
<li>Custom Interactions: Create unique user interactions by triggering events when visitors perform specific actions.</li>
</ul>
Business Solutions
Running an online business always requires a few third-party applications. With Editor X and the Wix platform, you can have all of it in one place. Add an eCommerce store and accept payments, or a member section where customers can sign in and manage their personal accounts. You can also offer live chat, set up automations to collect leads, and <a href="https://www.editorx.com/features/business-ecommerce">so much more</a>.
The Wix App Market offers a wide range of integrations like form generators, social plugins, marketing tools and more. But builder beware: like open source marketplaces, many of the apps are made by third parties – and aren’t guaranteed by Wix.
Web Solutions
On Wix, every website you build is completely hosted – and includes an SSL certificate (which is being deprecated and replaced by TLS). Wix provides automatic updates, so your websites stay secure without any hassles or concerns over managing your own security requirements.
You can also search, purchase, and register domains directly through Editor X.
Marketing &amp; SEO
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/19u-wog6LhGCOi3lLpgMVChee4T3Kcx2xuCEK1NLbBzoDAUZrbNpoGNFI0jlt6xL1zv5LZM0ne1hPlxoBP-KpJVvx6a8ajhu_nkAP0MLsJvuDrAKl4XPe3FVk7Ba8lwxR5lpklq4BxR3ZZiCdA" alt="A screen shot of a clockDescription automatically generated" /><figcaption>Editor X SEO Settings</figcaption></figure>
In addition to providing basic SEO tools such as XML site maps, structured data, canonical URLs and 301 redirects, Editor X offers custom SEO plans and email marketing. Every website comes with a tailor-made SEO package that helps ensure your websites rank decently on Google. You can also drive traffic with professional email marketing campaigns, and review how visitors interact with your client sites by tracking visits through their built-in analytics tools.
<h3 id="performance">Performance</h3>
So far, Editor X looks a bit like “Weapon X.” It’s got everything that’s been missing from Wix and gives designers and agencies a more customizable platform to build on. Why choose anything else?
One word: performance.
When testing the <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorx.com%2F">page speed</a> of <a href="https://www.editorx.com/">editorx.com</a>, the score is staggering 34 out of 100 – almost exactly the same as the Rotten Tomatoes score for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” That’s not good.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/nsje8VvBnPAjtAcOsfn-F19_BGM9JgOsUeJs4MOxkeNski7caip-zddZcI1bb1brGYdJlwChaywa25b1oTQ69St5e7LN_nL6mZAAK-4QP79S128N8e4orDa6JNhvT62ri_R6IX7iO4w1IAK4qg" alt="Editor-X Page Speed Screenshot" /><figcaption>https://www.editorx.com's Google Page Insights Score</figcaption></figure>
This is not a problem unique to Editor X, of course. All website builders since Dreamweaver have been plagued by the code bloat problem. In case you’re not familiar, code bloat is unnecessarily long or wasteful code that slows down websites. A lot.
When Squarespace pioneered code-free website building and attracted millions with its style and aesthetics, it seemed like everyone could build websites with no working knowledge of HTML and CSS. Over time, as it became more complex and conflated, the entire platform evolved into a page-loading nightmare.
If performance really matters, you might want to think twice about Editor X. 
<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion </h3>
Editor X was conceived with designers in mind. And it tends to deliver with a richer, more complete set of tools and greater domain over the design experience. Even a small business or solopreneur that craves more control could get a lot of value out of Editor X. The problem lies with performance: if page speed and loads times are critical – and you have a larger, more expansive website – you might want an enterprise-worthy solution that can handle the demands of a content team.
Ready to try it out? Click <a href="https://users.editorx.com/signin?sendEmail=true&amp;view=sign-up&amp;originUrl=https:%2F%2Fwww.editorx.com&amp;loginCompName=Signup_H&amp;referralInfo=Editorx_Signup_H&amp;postLogin=https:%2F%2Fmanage.editorx.com%2Faccount%2Fsites&amp;overrideLocale=en&amp;forceRender=true">here</a>. 
<h3 id="about-editor-x">About Editor-X</h3>
<a href="https://www.editorx.com/">Editor X</a> is an advanced creation platform for designers and web professionals. The platform combines cutting edge responsive design with smooth drag and drop. Those that want to can add custom code and use a powerful CMS to build data-driven sites and complex web applications. Editor X offers an unparalleled range of integrated business solutions from a leading eCommerce infrastructure to professional marketing and SEO tools. Editor X is part of <a href="https://www.wix.com/">Wix.com Ltd</a>.
<h3 id="about-wix">About Wix</h3>
<a href="https://www.wix.com/">Wix</a> is leading the way with a cloud-based development platform for over 170 million registered users worldwide. Wix was founded on the belief that the Internet should be accessible to everyone to develop, create and contribute. Through free and premium subscriptions, Wix empowers millions of businesses, organizations, artists and individuals to take their businesses, brands and workflow online. The Wix Editor, Wix ADI, a highly curated App Market, Ascend by Wix and Corvid by Wix enable users to build and manage a fully integrated and dynamic digital presence.

Wix Introduces Editor X, Offers Designers Advanced Tools for Building Custom Websites

Graphic design has always been one of the more elusive layers of the digital stack. While websites have become increasingly more dynamic (think FontAwesome for iconography), custom graphics – at least the really good ones – continue to rely on third-party apps like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
For CMS users, that means generating graphics outside the system and bringing them in separately. And for many content creators, it means relying on a graphic designer to do the job – someone who knows their way around Bezier Curves, or if a font is serif or sans serif.
For many design professionals, the more advanced tools of the Adobe suite will likely stay the course (although Sketch and UXPin have become great alternatives for prototyping). But they’re also not the domain of the layperson or laydesigner who simply wants to jazz up their blog or social post with a cool graphic.
Now, thanks to Canva, almost anyone can produce beautiful, custom graphics that feel like they were created by a professional agency – and start for free.
While Canva’s paid subscriptions offer more robust features and access to enhanced imagery, even their basic account lets you create some pretty awesome stuff. In just a few minutes, you can watch a design tutorial, master their intuitive tools, and drag your way to a gorgeous social media graphic or poster art.
Canva isn’t new to the graphic design scene, but they’re now integrating with CMS platforms to streamline content creation. We did a fresh review of the platform and its features, and checked out their Canva “Button,” which makes it even easier to launch Canva within your app or page, make a dynamite graphic, and publish it to your website without leaving your platform.
<h3>What is Canva?</h3>
Canva is a SaaS-based graphic design platform that lets users create beautiful graphics and visual content. That can be almost anything: presentation elements, posters, templates, background patterns, photographic imagery, and more. It’s available for both desktop and mobile, and features millions of graphics, images, fonts, templates, audio, video and other assets that are “off the shelf” and available to use in your own designs.
Founded in 2012, Canva has been something of a startup wunderkind. Last year alone, their valuation doubled from just over $3 billion to $6 billion – and they now boast an active global user base of 15 million subscribers across their free, Pro, and Enterprise offerings.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/canva-sample-image.png" /><figcaption>Sample Facebook Cover Template</figcaption></figure>
How was Canva able to grow so rapidly? Well, it’s more than just having a great product and word-of-mouth social exposure. 
Simply put, Canva solved a problem that no one had managed to crack: making good design accessible to everyone.
There’s no questioning the value that design brings to a brand’s communication and its impact on customer experience. It’s like an unspoken language that can either help – or hurt – your brand’s perception and reputation. While every business relies on design to reach and influence their audiences, it’s not always attainable or cost effective for basic, everyday applications.
The other problem has been the complexity of graphic design programs. Photoshop can takes weeks (or more) of training to perform even the most foundational tasks, and may be overkill for most content creators. Vector graphics are on a whole other level of complexity, and really necessitate a skilled designer to create custom logos, iconography, and other assets.
This is where Canva is changing the game by offering a platform for novice or even non-designers. It simplifies the process by offering libraries of beautiful, modern design elements that are easy to access. Users can select from stock photos, background patterns, fonts, templates, and even music and videos inside an intuitive drag-and-drop interface – and customize them into their own graphic design creations.
Guy Kawasaki, who joined Canva in 2014 as Chief Evangelist, <a href="https://www.canva.com/learn/guy-kawasaki-chief-evangelist/">describes it as “a platform for democratizing design</a>” – just like how Macintosh democratized computers and eBay democratized commerce.
<h3>Create all kinds of visual content</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/canva-templates.png" /></figure>
Canva offers a sandbox of design tools and learning resources which are all available through its online SaaS portal. You can sign up for free in just a few seconds and even connect with your preferred social media account.
The first thing you’ll notice on the Canva website is the Template categories. This makes it easier for casual users to find what they need quickly and not fumble through expansive libraries like the major stock houses provide.
What’s great is that all of the template elements are ready-to-use. That means they work seamlessly on your "canvas," allowing you to drag and reposition in exactly the way you want. You can also import your own logos, images and graphics and instantly remove solid backgrounds to isolate elements (think of a headshot getting cut away from a background to use in a new layout). 
Once you settle on your graphics and images, it’s simple to add custom text to promote sales offers, event details, and more.
The main design sections include:
<ul>
<li>Social Media: Create graphics for channels like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.</li>
<li>Personal: Design custom invitations, postcards, planners, t-shirts, and even resumes to promote your personal brand. </li>
<li>Business: Build presentation templates, website graphics, logos, business cards, and tools like invoice and proposal templates. </li>
<li>Marketing: Make posters, flyers, infographics, brochures, newsletters, menus and more.</li>
<li>Education: Create lesson plans, worksheets, certificates, storyboards, bookmarks, class schedules and other educational resources.</li>
</ul>
There is also a “Trending” section where the most popular templates are displayed. These can include seasonal specific elements for major holidays or events. Need to make a Christmas graphic for your homepage hero? You can quickly create a custom holiday theme with beautiful images, iconography, background patterns and more.
<h3>Canva Features</h3>
It’s true that Canva has a lot of off-the-shelf components, and some users might worry that they’ll be using the same graphics as other brands. But Canva allows you to be free with your own designs, giving you the ability to edit graphics and templates, compose unique layouts, import your own logos and elements, and truly make any design your own.
Canva’s user-friendly editor makes it all possible. The sidebar menu includes:
<ul>
<li>Templates: Search thousands of templates by keywords to find exactly what you're looking for. </li>
<li>Uploads: Import a custom image, logo, or video from your computer and place it in your design template.</li>
<li>Custom graphic control: Group and position elements on a page and hyperlink graphics.</li>
<li>Edit imagery: Adjust the transparency and settings on photos, add artistic filters, and crop to custom sizes.</li>
<li>Elements: Select from a huge cache of free illustrations such as geometric shapes, stickers, charts, gradients, lines, connectors, and icons.</li>
<li>Text: Add and edit text within your composition. You can add a heading, subheading, or body text to your template, and also add links.</li>
<li>Videos: Browse a wide variety of free videos to add to your webpage or post. You can choose from one of the main categories or search for specific content.</li>
<li>Backgrounds: Add colors, patterns, or create your own custom backdrop.</li>
<li>Folders: With a paid Pro or Enterprise subscription, any images you purchase with a license will be displayed in a “Purchased” folder – and the photos and elements you like will be displayed in a “Likes” folder. Additionally, you can create your own custom folders.</li>
</ul>
These are just some of the core features that Canva provides, but what’s really amazing is how simple it is to start using the entire suite of tools. Unlike Photoshop, there’s no complexity around layer controls or color settings. In minutes, the most novice technical user can get a sense of the navigation and start creating custom graphics.
<h3>Learning, Training, and Tutorials</h3>
Canva’s learning resources are a huge part of their value offering. From the “Learn” tab on their homepage, you can access a library of resources, from design basics to business branding. You can also browse ideas and inspiration from articles that show you how to edit photos or design for print applications.
Canva offers its tutorials through their "Design School," which features classes like “Personal Branding with Dr. Talaya Waller.” Each course provides a wealth of insights and actionable instructions for creating your own successful projects.
As if the software wasn’t awesome enough, the learning resources make Canva nearly indispensable – which explains their explosive growth.
<h3>Canva Integration</h3>
Canva’s API has everything developers need to integrate Canva with their apps, enabling access to photos, images, and online media inside the editor. Currently, Canva has integrations with major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Dropbox, Giphy, and Mailchimp.
The newest and most popular integration is called the Canva "Button," which allows users to design with Canva without leaving the webpage they’re working on. Imagine writing a new blog and suddenly needing a custom graphic. By clicking the Canva Button, you can automatically launch the Canva editor and design a graphic or select an image. Once completed, you simply click "Publish" and your creations are pushed to the appropriate part of your page or experience.
It only takes a few of lines of code to add the Canva Button, but it does require a Canva account for a user to make the activation. To learn more about the Canva Button and how to integrate it with your website, click <a href="https://www.canva.com/button/">here</a>.
<h3>Canva and Content Management Systems (CMS)</h3>
Canva is steadily broadening its integrations with CMS platforms. For content creators, this eliminates the extra steps of uploading designs manually from Canva and switching back and forth between apps. It also gives the non-designers on any team the ability to add beautiful images and graphics to their pages within the CMS, making their content more compelling. 
While several platforms already offer a native integration, <a href="https://about.canva.com/wordpress/">WordPress provides a plugin</a> for designing custom graphics for your blog or website. Browse millions of graphics, images, and layouts in Canva – and once you're finished designing, your creation is automatically inserted into your WordPress post for publishing.
<h3>Pricing</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/canva-pricing.png" /><figcaption>Canva Pricing Plans</figcaption></figure>
Canva offers three plans: Free, Pro and Enterprise. Anyone can <a href="https://www.canva.com/signup">sign up for a free account</a> and start creating right away. But like any "freemium" software model, it does have its limitations. For example, you can't resize your designs for different form factors, and there are only a few hundred graphics and images to choose from. But with 8,000 templates to peruse, you can create some pretty cool designs – and it's all free. 
The Pro subscription, which is considered the "best value," is $9.95 per user per month (if paid annually). It's really an incredible deal when consider what you get: access to an expanded library with millions of images and graphics, over 60,000 templates, and the ability to create your own custom "Brand Kit." This is one of the most powerful features in the Pro, as it gives you control over your visual identity by collecting reusable assets like logos, fonts, colors and more – so you can maintain your brand standards.  
The Enterprise plan is built for teams, enabling you to manage Brand Kits for multiple properties or customers. You also get access to permissions that lock down template elements and limit access to specific team members, so you can protect your brand ecosystem. There's also 24/7 support, which is more apropos for an enterprise engagement with lots of customers and users. 
Licensing for graphics and images can always be tricky, particularly with stock libraries. With Canva, there's an upside and a downside: if you cancel your subscription, you won't be able to access or use any of the elements that were stored in your account. However, you can continue using the elements you created during your subscription period (for example, a blog image on a specific post). 
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
Canva is making good design more accessible, and it's worth checking out – particularly if you're a content manager or digital marketer. It's a natural addition to your CMS stack, but also brings significant value to gig-minded solopreneurs and enterprises alike. 
Like the name suggests, it's your "canvas." But you don't have to be Picasso to make it beautiful. 
To get started with a Canva account, click <a href="https://www.canva.com/">here</a>.
<h3>About Canva</h3>
<a href="https://www.canva.com/">Canva</a> empowers users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content. Featuring a simple drag-and-drop user interface and a vast library of templates and design ingredients such as fonts, illustrations, stock photography, video and audio content, and the power to include content from the web such as Giphy and Google Maps, anyone can take an idea and create something beautiful. Canva  is available on the web, iOS and Android.

Canva “Button” Gives CMS Users Integrated Graphic Design Tools for Visual Content

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 37