Web Content Management Trends To Watch In 2018
New technologies will continue to change how organisations manage their content in 2018.
If you’re looking to overhaul your current web content management system or you’ve only started setting up shop, it is useful to know which trends are shaping content management systems (CMS).
CMS is always evolving and in the past ten years there has been a shift towards the needs of the end-users and the need to deliver content across different channels.
The benefits of a good CMS include an organised, updated site that delivers a seamless experience to its users.
These factors underpin the key content management trends to watch in 2018.
- Artificial intelligence
Every part of the economy – and society – is being disrupted by new forms of technology like artificial intelligence. In CMS there are a few practical applications of how AI can improve the way your business stores and accesses content. AI is especially useful as the volume of content production – and the need for this content to be managed – continues to rise.
According to Techcrunch, the growth in the collection of content will make it easier for AI tools to organise data in 2018, with AI algorithms performing better on large sets of data.
A practical example of this is a recent partnership between Box and Google where images will be automatically tagged when they are uploaded. The image recognition tool will be able to recognise text and other information in images and store it accordingly.
Chatbots driven by AI will also be able to point users to the information they need. Gartner predicts that by 2021 more than half of enterprises will be spending more on chatbots than on mobile app developments. Using chatbots for easily automated content searches will free up employees for more meaningful customer engagement.
- Personalisation
AI is also at the core of another key trend: Personalisation.
In e-commerce an Accenture study found that 75% of customers prefer businesses to recognise them by name, know their purchase history and suggest items based on that history.
Personalisation programmes also increase revenue by up to 10%.
The business case for personalisation is clear and possibilities when using CMS in the right way are endless.
To effectively personalise users experience using CMS different data must be collected. This incudes search keywords, on-site browsing data and explicit user data such as the information collected in forms. From here your CMS can offer users options for suggested content to match their needs and preferences.
In the example of the retail industry, personalisation in CMS allows companies to offer targeted rewards to customers and they’re able to customise these rewards to make them location-specific, for instance.
There are a range of personalisation engines running in the cloud to choose from including Google Optimise, Optimizely and Evergage.
- Headless CMS and multi-channel delivery
It’s called web content management, with a connection to the website as the platform
In 2018 content needs to be delivered to several more platforms than just your company website.
The move towards headless CMS continues in 2018. Increasingly, people are creating and consuming content on mobile devices. It is estimated that by 2018, 80% of content use will be on mobile and mobile already represents close to seven to ten minutes on digital media and this is only one new medium your content needs to be delivered on. One benefit of headless CMS is that the content management environment is separate from the content delivery environment. This gives you more flexibility to pull content from a single repository to display and publish on multiple platforms.
The growth of open-source platforms like WordPress appear to be plateauing have plateaued in the past year, with some analysts linking this trend to the steady growth of new content infrastructure systems like headless CMS.
Early adopters have already moved towards headless CMS and it is expected that it will be widely used in the year ahead.
Whether you opt for a headless CMS or not, keep in mind that your CMS must make it easy for developers to integrate content across channels.
It’s important to know the latest trends in your industry as a new CMS feature can make it easier for your businesses marketers and developers to create and organise content. When you’re putting together the business case to improve your CMS – or start from scratch – consider your needs. What kind of content is your organisation creating and storing? Perhaps you don’t need a CMS with hundreds of out of the box features. It could be that you’re not producing rich media and need a simple system to allow teams to tag metadata to make it easier for users to find information.
A CMS must make it easier for marketers and developers to collaborate and update content and for customers to easily navigate your site from any location or device.
When selecting our CMS in 2018 always use these indicators as touchstones to make sure you’re moving in the right direction.