If you want to build a website, then you have many great options to use as your primary base. If you intend to use one of the many popular Content Management Systems, such as WordPress, then you are making a pretty wise choice. However, a full blown CMS may not always be the best choice when it comes to performance, a popular option is to use a headless CMS.
What is a headless CMS?
A headless CMS is a form of content management system that works in a different way to traditional systems. With a normal CMS, you have a large backend usually coupled with a database, but when using a headless CMS you remove that backend and the performance deficits that come with it. All of your content moves to being stored in markdown files and when your site is compiled it build those files into HTML. As such you are serving your users pre-compiled pages rather than having the being generated on load every time, meaning performance is greatly improved.
Does WordPress offer a headless CMS option?
Yes, it does. Headless WordPress websites are designed using the familiar WordPress backend to manage the content, but we ditch the database and bulk. Normally, it is paired up with a bespoke frontend solution to display the content, a great example of this would be pairing it with Gatsby.
The main reason to go down the route of using a headless CMS with WordPress is that it splits apart the content editing and the development team, keeping your codebase tidy and performant.
For example, the marketing team for your business could then focus more on creating content. It can then be uploaded on the backend using a WordPress-like interface, where marketers can feel comfortable with what they are doing. Once that’s done then the development team would be able to take control and check the content and compile it themselves whilst adding the performance enhancing features that comes with using Headless/Gatsby, leading to a fast site for users!
Why would I want to use a headless CMS with WordPress?
The main reason comes down to how the website will actually perform. For example, standard WordPress websites built using a theme or template design will only be able to show the content in a mixture of HTML and PHP, you can read more about when not to use WordPress. This means that the content is rendered on the server side every time a user clicks through to a new page. This has a negative impact on website performance, along with the bulk that WordPress includes such as JQuery, plugins and other features you will probably never use.
When building a website, it is absolutely essential that you have fast loading times and high performance. If your website lags when loading, it is likely that some visitors will get fed up and go to a competitor page. By contrast, using a headless CMS would allow for your website to provide a pre-loaded content, that can start loading way before WordPress even thinks about loading. This is quicker, more flexible, and typically more likely to deliver faster content delivery.
The end result? More users sticking around, lower bounce rates, and a generally easier time putting your website and its content together.
The primary benefits of using a headless CMS in WordPress
If you intend to go down the route of using this kind of system, then, what are the main benefits?
How can you ensure you get the maximum from using your headless CMS in WordPress?
More control and flexibility
Control is everything in website development. You need to know what you can change, what you can adjust, and what you need to leave alone. Using a custom workflow with a headless CMS means you know exactly what is in your codebase, you can edit everything without worrying that functions might be in use by CMS-only code.
Now, you can make sure that WordPress content is easily brought into a more complex website than WordPress would normally allows when you are using a page builder. This means that you can easily combine WordPress and benefit from its easy, user-friendly backend system whilst making sure content is performant. That additional control is so important to long-term development, making sure your website can continue to grow and to thrive, without getting bogged down with CMS updates and plugin creep.
When using a headless CMS combined with Gatsby, you can integrate this with Github and that can power your deployments. Anyone who’s worked in a development team knows how important it is that your repositories stay up to date, and what better way than forcing your main branch to be an exact copy of the live site!
More reliable performance
We spoke about website performance above, and it is so important to being able to make the most of your visitors. By using a powerful frontend system to run the website, you can get a much more impressive website performance. This means that load times improve vastly, making sure that your visitors are not waiting around annoyed while the website loads at a glacial pace.
Frontend WordPress loading can be a time consuming experience even on a good internet connection, especially when you are using plugins (you can read more about WordPress plugins here), page builders and the bulk of general WordPress. This gives you a faster-loading solution that would be highly recommended for new websites.
Responsive design control
One problem with many WordPress themes and designs is that they do not scale and respond well on mobile devices. This can lead to websites being hard to navigate on mobile, and you can have performance issues if you are trying to show desktop sized images on mobile 3G connections. Responsive design is a key thing to focus on, and a frontend that is running on something other than WordPress is much easier to make performant. When using Gatsby and a headless CMS it comes with some great features right off the bat, such a lazy loading, inline stying to prevent render blocking & properly sizing your images.
Greater security management
Security is everything in a website, and a headless CMS is much more secure. They do not have the same connection to an active web server, as your content is already loaded, you aren’t querying databases every page load. As such, databases are much harder to locate for those snooping with malicious intent. This means that what can be attacked and what can be changed is a far smaller portion than it would be with a traditional CMS design. You are essentially serving up static HTML pages, which would server very little purpose to being hacked.
This means that you can reduce the risk of malicious attacks, exposure of essential code, and DDoS attacks on your website. It is simple another layer of security that makes your website harder to alter.
If you are keen on developing a website using WordPress, then there are many benefits of using a headless CMS. Consider the above, and see how it could help you to make sure your website can grow, scale, and improve over time. Starting with a headless CMS might offer more flexibility, control, and security – along with improved performance – compared to sticking to the normal options. Why not try it out for yourself?
If you think a headless CMS is not for you, or you have found it a little bit too complicated why not take a look at setting up a WordPress website for beginners!
