Challenges with Traditional CMS
Web publishers, including Get the Gloss, are often constrained by the static nature of conventional Content Management Systems (CMS), like WordPress, Drupal, or Sitecore. For any web development, product teams have to invest time and money in web design , template and often software development. Platform changes require specialised web designers and developers, creating delay and cost. Traditional hosting is also expensive and difficult to scale to meet fluctuating demands. Legacy CMS is characterised by slow moving development and sometimes proprietary software. WordPress, for example has roughly 20 years of technical debt and 40,000 + bugs and vulnerabilities in WordPress Core, Plugins and Themes.
Introducing Blaze for Get the Gloss
Blaze, developed by Byte9, is a 'headless' content management platform that addresses these challenges. One of its notable features is its front-end Single Page Application (SPA). Once this SPA is loaded on a user's browser, it provides all functional advantages of an app, within the browser itself. Unlike traditional CMSs which serve static pages, the SPA allows Get the Gloss to offer a dynamic, user-centered experience, updating individual components on every page-load. Blaze Page Builder gives business users the ability to create and manage sophisticated SPA websites.
Blaze's Page-Builder interface further revolutionizes SPA website management, allowing Get the Gloss teams to have unmatched control over content displays across all pages, directories, and listings. Key capabilities include:
- Allowing editors to create searchable content listings, expert directories and blended content landing pages.
- Configuring custom search pages using Blaze's native Elastic Search engine.
- Integrating with tools like Google Tag Manager and Google Big Query for enhanced analytics and predictive content engagement.
- Enabling commercial teams to manage flexible advertising and banner management, facilitating targeted and personalised adverts and sponsored content.
Enhanced Performance with Blaze, AI and Cloud Computing
The Blaze SPA is known for its speed, outperforming traditional static page generating CMS systems, . It is at the forefront in terms of Core Web Vitals performance. The Blaze platform also enhances media management, particularly for image content. With Blaze, single high high-resolution images are optimized using AI for every device size and delivered efficiently via AWS CloudFront nodes.
Blaze's utilization of technologies like Elastic Search and the GraphQL APIs ensures top-tier content delivery and performance. Get the Gloss can now seamlessly integrate dynamic product data and affiliate links within editorial content, reshaping their content marketing strategy.
Furthermore, Blaze's use of AWS Cloud computing ensures optimal hosting performance and cost. With AWS Elastic Beanstalk and on-demand instances, Get the Gloss only pays for the exact computing they use, which can scale instantly according to demand.
The Impact: Better User Experience and ROI
Since implementing the Blaze framework and AWS services, Get the Gloss has seen significant improvements in site performance and search engine optimization. Analytics reports indicate consistent week-on-week traffic growth. With the advanced features and capabilities of Blaze, users now spend more time on the site, maximizing advertiser and sponsor engagement. Moreover, the teams at Get the Gloss can now autonomously manage and develop the website and its content, reducing dependencies on web designers and developers.
In summary, headless CMS solutions like Blaze are redefining the web editorial and content marketing landscape, offering enhanced flexibility, performance, and user engagement.