Headless CMS holds incredible potential for enterprise marketing teams. But to make use of that potential, you need to know how to capitalize on it. 

In this brief post, we're going to cover the challenges that enterprises can face when building headless CMS as well as how they can overcome them and implement a modern CMS solution. 

The challenges of building a headless CMS

Content previews

Most marketing teams are used to traditional CMS solutions, which allow them to see the content they're creating rendered in real-time. They can switch between the HTML code, the un-rendered content, and the rendered content with just a few clicks. 

With headless CMS, this feature can be more challenging to implement. If it's not implemented, then you'll not only frustrate your marketing team but potentially create issues where your content isn't rendering the way your marketers intended. 

Long and stacking builds

One solution for rendering your content in real-time is to create previews by hooking your headless CMS up to a build platform via a webhook. This building platform can take the content, render it correctly as a preview, and display it back to the marketer creating the content. 

The issue with this is that rendering content uses up resources. And if you have multiple marketers working on the same piece of content at once (which is one of the core functionalities of headless CMS) then the rendering platform can become inaccurate, overworked, and costly. 

Scheduled publishing

Another feature that marketers are used to having is scheduled publishing. Again, traditional CMS solutions have this down pat. Scheduling when a piece of content is going to be posted is as easy as clicking the date in the calendar. 

Headless CMS creates challenges with this system because headless content is designed to deploy across a variety of channels all at once. You may want your content to appear on your blog at one time and on your company's LinkedIn at another time. 

Solutions to make your enterprise headless CMS a reality

Server-rendered content previews

By using the proper frameworks, you can take advantage of server-rendered content previews. This allows content creators to quickly get a preview of what they're working on without causing a hitch. 

Use a native platform

You can get even more performance from your content and previews by using a native platform like Hugo (Go) or Jekyll (Ruby). These can be up to 30x faster than their JS counterparts, so if you don't need the features of a JS-based framework, opt for a native solution. 

Don't build everything

The simplest solution, however, is to leave as much of your headless CMS build to others as possible. There is already an abundance of headless CMS solutions and frameworks available, and more are being created each day. 

Gatsby

Lastly, you can use Gatsby for your enterprise headless CMS build. Gatsby allows you to host your content in Gatsby Cloud, where it is rendered incrementally. This keeps your previews updated without taxing your systems (or your budget!). 

Build your enterprise headless CMS with the pros

Start building your enterprise headless CMS today with ThinkLogic and Kontent.ai. We have decades of combined experience providing enterprises with cutting-edge solutions. Reach out today and get ahead of the curve.