Mastering Multi Site Management: 4 Best Practices
Storyblok is the first headless CMS that works for developers & marketers alike.
Multi site management is the process of overseeing several websites at once, all from a single location. It provides benefits including consistent brand representation, efficient workflows, and easy scalability. Users who opt for a headless CMS as their multi site management tool find that it supports several aspects of this strategy, including centralization, localization, organization, and saved time.
Modern organizations have growing needs. Gone are the days where businesses only had to provide a single static website to bring in customers. New locations, audience segments, and brand initiatives require more wide-reaching strategies that can scale easily. That’s where multi site management comes in.
What is multi site management?
Multi site content management is the practice of managing several websites or other platforms from one centralized location. That way, users can oversee sites that are different yet related without having to jump from program to program. Some use cases may include ecommerce shops with multiple localized storefronts or non-profit organizations that have different web properties for each initiative.
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Multi site management can be a formidable strategy for many businesses looking to centralize.
Choosing the right multi site management tool is crucial to this approach’s success. Headless CMS is a popular choice. This is because it offers flexibility and power that can easily manage the needs of multiple projects running at once from a centralized location.
3 benefits of multi site management
There are a few key reasons why companies might opt for multi site content management. Let’s take a look at the most common ones.
1. Efficient workflows
Let’s say you run a university website for a large institution. You likely have a host of topics your site needs to cover: different departments, university news, student resources, admission portals, and more. It can take a lot of time and effort to make sure the site is neatly organized if it’s one big monolith. Your backend team might struggle to keep everything organized.
Multi site management helps by sectioning each of those needs into their own area without needing to manage several different platforms. Users don’t have to constantly be juggling different interfaces to provide different experiences.
This also offers benefits when it comes to things like updates. Working with disjointed programs means you’d have to spend a lot of time rolling out vital brand-wide information or critical system updates one by one. Multi site management tools empower you to do it all with just a few clicks.
2. Consistent production
Brand image is everything. Visitors need to be able to recognize your organization from a single glance. This familiarity is the key to establishing your credibility and becoming a household name. If you’re managing separate sites, you risk inconsistent brand representation, which can negatively impact your chances at success.
Multi site content management does away with this risk. You can make sure all brand websites are the same across the board, no matter where your users will be accessing them.
The same goes for making life easier for your backend teams. It’s easy to carry over the same user permissions, system settings, external tools, and more. They’ll be able to continue working with the same interface despite the difference in content.
3. Scalable possibilities
Multi site management offers endless possibilities when it comes to expansion. If you need a new section, you simply create one. The benefits of centralization and consistency will carry over regardless of how many properties you include.
Moreover, carrying over settings and content speeds up production considerably, so all you have to do is customize it and push it. This is especially true if you select a multi site management tool that allows duplication of existing content. Faster scaling means a better ability to capitalize on market opportunities and thus a better opportunity for success for your organization.
How to get started with multi site management
Multi site content management can be a huge asset for your business - especially if you’re embracing the power of a headless content management system. Here are a few tips to start applying this strategy today.
4 ways to use headless CMS for multi site management
1. Manage all channels from one location
As we’ve mentioned, one of the most popular upsides to multi site management is the ability to centralize operations. The same goes for headless CMS. Headless centralizes all of your content in one place so you can push it out to several different frontends, a process also known as omnichannel marketing.
Using omnichannel marketing alongside multi site content management means you can double down on consistency. All the different sites can get the same content updates at the same time with just a few clicks.
Learn more about omnichannel strategy.
This applies even as your operations scale up: the process will stay the same no matter how many sites you’re managing. All you have to do is integrate it into your headless ecosystem. Then, with the power of omnichannel, you can push the identical content to a limitless number of frontends.
They don’t all have to be websites, either. Thanks to the fact that it’s API-based, headless CMS can serve any kind of frontend. You’re free to vary your formatting as much as you need and rest assured that it will continue to be simple to manage.
2. Tailor each site to individual locations
In today’s world, localization is a necessary feature for a CMS. This is especially true if you’re using multi site management. Combining the two empowers you to produce different websites tailored for different locations.
The potential for personalization found in multi site management can help you better connect with your visitors. This can lead to higher traffic and more conversions. Headless CMS helps you double down on this with in-engine localization features. Take Storyblok as an example:
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A sample of what Storyblok's localization features look like
Storyblok makes it easy to provide tailored experiences with both field and folder-level translations. It’s quick and easy to swap between multi sites, meaning it’s quick and easy to create experiences designed for specific audiences.
3. Keep expansion organized
Multi site management is great for expansion, but that doesn’t mean the process can’t be even easier. With headless CMS, you can streamline expansion with useful features.
For example, creating specific user roles can make sure that the right people are getting access to the content they need to change. Similarly, building custom workflows to fit your organization creates a process that works for you, making sure every step of growth goes through the right channels before publication.
Best expansion practices go beyond content and into assets as well. By choosing a headless CMS like Storyblok, you’ll gain access to a Digital Asset Manager (DAM). DAMs support multi site management by providing centralized access to assets regardless of which multi site you’re working with.
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An example of Storyblok's Digital Asset Manager (DAM).
That means no confusion when it comes to asset use, no potential double uploads, and no time wasted digging through piles of data to find the right image or video you’re looking for. It’s easy to stay organized, regardless of how large your organization grows.
4. Save time with composable content
Finally, headless CMS is the champion of composable content. Composable content is the process of creating new content using smaller, pre-made blocks that act as templates but can be customized. This means production can go very quickly with consistent yet personalized results.
This faster, easier content cycle means that multi site content management can go ever quicker. Duplicating content already speeds up production considerably, and when you combine that with headless’s ability to provide lightning fast customization, you’re looking at an impressively short time-to-market.
Key takeaways
Multi site management is a formidable tool. It helps your organization provide consistent content that scales quickly, easily, and effectively – all with a fraction of the work it would take to manage each site individually. By using a headless CMS as your multi site management tool, you’re choosing technology that’s designed to make your work easier while multiplying its reach.
