Over the next few weeks, I will be quickly covering what we are calling "CMS Protips". This series will feature, in no particular order, a list of tips and tricks to get the most out of your content management system and your website. Let's get this started!
Protip #1 - Automate your Homepage's Content
Since your homepage is most likely the most important page on your website, automating a much of the content as possible makes a lot of sense. This automated content can consist of blog feeds, upcoming events, news, social media content, or any other type of data that may be useful to your visitors.
What Data can you Automate?
Your homepage should reflect the most current message from your company, not the same "Company Overview" paragraph that hasn't changed in years. This up-to-date content should drive traffic to inner pages of your site where the user is given the opportunity to convert to a customer.
Automating your homepage's content gives three distinct benefits:
1. Cleaner Overall Look and Feel After Each Update
Pulling in data and formatting it with the already existing content will ensure that the look and feel of your website is kept intact each time your homepage is updated. Manually editing this content can lead to errors, extra line spaces, and other minor issues that can decrease the effectiveness of your site.
2. Easier Content Management
Managing your content in one place in your CMS and having that propagate throughout your site is the optimal setup for any content manager. Changing one piece of content will be reflected in each part of the site that uses that data.
3. More Consistent Usability
Your website visitors will appreciate your website staying consistent throughout their visit. This is especially helpful if your website has a large ratio of return visitors as they know what information to expect and where to find it quickly.
Obviously there may be some pieces of your homepage that cannot be automated (image galleries, for example). When you're dealing with one of these, just make sure you're paying special attention when you are updating them.
Stay tuned for Protip #2!