Author: Franz Malten Buemann

 

Dynamic Web Push notifications make a striking difference in marketing results. According to MoEngage, it increases engagement by up to 6.5%. It also translates into revenue in your online store. From now on, you have the ability to use the complete Dynamic Web Push Notification tool to deliver fully automated, CDP data-driven, and AI-powered dynamic content in omnichannel campaigns. Surprise your customers and discover new levels of eCommerce engagement.

 

Dynamic Web Push notifications: A fully-fledged sales tool

 

The Web Push channel has been known and loved for a long time. It’s effective, fast, and bypasses popular blockers in marketing communications. What’s more, it uses browsers as a delivery medium, so it doesn’t compete for visibility with other advertisers. However, until now there was no tool that would combine both the versatility of mass mailings and convenience and effectiveness of automatic, personalized 1-to-1 messages with the benefits of dynamic content and a full spectrum of CDP data. And all this is worth the effort.

 

Web Push automation campaigns,
which refer to the product recently viewed by the recipient, record
a 13% CTR (PushPushGo).

Running highly targeted push
notification campaigns sees a click rate as high as 30%
(Gravitec).

Sending a combination of dynamic
and segmented push notifications improved engagement rates by
6.49%. Similarly, the corresponding opening rate was at 8.8%
(MoEngage).

Advanced targeting (threefold)
and advanced personalization (fourfold) can both improve
Web Push notification reaction rates (Accengage).

 

Web Push Notification
personalization on various levels is essential and well received by
recipients. Content- and address-level personalization based on CDP
data significantly increases their effectiveness. Adding fully
personalized product recommendations takes the game to a whole new
level. What’s more, the ability to use them in both mass and
automated, personalized, 1-to-1 activities greatly expands the
omnichannel marketing advantage portfolio of every eCommerce owner.

 

Dynamic Web Push notification: A comprehensive personalization tool for omnichannel marketing

 

Dynamic Web Push notifications are brief, customer data-driven, and multi-language messages with personal recommendations displayed in a browser window that can be sent as both mass and 1-to-1 communications.

 

Enrich multi-level
workflow processes with CDP-personalized Dynamic Web Push
notifications as part of the omnichannel customer experience.

Leverage advanced CDP
data-driven targeting options and send perfectly personalized
notifications to identified subscribers in your database.

Upgrade your mass
remarketing with AI-driven personal recommendations and
encourage subscribers to revisit your website.

Amplify in-store revenue
with dynamic, automated 1-to-1 Web Push notifications based on
past visits and customer preferences.

Boost relationships with
your customers by sending perfectly tailored messages with
meaningful content to improve their customer experience.

Stand out from the
competition and target multiple markets at once—create
various language versions of consent forms and notifications in one
easy step.

Analyze how the
engagement created with 1-to-1 and mass Dynamic Web Push
notifications translates into sales from your automated
campaigns.

 

 

Spice up your omnichannel with multilingual, CDP, and AI-powered personalized mass and 1-to-1 Dynamic Web Push Notifications

 

Dynamic Web Push notifications are a versatile tool dedicated to eCommerce. They allow presenting monitored contacts with super-personalized product recommendations in many ways. This boosts chances of clicking on the offer, making it suitable for both new and potential customers, as well as dormant ones who have stopped visiting the website. Here are some ideas on how to use Dynamic Web Push notifications in your daily work:

 

Complement your omnichannel
campaign by sending customers compelling Dynamic Web Push
Notifications to prompt them to go to a product page.

Increase your revenue by
recommending products recently viewed on your site by sending
personalized, 1-to-1 Dynamic Web Push notifications to monitored
subscribers of that channel.

Recover abandoned shopping carts
with a new channel by sending visually appealing notifications
containing automatically personalized offers with products left in
the cart.

Prepare a mass Dynamic Web Push
campaign where each of your monitored contacts will see perfectly
personalized product recommendations based on their preferences.

Encourage your audience to return
to your site by sending them tailored product recommendations via
Dynamic Web Push notifications using advanced AI-based
recommendation engines.

Conduct effective, personalized
remarketing not only in ad networks and in your own store, but also
in a browser-based channel that bypasses marketing consents and ad
blockers.

Leverage CDP first-party data
to personalize both the content and addressing of Dynamic Web Push.

 

Comparison between standard and Dynamic Web Push notifications

 

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Especially for entrepreneurs with countless non-social-media-related to-dos on their plates, staying on top of Instagram trends can be tough. It seems like every other week there are updates to the algorithm, new strategies for driving growth, and added features to utilize. While these insights and tools can be powerful ways to drive growth to your business, they can also bring overwhelm to your social media strategy.
To cut through the noise of how to best utilize the platform, we’ve gone right to the source and chatted with four women about the most effective Instagram campaigns they’ve ever launched.
Whether you’re looking to gain followers, boost sales, or serve your audience on a wider scale, take a page from their playbook, with the confidence that—whatever changes may come to Instagram—they’ve worked for business owners just like you.
Strategy #1: Create “How-To” Guides for Your Audience
Shang Saavedra
Owner of Save My Cents, a platform aiming to change people’s financial lives, one cent at a time.
The most effective Instagram campaign I’ve launched: Creating “How To” guides on how to open and fund investing and retirement accounts has worked well for me. Part of the reason this campaign was so successful is because this information is not widely shared. People really fear investing and think that it’s really complex. Really, opening these accounts takes minutes.
The growth I’ve experienced as a result: I’ve done a few of these campaigns over time and they get shared and liked more often than many of my other posts. I got really good feedback as well—my followers actually took the advice and opened their accounts. This showed me that my account had a real impact.
Strategy #2: Join Forces With Others
Lexie Smith
Founder of THEPRBAR Inc., an online coaching platform and resource hub built to help motivated entrepreneurs and professionals expand their impact, influence, and revenue.
The most effective Instagram campaign I’ve launched: I spearheaded and collaborated with eight other coaches in complementary fields to launch a list-building campaign called The Empower Project. We all contributed one value-packed freebie and promoted the campaign on a variety of channels—mainly on Instagram. All we asked for was for accounts to follow all participating coaches, and provide their email. The campaign was wildly successful for all involved and cost nothing to run.
The growth I’ve experienced as a result: We all captured hundreds of hyper-targeted emails and followers from the campaign without spending a dime. It was more important for us to attract a qualified audience rather than just aim for large vanity metrics.
Strategy #3: Create Images to Make Sharing Easy
Bonnie Chen
Social Media and Content at Dreamers & Doers, a high-impact community and PR hype machine supporting and amplifying extraordinary entrepreneurial women.
The most effective Instagram campaign I’ve launched: Dreamers & Doers helps our members gain visibility in the media, and any time they are featured in one of our partner publications, I create images to help them share the news far and wide.
Recently, 33 of our members were featured in an article in BlogHer, and I created custom images for each of them with their photo and a quote from the article. This allowed them to easily share the news of their feature on their own social platforms. We also posted these images on our Instagram stories and tagged each member, which made it even easier for them to share, amplifying Dreamers & Doers’ brand awareness to their various audiences.
The growth I’ve experienced as a result: Our members were thrilled that sharing was so easy, and 70% of them shared the images across their networks. As a result, we saw a boost in followers, profile visits, and click-thoughts to our website for several days afterward. The added visibility for both Dreamers & Doers and for our members made this easy initiative a huge win-win!
Strategy #4: Build Trust Through User Generated Content
Marissa Pick
Founder of Marissa Pick Consulting LLC, providing strategic consulting focused on digital transformation, content marketing, social media strategy, personal branding, and more.
The most effective Instagram campaign I’ve launched: The most effective campaigns I’ve worked on are the ones that feature user-generated content (UGC) and help to showcase the brand. Consumers trust user-generated reviews and content more than content from a brand. When a brand is able to showcase success and a product through the eyes of its end user, natural engagement follows. Brands will see an uptick in followers, engagement, and responses.
The growth I’ve experienced as a result: One of my clients was working on launching their Instagram as a main component within their overall campaign but it was driving minimal traffic. After leveraging clear calls to action, paid media, and UGC, we saw the channel jump to almost 9 percent of the main referral of traffic through to the website. The percent of overall traffic from social media channels to the website grew as well, but the engagement, interaction, and UGC sparked a massive growth for this account.
When it comes to your own Instagram journey, perhaps the most impactful piece of advice we can give is simply to get started. Whether you experiment with some of the strategies above or use them as inspiration to try another creative idea, it’s key to start somewhere and see what resonates with your unique audience. You never know what may prove to be successful for you and your business.
All individuals featured in this article are members of Dreamers & Doers, an award-winning community and diverse ecosystem amplifying extraordinary entrepreneurial women through PR opportunities, authentic connection, and high-impact resources. Learn more about Dreamers & Doers and subscribe to its monthly The Digest for top entrepreneurial and career resources.

If you feel like the app TikTok came out of nowhere, you’re not wrong.
Since launching in early 2018, TikTok’s been covered by seemingly every major news publication and racked up millions of downloads globally.
Despite TikTok’s major early success, the app still feels like a bit of a mystery, especially to marketers. In fact, until recently, its parent company, ByteDance, hasn’t disclosed many metrics at all.
In TikTok’s first year, all we really knew was that an odd-ball video app was going viral, topping global app store charts, and gaining a huge fanbase from Gen-Z.

 
But now, shortly after TikTok’s first birthday, we know a lot more about it as sites like Digiday, AdWeek, and our own Marketing Blog regularly cover it.
Even if you still aren’t quite sure what TikTok is, you’ve probably seen a video meme on social media that was created and published in the app first. Here’s one for example of a TikTok post which went viral on Twitter:

Now THIS is a tiktok I could watch all day pic.twitter.com/u1dBkH2OAa — 🌸 Alexandra Daniels 🌸 (@alexdanielsxo)
July 11, 2019

When making decisions about your social strategy, you’re probably more interested in numbers than virality as proof of an app’s staying power.
As someone who’s gotten sucked into the app, blogged multiple times about it, hearted hundreds of posts, and even made a few embarrassingly mature videos of my own, I’m fairly certain that this platform will stick around for quite some time. But, luckily, with mounting data on TikTok, you don’t just have to take my word for it.
To help you make informed decisions about your strategy and whether TikTok is right for your brand, I’ve compiled a list of 28 interesting stats and facts to know before venturing on to the app.
29 TikTok Stats to Know in 2021
Userbase, Downloads, and Growth
Within TikTok’s first year, it reportedly reached 500 million monthly active users. Wondering if this was just a fluke or a viral trend that will simmer down? Think again. According to TikTok and its company heads, the audience might be larger and more promising than we think.

In September 2021, TikTok celebrated reaching 1 billion monthly active users. (TikTok)
Musical.ly, a lip-syncing app which ByteDance purchased and merged with TikTok, reportedly had 100 million monthly active users when it was purchased by TikTok in 2018. (The Verge)
Douyin, TikTok’s original standalone app in China, had 300 million users at the time Musical.ly merged with TikTok. (The Verge)

In 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded app globally (850 million downloads), followed by WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. (Apptopia)
TikTok is the Top Free App in the Entertainment section of the Apple App Store. (Apple App Store)

Demographics
While TikTok’s user base is dominated by Gen-Z in the United States, many millennials have adopted it around the world.
And, although it might feel like TikTok is huge in the U.S., the app’s biggest audience actually comes from China, where the platform is called Douyin.
Here’s a breakdown of TikTok’s major demographic stats.

35% of TikTok’s global audience is between the ages of 19 and 29, and 28% is under 18. (Business of Apps)
As of December 2020, TikTok has 69.5 million monthly active users in the United States. (Statista)
As of April 2021, 48% of U.S. adults between 18-29 use TikTok, compared to 20% of adults between 30-49 and 14% among 50-64 year olds. (Pew Research Center)
One-quarter of Americans between 12 and 34 have used TikTok compared to 3% of adults aged 35+. (MarketingCharts)
51% of global TikTok users are male and 49% are female. (Hootsuite)
TikTok is now available in more than 200 countries. (Oberlo)
Over 22.2 million of TikTok’s monthly active users are in Indonesia. (Statista)

User Behavior
TikTok is a fast-paced app. The second you log in, you see a video at the top of a feed that’s algorithmically curated around your interests. If you enjoy the video you’re watching, you can follow, comment, and like the content directly from the video post. If you’re not loving what you see, you can keep swiping in an upward motion to immediately see more odd videos.
From my own experience, I’ve found that TikTok can easily cause you to spend more time than expected watching an endless stream of often comedic videos. Since these videos are usually between 15 seconds and one minute, it makes the app ideal for people who need quick entertainment on their morning commute or when they’re bored at home.
Because of TikTok’s quick pace and entertainment factor, the stats below aren’t that surprising:

The average user spends 89 minutes per day on the app, according to a leaked deck from TikTok. (Music Business Worldwide)
As of September 2021, there are 14.43 million daily active users using the TikTok Android App and the average user spends 12.3 hours per month using it. (Statista, HootSuite)
TikTok is one of the most downloaded apps in the Google Play Store. (Statista)
Younger users aged 4-15 spend an average of 80 minutes per day on the app. (Qustodio)
According to a leaked TikTok deck, the average user opens the app 19 times per day. (Music Business Worldwide)
There are 30.8 million global DAU on the TikTok iOS app as of September 2021. (Statista)
TikTok users on Android now spend more time watching content on the app than they do on YouTube. (App Annie)

Viral Trends and Influencers on TikTok
Like YouTube, Vine, Instagram, as well as other past and present video apps, TikTok has opened doors for influencers, comedians, meme creators, and even some brands. While it’s still a bit too early to see how successful its influencers and trends will be in the long run, here are a few interesting tidbits:

The most followed creator on TikTok is dancer Charli D’amelio with 123.5 million followers. Following close behind is Khabane Lame with 115 million. (Wikipedia)
One of the earliest branded hashtag challenges was Guess’ #InMyDenim challenge. According to TikTok, videos marked with this hashtag have received a grand total of 38.8 million views. (TikTok)
Rapper Lil Nas X credits the success of his song “Old Town Road” to TikTok. The song was propelled to #1 on the Billboard Top 100 in 2019 after the artist uploaded it to TikTok. (BuzzFeed News)

Here’s a compilation of TikTok’s #CowboyChallenge where people wearing normal clothing cut to themselves in cowboy costumes to the song “Old Town Road.”

Business, Revenue, and Competition
The launch of TikTok not only put its parent company, ByteDance, on the map, but it also resulted in competition from apps like Facebook, which launched a very similar app called Lasso shortly after TikTok went viral. While TikTok and ByteDance are less transparent about revenue and other major details, here’s what we know:

TikTok now offers five advertising tiers aimed at big brands. One of which, a branded hashtag challenge, reportedly costs $150,000 per day. (TikTok Pitch Deck Notes First Reported by Digiday)
TikTok generated an estimated 1.9 billion in revenue in 2020. (Business of Apps)

In October 2020, TikTok made $115 million on in-app purchases from users. (Sensor Tower)
TikTok has a 4.9-star rating in the Apple App Store and 4.4 in the Google Play Store. (Apple App Store, Google Play Store)
Bytedance, TikTok’s parent company is valued at $75 million, making it the world’s most valuable startup. (CBInsights)

The Mysteries of TikTok
Although TikTok is a top social platform and is ramping up its options for advertisers, it’s still rather new. When a company or startup is new, it’s not uncommon for leadership to hide early numbers, even when a brand is successful. In fact, we’ve seen this with other major companies like Snapchat and Netflix.
Despite the launch of TikTok For Business in mid 2020, there’s still a lot more to learn as TikTok’s global teams and ByteDance continue to remain hush-hush about major metrics. In the coming years, as TikTok continues to draw in more advertisers, it wouldn’t be surprising if we started to see more transparent information about the app and its user base. 
Where to Find TikTok Stats
In the meantime, If you want to learn more about TikTok, you can read up on its short history and early success in this post, or click here to find a how-to guide for using the app. In addition, you can discover important TikTok facts app on various websites: 

Statista
Business of Apps
Global Web Index
Pew Research Center
eMarketer

Want to see what other businesses are doing on TikTok? Check out this roundup of brands on TikTok.

 

We are used to the notion that the news on plane crashes, war casualties, car crash fatalities or a prospect of imminent demise tend to drive people to a more philosophical mood. They begin to reflect on the fragility of their existence and the futility of all the material aspects of their lives. This is definitely not a good mood for shopping. Or is it?

 

Would Schopenhauer go shopping in the face of death?

 

It is unclear if Schopenhauer, facing unavoidable death, would go into a shopping frenzy. Expert opinions are divided in the matter. 

 

In  “The Will to Consume: Schopenhauer and Consumer Society” Ryan Gunderson tries to demonstrate, that “(…) the attempt to flee the sufferings of estranged labour through consumption has pushed consumer society into a new web of suffering brought on by a continual development of manufactured desires, creating a minor yet perpetual pain that is best understood in the light of a sociologized and historicized Schopenhauerian philosophy.”. If, like the author, the great philosopher would only see in consumption yet another trap, he would likely avoid it. 

 

On the other hand Rafael Lucian in his article “Consumption as a Lifestyle: A Reflection on the Schopenhauer Perspective” provides us with a somewhat different view. He states that “Consuming extrapolates utilitarianism and hedonism; shopping as a purely rational activity does not complete the set of motivations that drive consumption.”. And he concludes that “reflection leads to understanding that the metaphysics of beauty according to Schopenhauer (2012) presents pragmatic compounds still present that align marketing actions with the search for a better quality of life through aesthetics, excelling the dualistic logic of utilitarian or hedonic consumption and its recompense of mere immediate effect.”. In this perspective, if only for utilitarian reasons, Schopenhauer could see some meaning in spending the last moments of his life on surrounding himself with the objects of beauty.

 

As for the rest of us … would we go into a shopping frenzy in such a situation? The results of research in this matter from the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) and HEC Montréal are quite surprising.

 

An unnerving experiment on shopping and death

 

There were previously studies showing that thoughts of death lead individuals to strongly defend world views that maintain their self-esteem. Thinking about death made people seek a way to cope with mortality. Clinging even more strongly to their beliefs provided them with such a way.

 

Marketing professors Michel Laroche and Marcelo Nepomuceno wanted to further test this results on two groups:

 

Anti-consumers. People who voluntarily resist consumption out of a sense of frugality or desire to live simply.
Over-consumers. People that basically shop till they drop.

 

Laroche and Nepomuceno ran two experiments. 503 university students from North America had to first answer questionnaires identifying their tendency to resist consumption. Then they were randomly assigned to one of two groups:

 

The Death Thoughts group. The participants were asked to describe their feelings if they were to die soon.
Control group. The participants were asked to report what they would feel if they were submitted to a painful dental procedure. 

 

After this, the participants were asked to assess their inclination to purchase a series of products. Both groups filled out a survey assessing their willingness to spend money on various purchases. One question, for example, asked them what they would do if their fridge stopped working, with answers ranging from “Definitely buy a new one for $600” on one side of the spectrum to “Definitely fix it for $200” on the other, and room for more ambivalent answers in between.

 

By comparing the participants in each condition, the researchers were able to identify individual tendencies to increase or reduce consumption due to thoughts of death.

 

Over-consumers will shop till they drop. Literally

 

The results,published in The Journal of Consumer Affairs, surprised the researchers. 

 

Laroche and Nepomuceno expected that anti-consumers will resist the consumption even harder. This would support the notion that consumption resistance is an important source of their self-esteem. 

 

As it turned out, anti-consumers were not affected by the death thoughts. This indicates that their self-esteem has no significant source in consumption resistance. It also suggests that the anti-consumers care less about consumption, than over-consumers.

 

Because the latter showed a significant difference.

 

Among consumers inclined to over-consume, the researchers found that thinking about death made them even more likely to buy. This points on purchasing and having goods and services as a meaningful source of self-esteem for over-consumers. While thinking about death, they became more inclined to buy, because it made them feel better about themselves.

 

One could say that anti-consumers could lean more towards Ryan Gunderson, and over-consumers towards Rafael Lucian understanding of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. 

 

And what does it mean to marketers, when Halloween is coming?

 

It is worth pointing out that none of the participants of the study was actually dying. It was mere thought, an image of death as a close and unavoidable fact of their life, that sent over-consumers into the shopping frenzy. 

 

As mentioned, the goods participants were asked about were not in any way connected to death or dying. They were everyday use products, strongly connected to life.  

 

For the marketers, the point is rather obvious. The ubiquitous, during Halloween period, death-mood will drive over-consumers to buy even more products completely unrelated to death. A knowledge as ghastly, as it may be useful.

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There are a lot of acronyms in the business world to keep straight. SEO, CRM, SERP, CDN, and CMS are just a few important ones.
CMS is particularly important, considering that more than 68 million websites are built with one. So what is it?
CMS stands for content management system. It also may be the solution you’re looking for to quickly make a website with limited technical knowledge and resources.

In this post, we’ll define what a CMS is and how it works. Then we’ll look at how you can use a CMS to handle the infrastructure of your site so you can focus on creating exciting, delightful content that results in more conversions and leads.
We’ll wrap up by looking at some of the most popular CMS platforms on the market. Let’s get started.

With a CMS, you can create, manage, modify, and publish content in a user-friendly interface. You can customize the design and functionality of your site by downloading or purchasing templates and extensions, rather than coding. You can have multiple users working in the back-end of the same tool — and much more.
You might be wondering how one piece of software does all of this. To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at how a CMS works.

How a CMS Works
To understand how a CMS works, you first have to understand what it’s like to build a site from scratch.
You’d start with HTML to add text, images, navigation bars, and other building blocks of a site. Then you’d add CSS to style those elements to match the unique look and feel of your brand.

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You’d finish up by writing some JavaScript to add more advanced functionality to your site, like slide-in CTAs. Then you’d have to upload this HTML file to your server to be filed away in your database.
Whenever you want to make changes — even simple ones like updating content — you have to download files from the server, open them, and change the HTML code by hand. Then you’ll have to make sure you didn’t break any links or something else before uploading the files back to the server.

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Sounds complicated, yes? For developers and other advanced users with experience in website development, building a site from scratch might be ideal. But for those who don’t have the coding skills or time and resources to build a site from scratch and maintain it, they can use a CMS. Let’s talk about how.

How to Use a CMS
A CMS is made up of two core parts: a content management application (CMA) and content delivery application (CDA). Combined, these applications essentially handle all the code, database queries, and infrastructure in the back end so you can focus on the front end of your site.
Rather than start with a blank HTML page, for example, you’ll open up the content editor and be able bold text, add links and CTAs, and insert images and tables by dragging and dropping some modules or clicking a few buttons rather than writing out HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 
Here’s a look at how easy it is to create a blog post using WordPress, for example.

To make other changes on your site, like changing the permalink structure or installing extensions, just navigate to the appropriate section in your admin panel. This is the CMA in action: all these changes are made in an intuitive interface that hides the code from you, the end user.
When you’re done making changes, the CDA will take the content you entered into the CMA, assemble the code, display it to your front-end visitors, and store it. That means when you want to publish a new blog post, for example, you just have to hit the Publish button instead of manually uploading a page to your server.
Now that we understand what a CMS is, how it works, and how to use it, let’s explore the benefits of using one over building a site from scratch or using another website building tool.

Why Use a CMS?
We’ve already alluded to some benefits of using a CMS, but let’s look at some specific ways it can impact your set-up process, team’s productivity, and visibility online.
1. No Coding Knowledge Required
By enabling non-developers and other users to build websites without coding, CMS systems have helped revolutionize web design. Gone are the days of relying on web developers and designers to establish an online presence for your business.
You can create and manage content, customize the design of your site, and install extensions to add functionality to your site — all without coding. (It’s important to note that most platforms do allow you to add custom code for more granular control over your site, too.)
As a result, users with limited technical resources and time can still build a powerful website for their business.
2. Easy Collaboration
Multiple users can access and work in the back end of a CMS at the same time. That means on any given day, your marketers can be producing content, your IT professionals implementing security protocols, and your developers adding custom code to your theme. In fact, they could all be working on the same landing page.
In short, a CMS can help improve workflows and productivity across your team.
3. User Roles and Permissions
A CMS allows you to collaborate in the most efficient and safe way possible thanks to built-in (and often customizable) user roles and permissions. That means content writers, for example, can have all the permissions they need to write, publish, and manage content — but won’t be able to delete plugins or otherwise significantly alter the site’s functionality. 
Here’s a look at the User Role Editor in WordPress. 

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Without a CMS, you’d have to code some pretty complicated conditions and checks to create user roles and permissions in JavaScript.
4. SEO Features and Extensions
CMS platforms offer built-in features as well as add-ons to help you optimize your site for search engines.
Using built-in or third party tools, you can:

Customize page titles and meta descriptions
Choose SEO-friendly URL structures
Create XML sitemaps

Add image alt text

Create 301 Redirects

Include breadcrumb navigation
Optimize page load times

Implementing these best practices will help improve your chances of ranking on Google and other major search engines.
5. Security Features and Extensions
CMS platforms also offer built-in features and add-ons to help you secure your site. Some even offer a dedicated security team. CMS Hub, for example, provides a dedicated 24/7 security team, an enterprise-class web application firewall, SSL, custom CDN, SSO memberships, and and other out-of-the-box features.
6. Predesigned Templates
Most CMS platforms come with a selection of predesigned templates you can use to quickly customize the appearance of your site. They can also affect the behavior of your site.
Choosing a responsive template, for example, will ensure your site looks good on any device, without requiring you to write a bunch of code. Not only do templates save you design time before launching your site, they can also make a website redesign much faster and simpler down the road.
Webflow is just one CMS that offers hundreds of responsive templates. 

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7. Simple Updates
As discussed above, a CMS enables you to make changes on your site faster and easier — from major updates, like a website redesign, to minor updates, like changing the image on your home page. Rather than hiring a freelance developer or trying to edit the code yourself, you can go into the dashboard of your CMS to update and edit the content of your website. This allows you to keep your content dynamic and relevant.
8. Blogging Functionality
Blogging offers a range of benefits, particularly to businesses. It can help drive traffic to your website, convert traffic into leads, establish authority in a particular industry, generate backlinks, and achieve other long-term results. But building a blog from scratch is difficult, even for experienced developers.
A major advantage of using a CMS is that most provide built-in blogging functionality (or extensions) so it’s easy to start creating and publishing blog content and reaping the benefits. 
9. Content Scheduling
Scheduling content is essential to any editorial strategy. When building a site from scratch, you can schedule content — but it will require a combination of coding and tools like GitHub.
With a CMS, scheduling content is as easy as clicking a button. Most platforms allow you to schedule more than just blog posts, too. With CMS Hub for example, you can schedule blog posts as well as website pages, landing pages, and emails.
Here’s a look at the scheduling tab within HubSpot’s blog editor.

10. Easy Access
With a CMS platform, you can access and edit your site on virtually any device with an internet connection. That’s much easier than the alternative of building a site from scratch, which requires you to be on a device connected to the server or connect remotely.
Plus, most CMS systems have a single dashboard or control panel where you can access your site’s content, theme, plugins, settings, and more — all in one place. 
If your site is growing, you may need to upgrade to a CMS to meet your needs. You can start your search by checking out a few of the best CMS systems below.

Let’s unpack eight popular CMS platform examples to discover which might be the best fit for your website needs.
1. CMS Hub
Ideal for: Any-sized businesses
Price: $25 – $1,200 per month
Why Use CMS Hub: With CMS Hub, you can build websites that are secure, powerful, and optimized for search engines.
Using this all-on-one connected platform, you can create personalized content for visitors based on data from your HubSpot CRM, create custom templates and styles, run A/B tests on multi-language content, safely redesign and relaunch web pages, view performance analytics, and much more.
By combining ease of use and flexibility, this proprietary CMS is ideal for businesses with diverse teams of marketers, developers, and IT professionals that are looking to grow over time.
Learn more about CMS Hub’s customization options, multi-lingual support, reporting dashboards, and more.

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2. WordPress
Ideal for: Small businesses and freelancers
Price: Estimated between $30 to $3,000
Why Use WordPress: WordPress is a self-hosted platform that powers millions of sites. You can easily and quickly build a WordPress site using the Gutenberg editor and then customize it with any of the thousands of plugins and themes available in the official WordPress directory or other third-party sites.
Want to add forms and live chat to your site? Want a theme that comes with a built-in visual builder and split testing? Leveraging WordPress plugins and themes like these, you can create a unique experience specific to your brand.

3. Joomla
Ideal for: Global companies
Price: Estimated between $700 to $6,500
Why Use Joomla: Site owners looking for more functionality built right into the platform may try a WordPress alternative like Joomla.
Like WordPress, Joomla is an open-source CMS. What sets Joomla apart is its built-in multilingual support and advanced user and content management options, which make it ideal for membership, community, and social networking sites. UIDAI, for example, is a multilingual website powered by Joomla. 

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4. Drupal
Ideal for: Corporatations and government agencies
Price: Estimated between $5,000 to $20,000
Why Use Drupal: Drupal is a highly flexible CMS favored by large corporations and government agencies like NASA. While you will need web development experience to fully leverage the power of this platform, you won’t have to start from scratch.
In addition to its out-of-the-box features, you can choose among 47,000 modules available in its directory and thousands of free themes in its theme repository to build a complex site that handles large volumes of data and heavy traffic, like Rush University Medical Center’s website. 

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5. Magento
Ideal for: Ecommerce businesses
Price: Estimated at $15,000 and up
Why Use Magento: The self-hosted version of Magento, known as Magento OpenSource, is like the Drupal of the ecommerce world. It’s highly flexible and secure, but difficult to learn and take advantage of all its built-in functionality and extensions.

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With Magento, you can manage multiple stores, use several worldwide shipping providers, and transact in different countries, languages, and currencies — all within the same dashboard.
So, if you have the time and resources to invest in set-up and maintenance, you’ll be able to build an online store with a huge product inventory and global reach.
6. Webflow
Ideal for: Web designers and agencies
Price: $15 – $235 per month
Why Use Webflow: Webflow is a “visual” content management system designed to fill a market gap for web designers who want to focus on creating and customizing sites without worrying about hosting, security, or performance.
With Webflow, you can start with one of the hundreds of pre-built templates or start from scratch using the Webflow Designer shown below.

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You can also extend the functionality of your site through third-party integrations or embedding HTML code. Since it requires at least some knowledge of HTML, CSS, and web design, Webflow is best suited for freelancer designers or agencies.
7. Ghost
Ideal for: Bloggers
Price: $9 – $2,400 per month
Why Use Ghost: If you’re looking for a more simple and lightweight CMS dedicated to blogging, Ghost is a great option. Ghost is a headless CMS, which means that its body (the content repository) is separated from its head (the presentation layer).
Basically, this allows you to create and manage content and then deliver that content via their Node.js APIs (or another front-end tool you prefer) to any platform and channel, from smartwatches to virtuality reality headsets.
With an intuitive editor and built-in SEO tools, Ghost appeals to bloggers and beginners who want a basic site that’s simple to create and manage.

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8. Sitecore
Ideal for: Enterprise companies
Price: Must contact company for pricing info
Why Use Sitecore: Sitecore is an enterprise-level headless CMS that enables you to create and deliver personalized websites, emails, social media posts, and mobile experiences.
You can use its WYSIWYG editor with drag-and-drop functionality, session- and device-based personalization rules, and multilingual tools to scale your content creation and deliver content that’s optimized to your users’ interests, language, and device. And thanks to Sitecore’s headless architecture, you can provide these relevant customer experiences across multiple channels, including web, social, voice, point of sale, and more.

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This CMS powers more than 120,000 websites in industries ranging from sports to banking to travel and more. Some of its biggest brands are American Express, ASOS, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars.
Use a CMS to Build Your Site 
Using a content management system to build and manage your site can help you grow over time. Not only will a CMS store all of your web content in one place, it will also support collaboration across teams, allow for quick and easy updates, and offer templates and extensions to customize your site.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2010 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.