Discover the benefits of a serverless website — and other reasons to consider HubSpot CMS.
When I joined a web agency team after a couple of decades spent in corporate marketing teams, one thing I had to get my head around was the technical architecture of websites (largely WordPress in my case). I was fine with content, SEO, structure, design — but what was all of this stuff about servers, plugins, FTP and PHP?
In addition to the CMS technology, I soon had to know how to respond to common questions such as:
- Where will the website be hosted?
- How much is hosting per annum? (which actually meant “can we use a £10 per annum GoDaddy hosting package for our corporate website?”)
- When are backups made?
- How do I restore the website when I break it?
Add to that the conundrum of the corporate IT departments who wanted to ‘control’ their website on a box in the basement of their offices because it was “safer and faster”.
It seemed such a distraction — because websites are actually about content. That’s what the client team should be 100% focused on:
- Does it convey their value propositions?
- Does it reflect the brand?
- Does it have content to convert?
- Do the search engines LOVE the content?
The delivery of the website should ‘just happen’! Do we have to talk about the servers? Do I have to listen to web agencies and freelancers go into server tech speak implying that I could never understand how websites really work? Well, now you don’t.
Let me explain: serverless CMS
I now find myself as an Elite HubSpot Solutions Partner in the business of promoting HubSpot’s CMS — and that’s marketed as a serverless CMS system.
It sounds intrinsically good, but what does ‘serverless’ actually mean and why does that make a difference to you as a sponsor or guardian of your corporate website?
Serverless websites definition
Serverless refers to an application framework for building web applications without going into the detailing of servers. The servers are managed by a cloud provider, taking care of its provisioning and allocation.
Think of serverless like any cloud-based service or app that you use. You just log in and use them. You don’t need to know anything about the platform they work on and you don’t have to ‘update’ it — new features just appear from time to time.
This was the goal of HubSpot in creating a CMS for marketers. To make a CMS that’s about performance, content delivery, and search engine optimisation. That means out-of-the-box constructed in a way that search engines will like.
The rest is familiar
Once you’ve forgotten the nightmares of out-of-date PHP, backups and server failures, the building of websites within the HubSpot CMS is pretty familiar to users of modern CMS systems.
- Themes: to ensure your brand is fully represented in the website
- Templates: to contain specific types of content like blogs
- Modules: design blocks like image left and text right, carousels, galleries etc. that you can use on any page you like
Plus there are some great features you might not find in many CMS systems (without adding lots of plugins):
- SEO tips for all pages within the website
- Image Libraries: including video storage and a free connection to a HubSpot-specific collection of Shutterstock images
- A link to cloud design tool Canva, which allows you to design assets for your website without leaving your CMS
- Attribution reports that tell you what content is impacting revenue (Enterprise Edition)
In effect, you end up with a great set of functionality and a complete library of content containers that you can use in almost limitless combinations to create great looking pages, consistent in look and feel across the whole website.
Discover five more use cases for HubSpot’s multi-touch revenue attribution reporting.
SECURITY ON HUBSPOT CMS
CMS Hub comes with premium hosting and security features right out of the box. As a SaaS CMS, we take care of delivering your content so you can focus instead on the experience you’re providing your customers. With standard SSL certificates, a web application firewall (WAF), a global CDN, and 24/7 security and threat monitoring, you can rest easy knowing your website is protected from bad actors.
Serverless isn’t even the best bit — that’s personalisation
Getting rid of server anxiety may be reason enough to move — and that depends how bad your scars are — but I would be selling HubSpot CMS way short if I gave that as the main reason to move your website to HubSpot.
What makes the CMS truly exciting for me is that it sits on the same platform as my CRM.
In other words, I have everything I know about my contacts combined with and connected to my shop window to the world. That means everyone who ‘walks past my window’ (visits my site) can potentially have a different experience depending on what data I’ve collected.
Here’s a simple example. We all cringe when visiting the website that’s offering a 20% discount on a product that we bought at full price yesterday! But what if I revisit the website and it’s showing me related products or educating me on great ways to use my new product, rather than rubbing my nose in the discount “to new customers only”? That’s possible when your CMS and CRM are one-in-the-same platform.
Here’s a more complex example. You have different buyer personas from different target industry sectors and so your homepage currently covers every possible combination and your visitors have to go through it all to find the content for them. HubSpot CMS gives you the opportunity to create different ‘smart content’ on the home page, so whilst some sections are seen by all visitors, other sections are only seen by certain personas. The text in these sections can also contain personalisation, so “Welcome back [David] — let’s show you what we’ve been up to in the [Manufacturing Sector]”.
Now that really changes the game in terms of building CMS websites! Just imagine…
Discover more on this in our blog ‘5 Reasons to Build Your Website in HubSpot CMS Software If You Already Use Other Hubs’
HUBSPOT CMS CASE STUDIES
Take a look at how many companies including sustainability organisation, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), moved to HubSpot’s serverless CMS platform
Would you like to see HubSpot’s CMS?
If simplicity and personalisation has been, and remains, your ultimate goal with your website — then I’d love to take you for a tour and answer any questions.
