In more specific terms, with a headless website, while the CMS will still manage content creation, storage, and APIs, it won’t control anything from the frontend. This means the frontend can be built using any modern framework, consuming content via API calls to the headless CMS. 
Headless architecture allows for faster, more responsive websites. In a digital sphere where speed and accessibility are everything - particularly where users often leave web pages after 10-20 seconds - this allows for higher levels of interactivity and an enhanced user experience for your customers. 

So what do you need to know about building a headless website?

What’s the difference?

In traditional web development, the front and backend of your site are integrated. By separating the two, your frontend codebase is decoupled and can evolve independently, allowing developers complete control over the frontend tech stack and UI, without being limited by the CMS platform. Growing in popularity due to increased flexibility and speed, headless websites are becoming the modern way for companies to build web experiences. 

Alongside speed, flexible content delivery, and improved customer experience, you can expect to benefit from enhanced scalability and customisation, meaning your pages can be easily adapted for various platforms (mobile, desktop, app). 

Another key benefit of the headless site comes in the separation of the front and backend leading to enhanced security for your site. The content accessible by API is often read-only, and can even be hidden behind one or more layers of code, adding extra protection in the event of a cyber attack.

For many brands, headless websites can provide a seamless user experience, hence the move towards this more flexible architecture. 

How does it work?

The headless CMS will focus on content creation, organisation, and storage. Popular options include Contentful and Strapi, which allows content creators to add, edit, and manage content with an interface. 

It may also come as a surprise that WordPress CMS can also be used as a headless CMS, allowing you to build a more robust WordPress website that is free from most of the plugin world while using modern technologies like Next JS. 

Your application programming interfaces (APIs) then serve as a bridge between the headless CMS and the frontend, allowing for the easy delivery of standardised content. 

Your frontend framework, or static site generator, handles the presentation layer, focusing on building an optimal user experience. 

Separating these key components allows developers to choose the best tech for each function, and allows the flexibility to update the frontend independently from the back end. This is the main difference from traditional CMS platforms. 

When don’t you need it?

Headless websites won’t always be necessary, especially for smaller websites, or if you are relying on a simple, traditional CMS or page builder for your site management. If you’re just beginning your digital journey or only have a few pages, chances are you may not yet need the full scalability of a headless CMS. In cases where you only need specific data from a website, web scraping may be a better option than building an entire headless infrastructure. 

Additionally, where your website requires specific plugins, choosing a traditional CMS with plugin libraries may lead to greater time and cost savings for your business. 
 

What is web scraping?

Web scraping is a technique used for extracting data from websites, often for things like price monitoring, content aggregation, or competitive analysis. E-commerce sites may want to scrape competitor prices, or blogs might aggregate data from multiple sources. Web scraping can save time, and resources, in some cases, when compared to building a headless CMS, especially if you only need limited data, and not a fully customisable frontend. 

What used to be a simpler process is now complicated by modern websites now frequently using JavaScript frameworks that dynamically render content, which can complicate the data extraction process. These often need a browser environment to load and render data, hence the use of headless browsers for scraping. There are still issues, however, with many websites employing anti-scraping measures, such as CAPTCHA, IP blocking, and rate limiting to prevent automated access. 

How do you choose the right headless website builder?

When it comes to choosing the right headless website builder for your business, there are a range of different popular options you can consider. Contentful, Strapi, Sanity, and even WordPress can be used in headless configurations. 

What’s best for you will depend on your budget, technical expertise, and scalability goals. Things to consider are the ease of use, particularly if your team includes non-technical members; integration options for CRM, marketing, or analytics; customisation and flexibility, and how high your needs are in this area; and security, particularly if your business deals with sensitive data. Cloud-based CMSs often come with built-in security and regular updates, whereas open-source solutions require you to handle security on your own. 

So is a headless website right for your brand?

If you’re looking to manage a medium to large site with a number of pages and require quick updates and flexibility when it comes to content, a headless website may just be the best thing for you, allowing for increased customisation, scalability, and an optimised customer experience in one fell swoop.

If you’re smaller in size or have limited technical resources, a more traditional CMS option may be better for your business. However, if your brand is larger, and focused on omnichannel experiences, you might just find your business thrives with a headless setup. 

Looking to improve your digital customer experiences? Chat with our team about headless options for your business.