Busted! Five Myths – and Facts – About Headless CMS

In the popular TV show Mythbusters, Adam and Jamie busted the myth of the five-second rule, the myth of building a death ray out of mirrors, and the myth that goldfish only have a three second memory.

But they never tackled the toughest myths surrounding headless CMS. So we did. Here are five myths – and the facts – surrounding headless.

It’s true that a headless CMS gives developers tremendous flexibility. But it also does the same for marketers and content creators. In fact, marketers and content teams get more control from a headless CMS vs. a traditional or monolithic CMS.

Headless CMS platforms offer user-friendly interfaces, WYSIWYG editors, and structured workflows that make is easy to manage content efficiently. This frees up marketers and content creators to, you know, market and create content, rather than rely on maxed-out development teams.

Furthermore, headless CMS allows marketers to see exactly what their content will look like prior to production. Which brings us to…

The notion that with headless, you can’t see a webpage until after it goes live is, well, wrong. Take Agility CMS, for instance. It has a feature called Web Studio which shows marketers and content teams what their content will look like live, before it’s live.

Here’s why it matters:

• Non-technical content creators and marketers can make and preview changes without worrying about breaking something.
• Quick, time-sensitive content changes can be quickly made, previewed and published without development support.

Users can make edits directly in Web Studio and see how they’ll appear in real time, or they can switch back and forth between a traditional editor and Web Studio.

However Web Studio is used, the point stands. You can get real-time previews within a headless CMS system. So this myth is busted.

Here’s why people believe that personalization isn’t possible with headless:

• Traditional CMS platforms may have built-in personalization and user segmentation tools. Since headless focuses on content storage and delivery via API, they don’t support personalization.
• Because a headless CMS decouples front-end and content management, personalization capabilities are lost.
• There’s an assumption that, because a headless CMS delivers raw content through APIs, it cannot support dynamic content personalization.

Now here’s why they’re wrong:

• Headless enables seamless integration with personalization engines, CDPs, and other systems. Businesses can serve dynamic, user-specific content based on real-time preferences.
• Developers can customize personalization logic on the front-end. A user will have one experience on a website, another on a mobile app, and another on an IoT device.
• By using real-time data from APIs, businesses can modify content dynamically. This can be based on user engagement, location, or other criteria. The result? More engaging and effective experiences.

If headless was bad for SEO, there wouldn’t be something called headless SEO.

That aside, here’s why a headless CMS helps, not hinders, your SEO efforts:

• Headless allows organizations to fully control the URL structure of a web page. It doesn’t enforce a rigid, inflexible format. SEO-friendly URLs can be implemented easily with a headless CMS.
• Pre-built SEO features (meta data, alt text, keywords, etc.) are found within a headless CMS. Headless also allows the development of fast-loading, structured websites that search engines love.
• Speaking of fast-loading, headless websites use things like Next.js or Nuxt.js or Astro to optimize website performance and speed. In many cases, a headless CMS is faster than a traditional CMS.

Does a headless CMS require a different approach vs. a traditional CMS? Yes. Does it negatively impact SEO? Not at chance.  With proper URL structures, meta data, and performance optimizations, a headless CMS can be just as – if not more – SEO-friendly than monolithic CMS solutions.

Because a headless CMS doesn’t have built-in security plugins, people assume it’s more vulnerable to attacks. Meanwhile, others worry about API-exposure and any associated security risks.

The fact is that a headless CMS can be more secure than a traditional CMS.

Traditional CMS platforms expose the backend (content) and frontend (presentation) together. This gives hackers more targets to target. Headless delivers content via APIs, thus reducing exposure to direct attacks.

 Next are outdated plugins. Consider these stats:

• In any given week, over 1,360 WordPress plugins were found to have a known vulnerability.
• 69% of plugins are patched after a security risk is detected.
• 26% of vulnerabilities have no known fix.

Plugins aren’t a problem for headless CMS, because they don’t use ‘em.

Additionally, most headless CMS platforms use secure cloud hosting (Agility CMS uses Microsoft Azure). Cloud security includes automatic updates, data encryption and DDoS protection. No wonder 94% of businesses say their security improved after switching to the cloud.

From creating digital properties to speeding up website load times to making page management easier, Agility is no myth. It’s the real deal as confirmed by these customers:

It’s Easy to Start with Agility…and That’s No Myth

The best way to get the facts on Agility CMS is to try it yourself. Fortunately, getting started is easier than building a boat or a bridge from duct tape:

• Get a Demo: A personalized walkthrough of Agility and how it meets your specific needs.
• Sign Up for a FREE Trial: Try Agility yourself free for 30 days with no obligations.
• Chat With Us: Connect with a real person (really) and get real answers (really) in real-time (really).