selecting the right web content management system...• search engine optimization • content...

Selecting The Right Web Content Management System

An overview and case study

Healthcare Marketing and Physician Strategies SummitMay 1, 2014

Selecting The Right Content Management System

Web marketing and development since 199415 years with the University of Maryland Medical System

Early adopter and proponent of:• Search engine optimization• Content marketing• Hospital social media• Mobile applications• Employee access to web services

Ed Bennett John Berndt

Web marketing and development since 199323 years as CEO of The Berndt Group, Ltd. (TBG)National Web Developer specializing in Healthcase

Focused on the areas of: • Holistic web strategy• CMS/WCM best practices• Multi-Channel Digital Marketing • Responsive Web Design• Content Personalization• Theory of Large Web Sites


What is a Web CMS?

…a software system that provides

website authoring, collaboration, and

administration tools designed to allow users

with little knowledge of web programming

manage website content with relative ease.


What People Think

Actual Importance

Perceived Importance

Feature / Value

1 6 Structure content for long-term use

2 5 Automate related links & page structure

3 2 Control presentation

4 3 Audit trails, backups, and deployment control

5 1 Distribute authoring (workflow, permissions)

6 4 Personalization


A Crucial Choice

A CMS is the heart of your digital marketing and communications

infrastructure


How a Real CMS Fixes Things

• Separate presentation from content—means “structuring content”

• Create automated relationships among content (related links, etc.)

• Automation of layout inheritance—having it both ways.

• Ability to mass-manipulate content.

• Preserving URLS for SEO.

• Re-use of components and code.

• “Web Site” in a box.


The Heavy Lifting

1. Template Development—ASP.NET programming!

2. Content Object Modeling

3. Portlet Modeling

4. Metadata Taxonomy (related links)

5. Syndicated Content

6. Search Implementation

7. Permissioning

8. Responsive Web Design—a retrofit.

9. Training

10. Content targeting and personalization


Customer Engagement:

Visitors

Digital Experiences(web, email, social)

User Data

Content


Overview of CMS Products


The CMS Landscape:


How to Find a Good CMS

1. Understand not just your requirement of today, but general leading requirements for web sites (Responsive, Personalization, etc.)

2. Fully understand Open Source vs. The Mid Market.

3. Research leading products within a narrow range that seems right.

4. Don’t trust salespeople who will say “sure” to everyone. Push for details and referenceable contacts. Many CMS products are sold on half-truths.

5. Value things like company stability, technical roadmap, developer community, quality of documentation, and partnerships.


Considerations for Open Source

1. Approach to structured content and multi-site is ultimately insufficient to larger web strategies. Back-end usability is an issue—even though the features exist on paper.

2. Upkeep/stability is an issue. A matter of degree. We don’t consider it to be at the right level for mission-critical, multi-site implementations. Informal development culture. Rampant support issues. Incomplete product core.

3. No real personalization and advanced engagement culture. We don’t consider the Aquent Drupal plug-in to be sufficient, for instance. These are crucial next-generation features.

4. Roadmap and development culture is commonly insufficient.


The Problems of Plug-Ins/Modules

1. Not a problem on the first day, week, month…

2. Lack of codebase oversight, permutational testing—leads to instability and support.

3. Consequently, real developers have a very narrow range of plug-ins they actual recommend.

4. Secondary issues with customization, presentation: Example of Ektron Modules for embedded presentation code.

5. Presentation issues are multiplied in Responsive Web Design.


Case Study:The University of Maryland

Medical System


History of UMMC/UMMS Web Program

1996 First public web site at umm.edu

1999 Web presence recognized as a strategic asset needing planning, resources and on-going support

2000 – 2004 New site with broad content marketing (ADAM)Search Engine Marketing – GoTo.com and Google AdWords

2005 – 2010 Growth of hospital web competitionAsk the Expert tool, web-based Q and A with ourDocs; Intranet growthFirst mobile app, Video library (600+)

2011 – 2014 Social media explosion, opening staff access


The long CMS History of UMM.EDU

1996: Manual updating of HTML, no automation

2000: Home-built CMS - no appropriate commercial apps

2005: Serena Collage - discontinued by vendor in 2008

2012: Sitecore CMS


Business Problems & Opportunities

• Expanded Web responsibilities – System not Center

• 13 Hospital Sites, 50+ micro-sites

• Development of System Intranets

• Maintain SEO rankings (80% of the 2.5 million monthly visits)

• Establish central control of all web properties

• Rapid shifts in user preferences – 50% on Mobile or Tablet

• Personalization and targeted content

• Needed a stable, well-engineered platform


UMMS CMS Selection Process

1. Brought in outside consultants to narrow choices (Realstorygroup.com — Tony Byrne)

2. RFI & RFP = A year+ process

3. Selected CMS first, development partner second

4. Budgeting “process” - some bumps in the road.

5. Leading concerns in the process:

• Retain high SEO

• Large site automation

• Reusability of content

• Reusability of development


Why We Picked Sitecore

• Excellent technical & ethical reputation

• Support any user experience—efficiently.

• Usability of back-end for structured content, content re-use, multi-site, customer engagement and personalization.

• Minimal development limitations and ability to integrate with third parties. Reliable development culture.

• Extended capability features for personalization, forms, A/B testing, social features, etc.

• Stability and mission-critical performance.

• Developer availability & stability of the CMS codebase.


Before: After:

• 13 Public sites• 8 Intranets• 50+ Microsites

Spread across:• 9 CMS’s• 6 Vendors• 8 Hosting services

Central Management:• 1 Sitecore CMS• 1 Dataset• 1 Admin tool• 1 Hosting service

...With shared content across Intranet and public sites

• 13 Public Sites• 1 System Intranet• 0 Microsites


Implementation Process

1. Picked Implementation Partner (TBG)

2. Major content housekeeping

3. Solving the major problems:

• Preserving URLs for SEO

• Architecture for related content

• Automation to support “deep” site structure

• Multi-site re-use

4. New Disciplines

• Site directory structure

• Structured content

• Metadata (Tagging)

5. Rolling out new CMS Sites


The R.O.I.

1. Centralized control

2. Dramatic re-usage of content and code

3. Path to absorb other hospital web sites

4. Leveraging small web team to do much more

5. Support Responsive Web Design (RWD) for Tablet, Smartphone

6. Path to personalized content

7. Path to education in population health, “Meaningful Use”


Other Outcomes

1. Launched on May 2013 with no downtime or problems

2. Preservation of Search Engine Optimization value (SEO)

3. Change in developer approach / culture

4. Plans for absorbing system sites

5. Ongoing personalization work


Final Thoughts


What Makes A Great CMS Implementation?

1. Structured content for re-usage and full Responsive Web Design. Without this, you will be in a world of hurt.

2. Normalized tagging driving thoughtful, user-centric related content strategies.

3. Flexible, abstracted templates that handle a broad range of cases.

4. Careful use of personalization, with an eye towards operational sustainability and available content.

5. Tight integrations with 3rd party silos and SEO issues.


If we leave you with anything…

• Do spend the time to understand the options, business opportunities and challenges.

• Neither I.T. nor Marketing are likely to provide the best council; each has a partial view of the subject, and CMS salespeople are not entirely to be trusted.

• Its realistic to think this will all cost a lot and take a long time. (but not as long as an EHR takes)You are building infrastructure for 5-10 year lifespan

• Be very careful with Open Source—there really is not free lunch.

• Responsive Web Design (RWD) is the new standard for users; you can’t do RWD without a high quality, full structured CMS implementation.

• Expect to change operations around content, developers, to be able to get the value out of your new platform. A new CMS usually implies some cultural, skill & staffing change.


Discussion

Ed BennettDirector, Web & Communications TechnologyUniversity of Maryland Medical System

[email protected]

410-328-0771

John BerndtCEO and Chief StrategistThe Berndt Group

[email protected]

410-889.5854

This presentation and supplemental resources are available at:

Ebennett.org/CMS

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