Where Umbraco really shows its power
Posted by: Sotiris Filippidis
16 March 2024
One harsh truth about Umbraco websites:
When a client needs to create a "brochure" website, they really don't pay attention to the CMS that'll be used. They don't believe it will differentiate their desired results. They're focusing on their business, not the technology.
When an agency tries to win this type of client, they usually put the stress on words like "design", "SEO", "mobile" and such. Platform doesn't matter. It could be a site builder like Wix, for all the client cares. Or WordPress with Elementor.
If there's no future plan for expanding the website's functionality or integrating it with third party applications, and if there's no need for handling data in a well-structured way, then Umbraco doesn't have an advantage there. Platforms with pre-made themes and basic functionality that can be customized are cheaper and require less time-to-market.
Don't chase this type of client. Even if you do win them, you'll probably lose them to one of the "popular" platforms as soon as they discover they can have the same thing (but nothing more) for less. Competition is really heavy on that market segment.
On the other hand, there are cases where Umbraco can shine, even on "brochure" web sites:
- Sites that have serious content update requirements, from multiple people or groups, with fine-grained permissions. The Umbraco back office users and permissions structure is ideal for this.
- Sites that need content sign off before it's published. Umbraco Cloud, with its staging environments and content transfer capabilities between environments make this a breeze.
- Sites that have complex data, not always stored locally, which they need to present in a variety of ways.
- Multi-language implementations. We're talking like dozens of languages, each with its own specific requirements.
- CMS as part of a greater ecosystem combining elements from multiple platforms and providing data to multiple platforms (that's composable DXP in a nutshell)
- And, of course, headless implementations.
So Umbraco can't probably compete the "popular" platforms for your local hair stylist's website. But, if said hair stylist wants to integrate a booking system and CRM with the website, then the game changes.
Umbraco will almost always be a winner in "brochure plus something more" scenarios. And there's no question about it being the absolute winner in more complex ones.
Pick your clients wisely!
