How to get Structured Content in headless CMS- things you must know

Structured content refers to the process of defining how content is organized. A headless CMS defines each type by its characteristics and breaks it down into individual elements. A headless architecture allows you to manage this content effectively.

Therefore, structured content in headless CMS involves defining and managing content types.

Unlike page builders that focus on content presentation, a headless CMS separates the front-end presentation layer from the back-end layer; with a focus on content modeling.

Learn more about this difference: Structured Content vs Page Builders

This allows for easy reuse and repurposing of content, leading to greater flexibility.

To maximize this flexibility, content types must be independent of presentation layers. By defining content types with attributes that describe the content rather than its presentation, you can create adaptable, reusable content across various channels.

In this article, you will learn how to structure data in a headless CMS to meet specific needs.

There are slight differences between various CMSs when it comes to structuring content, and each content management system might refer to individual elements differently. However, the fundamental structure remains the same.

Structured content refers to content that is organized and categorized consistently and predictably, making it easier to manage, retrieve, and display across different platforms and contexts.

Here are the key elements of structured content:

Now that you are familiar with the key elements of structured content, it's time to get familiar with BCMS's features that support structured content architecture.

For efficient structured content, you need content modeling. BCMS features make it easier to the process of designing data structures for your content.

There are five main BCMS features: templates, entries, widgets, groups, and properties.

Templates in BCMS are pre-defined content structures (sections of the webpage). Based on these structures, you can create entries. Thanks to BCMS templates, you can display content types on the front end.

Each entry in BCMS represents one template record. The structure of the entry depends on what properties its template has. Properties defined in the template will appear in the meta section of each entry.

Metadata includes descriptive tags and information about the content, such as author, date, keywords, and categories. Metadata helps in organizing, searching, and filtering content.

Widgets in BCMS are reusable building blocks used inside an entry's content area.

Widgets are building blocks that help you add various content types, giving a high level of flexibility and customization in structured content.

Learn more about widgets: BCMS Widgets -everything you need to know

Properties are the smallest piece of the BCMS ecosystem. You can create custom data structures for BCMS entries using different properties.

Here's a list of available properties in BCMS:

To learn more about BCMS properties check out the documentation site.

Ok, enough theory, it is time to get practical. The best way to learn is to have a how-to example. So let’s start, step-by-step.

Here's an example of how you might define structured content in a headless content management system for a landing page. This example will include fields such as title, subtitle, hero image, call-to-action (CTA) buttons, features section, and testimonials.

In your headless CMS, you would define a content model for a landing page. Here's an example structure:

The landing page template is the first step in content model creation. A defined framework that enables further customization and manipulation of content types.

As you can see, in this template one part of the structure is pre-defined, which means as many landing pages you build you’ll have already prepared content types, in this case:

What about other parts? Well, they are going to be reusable content blocks. Here’s where BCMS widgets and properties have a big role.

Reusable components in structured content refer to pieces of content or code that can be used multiple times across different parts of a website or application, ensuring consistency and reducing redundancy.

Those components in BCMS are widgets, which, with the help of BCMS properties, define the connection between content types as well as the hierarchy.

So let's start building reusable components needed for a landing page (but at the same time able to be used for other website sections, cool right?).

Now is a good time to mention that each widget in BCMS is made by groups of properties used as arrays.

CTA widgets consist of the following groups:

All these properties are empty fields, highly customizable, and content creators can write their copy and change it whenever indeed. To see how that looks on the front end I’ll leave here a CTA button example:

Features sections consist of an array of objects (each with a title, description, and icon).

On the front end, it looks like this:

The testimonial widget consists of an array of components (each with a quote, author, and author image).

Front-end view:

Content editors, it’s your time to shine. You have everything prepared, the only thing left is to add content copy.

This is a really straightforward process, just enter the landing page entry, fill in all the fields in the meta section, and in the content area use the widgets to add videos, images, case studies, CTA, and so on.

Your landing page is ready to go live. As you can see, in 3 simple steps, structured content in a headless content management system helps you build faster, stronger, scalable websites and apps.

We have come to the end of the road (better than to a dead end). As you can see, a BCMS makes structuring content straightforward.

To work effectively with structured content, your content management system must meet two key requirements in particular:

Now, that you have all the info and instructions, feel free to use BCMS for structured content. In 3 simple steps, you will have everything ready to go live.