Structured Content vs Page Builders: Why choose a structured approach?

🚨Stop building pages! Instead, start building reusable and flexible content.

This could be the only sentence for this structured content vs Page Builders article, but maybe after this short story, you will be eager to learn more about the statement above.

Every beginner's story ever goes like this:

I need a blog, which platform to choose? WordPress. Setup is quick and easy with a drag-and-drop page builder and a fancy template. The drag-and-drop functionality of the page builder was a godsend. Widgets, plugins, and templates made the process feel like child’s play. Within days, the site is up and running and attracting visitors.

Everything is smooth until the blog starts growing. Then comes one of these days: You just want to add a new post, and the page builder crashes. Images wouldn’t load, and the layout turned into a mess. The site, which once felt perfect, now is slow and chaotic.

Then you discover another "miracle" - WordPress plugins. After adding plugins, the blog gets revived, until the plugins start to conflict and then again a dead end.

How to get out of that dead end? Find answers in the following “Structured content vs Page Builders” comparison.

First and foremost, these two approaches have a different focus when it comes to building pages.

While page builders focus on providing a visual, drag-and-drop interface for building pages, structured content focuses on content modeling. Here's a deeper dive into how they work and the differences:

Page builders are tools that allow users to create and design web pages using a visual, drag-and-drop interface. These tools often come as part of a content management system or as standalone software and are designed to make web development more accessible to non-technical users.

How Page builders work:

Here’s an example: Introducing Elementor Pro

Structured content refers to a content model where information is created, stored, and managed in a highly organized manner. This approach often involves using a headless CMS that separates content from its presentation. The content is typically stored in databases with predefined fields and metadata, allowing for consistent formatting and easy reuse across various platforms.

How it works:

For deeper explanations of this concept, read: Structured Content guide

Due to this difference in focus, there are differences in features too. So, that is the next thing that is worth to compare.

Here I will compare only some of the key features that are important for developers, content presentation, user experience, and design.

Structured content systems typically require technical skills for setup and configuration. Developers need to create templates, define content types, and ensure proper integration with the CMS.

Learn more: Content modeling in a headless CMS

On the other hand, page builders are designed to be user-friendly, allowing non-technical users to create and modify pages using drag-and-drop interfaces.

Page builders offer significant design flexibility, enabling users to create custom layouts and styles without writing code. This flexibility, however, can lead to inconsistent designs if not carefully managed.

In structured content systems, all pages follow predefined templates and content types, ensuring a uniform appearance.

Structured content systems excel in content reuse, allowing centralized management of content that can be reused across multiple pages or sections. This ensures consistency and reduces redundancy.

Learn more: Reusable structured content - everything you need to know

Page builders, however, often require content to be recreated or manually copied for each instance, limiting the efficiency of content reuse.

Structured Content: Focuses on organizing and managing content separately from its presentation. Ideal for content-heavy sites that require consistent formatting and easy updates.

Page Builders Combines content creation and design in a single interface. Suitable for sites where visual design flexibility is a priority.

Structured content systems maintain high consistency by separating content from design. Changes to templates automatically reflect across all relevant pages.

In contrast, page builders may result in varied designs as users manually edit individual pages.

Structured content systems are highly scalable, making them suitable for large sites with extensive content. They allow for efficient management of large volumes of content and ensure consistent presentation.

When the site grows, page builders can become cumbersome and less efficient.

Performance tends to be better with structured content systems, as they generate cleaner, more optimized code.

Page builders, however, often add extra scripts and styles, which can be one of the reasons why is your website slow.

Structured content systems offer high customization through code, allowing developers to create unique features and integrations.

Page builders are limited to the builder's features and functionalities, restricting customization options.

Structured content systems make SEO optimization easier to manage and implement, as the content is cleanly separated and organized.

Page builders can present challenges for SEO if the generated code is not optimized properly.

The learning curve for structured content systems is steeper, requiring users to understand the underlying technologies and frameworks.

Page builders have a shallow learning curve, making them accessible to users with minimal or no technical knowledge.

Structured content systems require ongoing technical maintenance, including updates, security patches, and performance optimizations.

Page builders are generally easier to maintain, as they handle much of the technical aspects automatically.

The initial development costs for structured content systems can be higher due to the need for skilled developers. However, the long-term benefits include better scalability and performance.

Page builders usually have lower initial costs, making them an attractive option, for small businesses or individuals with limited budgets. But if you are planning to have a large project, then the cost can become extremely high. That is what happened with Webflow’s pricing hike.

In the end, the final score looks like this:

The primary conflict between structured content and page builders revolves around flexibility versus control.

Similar to coloring books, you get a frame and a palette of colors to create a combination that suits you. Simply put, WYSIWYG.

Let me use the coloring book as an example again. If with page builders you can color and change the appearance of drawings, in this case, you can make several coloring books that can be composed of different drawings.

Page builders are great for simple site templates, but they lack the flexibility needed for modern, seamless customer experiences. They make it hard to reuse data, automate information, and correct content without a bunch of plugins or cluttered WYSIWYG fields. This approach doesn’t support the needs of API-first, composable architecture.

For a smoother transition, use a BCMS with structured content page templates, for gaining flexibility, faster content creation, multi-frontend publishing, and less repetitive work.