How to use a headless CMS

A headless CMS is typically built around the use of a content API, which is responsible for delivering content to your various applications—but how do you use it? Let me elaborate on the five overall steps further below.

Indhold

De 5 steps 1. Konfigurering 2. Opbygning 3. Redigering af indhold 4. Import af indhold 5. Indsættelse af indhold

The 5 typical steps for how to use a headless CMS are:

Configuration and connection to applications
Building content types
Adding and editing content
Importing content
Inserting content into applications

You can also read about headless CMS in B2B contexts here.

Step 1 – Configuration and connection to applications

In most headless CMSs, you will need to start by configuring and connecting your applications to the headless CMS you have chosen.

Step 2 – Building content types

Once you have a connection from your application to your headless CMS, the next step is to build the content types you need.

This could be your blog articles, which should include a short title, an image, a URL, and a longer text. You would typically build this using a set of fields that the headless CMS platform provides.

Step 3 – Adding and editing content/content

Now that you have the different content types you need, you are ready to add your content to your headless CMS. This is the content that you will distribute to your applications via your content API.

For example, you create a blog post in your headless CMS, then enter the title, URL, text, images, and select the status of your blog post.

Step 4 – Importing content/content

You can now try retrieving or editing your content using the content API, which is typically either REST or GraphQL.

Step 5 – Inserting content into applications

Now that you have a connection to your headless CMS, you can retrieve and edit content. This means that you now simply need to insert content into your applications. How you choose to do this depends on the type of applications you have.

In most cases, this involves fetching content via REST or GraphQL and then inserting it into your frontend (React, Vue, Blade, etc.).

There are several different headless CMS platforms, all built around delivering content across applications.

Some of the most popular (based on number of GitHub stars and brand) are: