Craft – Why we love Craft CMS
by Sunny Thinking
After the recent launch of our new websites for Making Space and COD Kitchen Appliances we thought it would be a great time to talk about our love for Craft and why it has been our first choice for websites and content management systems for ourselves and our clients for many years now.
Craft isn’t as widely known as other content management systems like Wordpress, Umbraco or Expression Engine which many of our clients have experience in, yet they are amazed at how simple and intuitive Craft is to use in comparison. Not only is it easy to use but it is extremely flexible and through the use of add-ons can be tailored to fit almost any brief.
Each and every website project we take on has different specifications and requirements and whist we are always open to using the best method or program to get the job done, we think Craft ticks that box the majority of the time. We have designed and built websites in Craft for many of our clients including Altrincham Unlimited,buzz Manchester Health & Wellbeing Service, COD Kitchen Appliances and most recently Making Space.
The release of Craft 3 brings hundreds of new features and improvements to an already solid foundation.
A few of our favourite features include:
- Craft is extremely easy to us with a clean, minimalistic control panel allowing the user to edit and update content on their website quickly and efficiently as and when required
- It can support the use of multiple authors, with their own accounts and edit permissions
- You can create draft posts to publish in the future and also let’s you preview a page directly on the website at the same time as creating or dropping content in it with the Live Preview feature, before you publish
- You can store and manage files locally and in the cloud
- Create categories and tags
- Import content from Twitter and Instagram
- Organise events in a calendar
- Drop pins on a map
- And with the Craft Commerce add-on, manage an online store
Possibly the best thing about Craft CMS is the Matrix field, which has transformed the content management experience for our clients. It enables them to build up pages from scratch by using different content blocks such as image, video, text, quote, tweet etc. And on the technical side of things, we have the ability to add additional content block types depending on what the project requires. Ultimately the Matrix feature is extremely flexible and adaptable, allowing us and our clients to build content quickly and easily and reorganise content by dragging and dropping blocks exactly where we want them. Think of the amount of time saved!
As a creative marketing agency we approach web projects with a different perspective than most purely digital agencies. We're not an agency that is full of jargon and over complicates life. We think about your brand, your message and how your website needs to dovetail with your wider marketing activity. We want to tell your story through your website, not just obsess about technology and put building blocks together. Yes we can still consider other CMS for your site, we've also built a few small budget sites using WIX for example recently. But ultimately, we think Craft gives us the best platform to do just that.
If you're looking to design a new website or give your current site a refresh, we'd heartily recommend Craft to you. Drop us an email and let's arrange to talk about how we can bring your website to life. We can also discuss your other digital marketing too including email marketing, social media and online advertising too and how that all fits within your wider brand and marketing strategy.
Thanks for reading.
Danielle - Senior Account Executive and lover of Craft CMS.
