As the digital landscape for content delivery evolves at rapid speed and demands consistency and scalability, teams can no longer take the time to reinvent the wheel for every project or duplicate content across various projects. That’s where reusable content blocks come into play the foundational micro-component of headless and composable CMS solutions. By developing a robust, flexible library of content blocks, businesses can reduce time spent on content creation, satisfy brand requirements, and reduce technical and editorial strains across projects and platforms.
What are Content Blocks?
Content blocks are modular, structured pieces of content that can be mixed and matched to create dynamic digital experiences. Content is no longer considered on a page; each piece is its own standardized unit image gallery, feature set, testimonial, call to action, or hero image banner. In a headless CMS, such components are abstracted from visual application, meaning they can exist in a variety of places: websites, landing pages, apps, or digital experiences. The power of Storyblok CMS lies in its visual editor and component-based architecture, which makes managing and reusing these content blocks intuitive and scalable. This encourages a more granular approach to content creation and allows content creators to be less redundant, more fluid, and more scalable over time.
Why is it Good to Reuse Content Across Projects and Teams?
It’s faster. It’s also more purposeful to create a repository of content that addresses learnings cross-functionally over time rather than redundant activities or re-creating the wheel for each project. A content block can exist in one central location and be standardized in appearance and purpose, accessible down the line by any other team who finds it useful to achieve their goals. Particularly in larger organizations with regional branches or differing departments, a single source of truth with teams leveraging the same library promotes consistent tone, voice, visuals and structure across various locations digitally and physically with projects expedited over time as sites stabilize. Ultimately, time saved adds up exponentially.
How to Create a Library of Reusable Blocks?
However, to effectively create the opportunity for such a library, the design process must happen with the intent to reuse. Each block must inherently be designed around its need via composition not how it’s designed for look, but how it needs to function. For example a testimonial block will have fields for text of the quote, name, image and optional company name. It is not limited by arbitrary branded standards or canvases; it can exist in the attempt to expand across multiple templates, designs, future projects and ultimately devices for a universal and usable opportunity. The more granular the library creation including required fields, validation rules and modular logic, the more layout flexibility editors have to create without compromising value.
Determine Naming Conventions and Governance Requirements
Once you start building your own library of content blocks, you’ll want to have some naming conventions and governance requirements. Naturally, a naming convention is decree to better explain to creators and developers what a content block exists for and how to use it. Something like “ProductFeatureGrid” or “CustomerTestimonialCompact” not only explains use but inherent semantics make it easier to select within the CMS UI. Blocks can also require governance around version control, expiration, localization and ownership. This keeps content blocks accurate, useful and applicable to business needs across many initiatives.
Set Up the Library for Growth
Half the challenge for growth is organization. By categorizing content blocks by logical groupings (marketing, commerce, legal, support), teams are less likely to have to search through disassociated items when something already exists (which it usually does). Some CMSs offer tagging or folder groupings that allow for better discoverability. Other discoverable areas exist within the CMS like preview thumbnails, example content entries and use-case descriptions. This increases adoption and minimizes friction for new team members and external partners who need to get up to speed on the library.
Quality Assurance via Shared Ownership
Reusable content blocks are a shared resource, thus the need for quality assurance extends across multiple teams. Because reuse happens at different stages in its life cycle, editors, designers, developers and stakeholders need to be aware of what’s being produced. Editors will assess needs for content, designers need to care about visual cohesion and developers will apply and adopt. Sprints or weekly stand-up meetings will inform the product owner what content blocks are being heavily used, which need adjustments and which are ready to be retired. Shared ownership ensures quality, relevance in up-to-date status and access to ever-changing libraries of blocks.
Access to Centralized Support for Localization and Personalization
Arguably one of the most compelling use cases for reusable content blocks is the access to extensive localization and personalization efforts. For example, a reusable content block for a promotional banner can stay the same layout and only be filled with language variations or personalized language for segmented audiences and it wouldn’t need a uniquely designed grid area. This works particularly well for brands who operate on a global scale and need region- or channel-specific content. These reusable content blocks can also be rendered through API call delivery so geo-fencing efforts, language selections or behavioral actions can be tapped into in real-time to create compelling experiences.
Version Control and Lifecycle Management of Blocks
Eventually, even the reusable blocks need to be adjusted. Some may need to be updated due to rebranding efforts, some may need to be recreated due to legal disclaimers and some may need to be updated based on user behavioral analytics. Having version control within your CMS allows teams to update at a cautious level. Editors can preview updates, A/B test and revert back to original settings if desired. Lifecycle management policies like reminder notifications or automatically expiring/notifying of outdated settings can keep the library of content updated and always on-strategy.
Less Redundancy of Blocks Through Performance Tracking for Reuse
Not every block is created equal. By tracking the performance of blocks across various projects (engagement, conversion, impact, bounce rates, etc.), an organization learns what’s effective enough for reuse and what needs adjustments. For example, a block for a particular CTA with the same CTA link a multitude of times will it get basic aggregated data suggesting it’s a good idea to use this CTA block elsewhere. Having performance metrics available on the CMS dashboard or within the analytics stack allows content and marketing teams to understand what’s good and what’s needful of adjustment.
Ease of New Hire Onboarding and Internal Training
A comprehensive content block library becomes the onboarding and internal training reference. New editors will get access to what pieces are available from previously established best practices and they can add their talents sooner than later. With documentation, use-case examples and tooltip nuggets through the CMS interface, editors won’t need to rely on explanations forever for their content creation. Over time, an editorial language emerges and an editorial culture that fosters greater efficiency, greater quality and even greater creativity.
Less Technical Debt Through Useable Components
When the content is too integrated with its output, technical debt builds quickly. This often happens when teams are cloning pages, hardcoding variations or page templates, and/or are pressured into launching campaigns. By providing usable components and content blocks, everything becomes decoupled and modular. Developers can concentrate on the APIs and scalable frontend logic while non-technical editors can fill out components within prescribed perimeters. This separation of concerns creates less likelihood for regression, better UI and more straightforward testing and QA. Any change can happen without fear of disrupting a live page. In addition, this modularity facilitates easier migrations of future technologies and platforms down the road.
Content Strategy That Enables for the Future
As digital touchpoints expand and consumer needs change, a reusable content block library positions organizations for success to adapt quickly to a new microsite, a new geographical expansion, an incremental app update. A content structure based on modules, with API accessibility into internal ecosystems, allows companies to focus less on production bottlenecks and more on relevant, consistent and valuable content experiences. Therefore, reusable content blocks are no longer a nice-to-have; they’re a worth-it, foundational approach to making your content strategy more effective and scalable.
Compatibility with Other Design Systems of Your Tech Stack
Reusable content blocks should exist in harmony with any design system already in place to ensure ongoing visual branding and conformity. Each block should connect with your established UI components from spacing to typography, colors to micro-interactions. When a CMS-driven content block is in alignment with what can be built through the frontend design library, editors will feel empowered to build pages without concern for design drift. This synergy supports time-to-market speed, too, as engineers working across libraries possess better collaborative opportunities.
No-Code Opportunity for Non-Development Teams
Beyond giving editors the ability to be self-sufficient with pride of ownership over their builds, reusable content blocks minimize dependence on development. If the developers create the skeleton with logic and allow editors to place micro-elements, teams can achieve a visually appealing output while still adhering to accessibility compliance. These automations across teams reduce logjams and allow for concurrent work situations. With guardrails from content models, validations and modular rules the efficient quality output is less about time and more about quality per integrated effort.
Building the Library from Actual Use Needs
Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of a content block library is that it grows over time from actual use needs. Sourcing feedback from editors and stakeholders immediately highlights blocks that may still be missing and those that need to be modified based on what they’ve learned in real-time. Over time, it’s easy to slowly add more niche-use blocks, type comparisons, quote sliders, special geographical promotional banners and create a library that, while small, has everything needed to operate in real-time and for narrative development efforts.
Building a library from scratch only creates excess in an effort to be reactive for future anticipated needs, but in reality, over time, the just-in-time additions aligned with organizational real-time and narrative development efforts will go further.
Guaranteeing Usage through Internal Champions
No library is successful without constant, enterprise-wide usage across team verticals. Even the most supreme content block library behind the most successful of systems will go to waste if it’s not used or adopted correctly. This means that a seemingly successful system adopted on the front-end can fall short of opportunity on the back-end at any point if teams default back to their own siloed inefficient content development approaches instead of supporting the new.
To avoid this from happening, the need for effective internal enablement beyond just documentation comes into play. Internal championing of the content block library for adoption emphasizes the need for cultural buy-in and strategic execution.
You can champion adoption by encouraging key sessions and demos for team editors within their workflows. Guided demos within the CMS can generate enthusiasm and understanding of how to use the system and why it’s important. Each block has predetermined bounds as to why it should be used; limits the scope and ensures consistency across projects. Equipping editors with this information not only makes them willing participants but also champions of buy-in as they’ll understand the time saved and increased quality from more extensive efforts with standardized components.
You’ll also want to encourage champions along the way. The more block librarians there are in your organization who can enforce best practices, answer questions, and keep quality in the forefront, the less likely the system will decline in success over time. Each addition can be taught as new team members onboard or new blocks are added.
The more familiar teams get with the content block library instead of treating it as just one more technical piece of the CMS puzzle; the more potential it has to succeed. They’ll understand it’s the key to creativity, exploration, narrative development, and quick reworking needs. It empowers collaboration across silos for design/dev/editor realms work best when they all collaborate toward a more sustainable digital content operations strategy.