Siteimprove Aims to Streamline Digital Presence Management

By Laura Myers

August 16, 2017

Analytics, Business Intelligence, CMS, content management, Content Management System, Content Strategy, Episerver, Exclusive Interviews, eZ Systems, release, SEO, sitecore, Siteimprove, Umbraco, Web Content Management, Website Accessibility

In late June, Siteimprove, the global software as a service company launched a brand new content management system plug-in that is available on many prominent platforms in the CMS space. Now, we know the typical link-checkers and other quality assurance plug-ins are available, but Siteimprove, is aiming to remove the separation and the manual process of the ones currently out there, by offering web teams something more. Imagine, analytics insights more easily becoming part of your content creation process, and being able to, in one place, manage your digital presence in real time. 

To go further into the details of the new plug-in, I am speaking with Nicolai Munch Andersen, Product Owner for Policy and API at Siteimprove. 

Streamlining Web Presence Management

Whenever I encounter something new in this space, my first thoughts always hinge on what the premise or inspiration was behind the creation of it. I asked Nicolai if there was a need, or a gap in the market they had identified they hoped this new plug-in would fill. 

Nicolai emphasized that mostly, their focus was on empowering their customers to live up to the compliance and experience needs of their site but, to take that thought even further, after asking around in their market they discovered their users were disconnected from their everyday work tool. Siteimprove wanted to make their users’ workflow much easier by keeping their tool close to the users’ daily work. 

First things first though, they needed to make their plug-in relevant to their direct user base at the time: “We decided, all right, let's look into how can we implement the functionality of the site improve platform in the CMS systems most of our customers are working in every day, and the feedback that we have on this is very good.”

Your Own Online Consultant 

When I was researching the plug-in, I noticed it is available on many prominent CMS systems such as Sitecore, Umbraco, eZ Systems and Episerver, to name a few. All of these systems are known for their strengths in creating an experience beyond traditional marketing and so, I was curious, what role does this new plug-in play in the creation and execution of that experience? 

Nicolai explained, their aim is to have the user “feel confident in what they are doing” and they do that, he explained, by almost acting as in-platform consultant, helping the user visualize issues when they are editing content and giving suggestions where the user can adjust or clean-up here and there for increased efficiency on a much smaller scale. This means the user won’t have to glean knowledge from a report and be left to run a much larger, more time consuming website cleanup later on. “We kind of poke ‘em a little bit from the side, saying ‘while you are actually looking at editing this page you might want to look at these accessibility issues or you might want to up the SEO score’ or whatever they have decided we should help them with”.

What’s Next?

What if you’re using a CMS system that is not listed as one the plug-in is available on? According to Nicolai, give it time, as they are currently in the works of expanding the number of systems the plug-in is compatible with in response to a plethora of requests from their current customer base for Siteimprove. In addition, the product will evolve to include new features and due to the way the plug-in is implemented, Siteimprove can update the amount of information they want to share with their users easily, without them having to download a new plug-in. “Every time we add a new feature and if it fits in one of our subscriptions, we are going to add that in the plug-in”. 

My POV

Basically anyone and everyone tasked with digital presence management knows the struggle of not only keeping up with daily tasks, but finding the time on a regular basis to run a report on their site and then, fix all the little things that are slowing it down or making it not as successful as it could be in reaching their business goals. 

Siteimprove creating a plug-in that for the first time, empowers web editors and content creators not only with insights and analytics to create more impactful content but also, by showing them all the little issues they can fix in the moment before they become big issues, is admirable. Not to mention, the win win that comes to mind for the CMS systems the plug-in is available on and the enhanced productivity and efficiency users will find in using these platforms. It all has me more than curious to see how many more CMS systems the plug-in will be available on in the near future and the exciting new features that will be added to its arsenal, for even easier digital presence management. 

Laura Myers

A digital business, marketing and social media enthusiast, Laura thrives on asking unique, insightful questions to ignite conversation. At an event or remotely, she enjoys any opportunity to connect with like-minded people in the industry.