Headless CMS Playbook for Marketing Sites

The stack matters less than the workflow

Headless CMS, edge rendering, ISR. The tools change every year. What endures is a content model your editors understand and a frontend your team can ship.

Start with the content model

Before you pick a framework, map the pages authors will edit:

• Singletons for settings, hero, and contact copy
• Collections for work, services, team, and journal posts
• Relations where editors already think in links (author to post, service to case study)

If the model mirrors how the studio talks about work, the UI almost designs itself.

Frontend choices that age well

Prefer boring reliability over novelty:

1. Server-rendered routes with short ISR windows
2. On-demand revalidation when the CMS can fire webhooks
3. Asset URLs from the CMS, with a host allowlist in your image config
4. SEO fields on every public entry that deserves a search result

Editors should never wait on a deploy to fix a typo on the homepage.

A launch checklist we reuse

• Preview draft content without publishing
• Fallbacks when a singleton or image is missing
• Clear empty states so a fresh import still looks intentional
• A README that tells buyers which collection powers which page

Pick the CMS that matches your team's editing habits. Wire the frontend so publishing feels instant. Everything else is detail.