In this article, we'll explore the benefits of utilizing a Git-based CMS for Content Authoring and Approval and why it's a game-changer for businesses building demanding, content-centric digital experiences (DX).

Streamlined Content Authoring Process

Building content for digital experiences starts with drafting up content ideas, iterating over them, fleshing out concrete texts and finally going through an approval and publication process. Unless you're a small business, chances are that more than one person is involved in this process and that there is more than one content initiative being worked on in parallel.

In a conventional CMS, all such initiatives usually have only a single, shared location to place their individual pieces of content into, e.g. a project or content space. What sounds like a good idea for content reuse actually becomes a major issue during content creation, as the more work happens, the harder it is to associate content and content changes to individual initiatives. This increases the chance of mistakes in content publication, where unrelated content pieces of other initiatives are accidentally published or some content remains unpublished that actually should have gone into production.

In a Git-based CMS, content editors of all initiatives still work in the same project but can make use of branches to keep different initiatives separate as long as content changes are ongoing. This lets content editors focus on content changes in their own initiative and not have to worry about changes happening elsewhere.

Streamlined Approval Workflow

Once content of an initiative is ready, we can use the change tracking of Git to tell us what exact content changes are contained in a branch. This makes it possible to review, audit, and approve only those changes, with zero risk of accidentally including unrelated content or leaving content behind.

In comparison, in a legacy CMS, content changes of all initiatives are mixed together, therefore reviewing the right content is significantly more difficult.

In a Git-based CMS like Commitspark, we have another ace up our sleeve to facilitate content approval workflows: With the concept of Commits, Git has a secure record of each content change made at any point in time. This allows us to guarantee that approval of content changes up to a specific commit does not include any other changes that have not been reviewed. This allows editors to be confident that the right version of content is published and that costly mistakes are avoided.

To try out Commitspark, go to our Getting Started page and follow the simple steps.