Get Found. Increase Efficiency. Work Smarter:
Three Must-Have Features for Your Next Website CMS
Is 2025 the year you redo your website and upgrade your Content Management System (CMS)? Certain features can significantly increase how efficiently teams manage content and how effectively that content performs on the web. Here are three essential features that every CMS should have to ensure success:
1. Faster, More Precise Search with Typeahead and Synonyms
One of the most critical elements of your website is the ability for your visitors to find what they need. A CMS that provides typeahead capabilities—also known as predictive search—can significantly speed up a user's query and ensure they find the details about your firm that matter most to them.
Typeahead provides real-time suggestions as users type, making it faster to find relevant content. But even more importantly, the search results must be precise and accurate. Incorporating a search engine that supports synonyms allows for flexibility and increases the likelihood of finding the right content. For example, if your visitor searches for “Intellectual Property,” your website should also return results for "IP" or "Patents, Trademarks or Copyright," ensuring that no relevant content is overlooked. The ability for CMS users to specify synonyms tailored to the nuances of law firm content enhances the accuracy and relevance of search results for your site visitors.
2. Create Drafts and Share for Internal Feedback Before Publishing
Collaboration is critical to creating high-quality content. A CMS that allows your marketing team to quickly draft, edit, and share content internally before publishing is a game-changer. Creating drafts of new and existing pages and sharing them in the final design layout allows teams to fine-tune content before it goes live.
With internal sharing capabilities, all relevant stakeholders can review the content, provide feedback, and make revisions in real time. This reduces the risk of errors or miscommunication, streamlines the approval process, and enables faster publication.
All content revisions should be versioned and tracked, making it simple to revert to a previous version if needed, providing a structured process for feedback and recalling past content revisions.
3. Optimize SEO and GEO with Content Automation
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical in driving organic traffic, and your CMS needs to optimize content as easily as possible. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is specifically geared towards ensuring your site is indexed by AI platforms for search (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, etc). Automatic content recommendations help in-house marketers identify opportunities for improving SEO and GEO. For example, your CMS should suggest related topics, keywords, and relevant content relationships based on the content you're creating. These suggestions help ensure that your content is comprehensive and optimized for search engines.
But that’s just the start. You also need to be able to control the page titles and site metadata, including descriptions and keyword tags. With full access to these crucial SEO elements, you can tailor each page to target the right keywords, improve its ranking, and enhance visibility. The ability to edit metadata within the CMS ensures you don’t have to rely on technical teams or external tools to make necessary SEO adjustments.
This level of control empowers marketers to directly influence how their content performs in search engines, helping to drive more traffic to their sites.
Incorporating these features into your next CMS is more than just a convenience—it’s a necessity for optimizing your content management workflow and boosting your website’s performance. Faster, more precise search ensures that users can find the content they need without wasting time. Drafting and sharing capabilities facilitate better collaboration and faster approval processes. Complete SEO control maximizes your content's reach and visibility, which is crucial in a highly competitive digital space.