Is your tech stack up to scratch?

What is a tech stack?

Put simply, your tech stack is the set of technologies, platforms, and services that come together to form your online presence. Picture it as a deliciously intricate sandwich - each layer serves a purpose, and they all come together to make an experience worth coming back for seconds. Your tech stack should be tailored to you and your audience - it’s important to get the mix right so that you’re winning where it matters most: engagement, interaction, and experience.

Why does it matter?

Lots of factors impact which technologies you choose, so thinking some distance ahead can help inform your tech stack. Prematurely outgrowing your platform could double your investment; while making decisions based on guesses about your needs ten years down the line doesn’t help your short-term goals, and a lot can change in between. Taking some time to consider what you might need, and how that might change over time is worthwhile to ensure  you’re getting the most out of your stack. A cohesive tech stack that fits your business is cost-effective, greener, and a better experience for your users - what’s not to love?

Signs you need to scale up:

It’s important that your CMS can grow with your business, without compromising on performance. The same indicators that your end-users are seeing are the same red flags that’ll be waving at developers behind the scenes. Here are a couple things to look out for that might mean it’s time to start thinking about an upgrade:

Your website feels sloooow

If it feels like your website is taking forever to load, or you start noticing lags, it could be a sign that our current infrastructure is struggling to handle the volume of users and content. Increases in traffic and engagement is a good thing - it means that your site is doing what it’s meant to do. But if that comes at the price of poor performance, you’ll need to take a look at your CMS.

Your costs are increasing

More traffic means more pressure on servers. Significant changes to how much it costs to run and maintain your current tech stack could indicate that it would be more cost-effective to scale up.

You want more out of your analytics

Your CMS and overall tech stack may need upgrades if you’re having trouble managing and analysing increasing amounts of data. Scaling up can provide new and enhanced analytics capabilities, providing more insight into the behaviour and preferences of your audience.

Where does Umbraco come in?

Flexibility and scalability are built into Umbraco, and is another reason why we love it as our CMS. Here are just a few ways Umbraco can contribute to your scalability:

Customisation

Umbraco is open source, which provides the ultimate freedom to tailor your system exactly as you need it. The wealth of packages available also allow you to extend the functionality of Umbraco to suit your specific requirements. This is especially handy for integrating other tools and systems as your business grows, keeping your tech stack in harmony.

User-friendly interface

As your bank of content grows, allowing your team to manage and organise it efficiently becomes even more important to ensure you’re not drowning in files and fighting through a tricky system. If it’s your team that’s growing, Umbraco’s content workflow and version control features allow for productive collaboration: multiple editors, managing content for multiple channels, in multiple languages. Talk about seamless.

Security and updates

Having a secure CMS is crucial for safeguarding sensitive data, and maintaining the trust of your users - especially as your business grows and becomes more of a target for threats.. Umbraco’s built-in security features work to protect your tech stack, and the regular updates to the system ensure you’re alway up-to-date with the latest protective features.

How can we help?

As a certified Umbraco Partner, we can help you think about leveraging Umbraco to get the most out of your tech stack. Whether that’s performance enhancement, migrating your existing site over to Umbraco, or starting fresh - we can help. Or if you want to get a better idea about your current site, we can carry out a technical audit, giving you a full rundown of changes you can make that will have the biggest impact. Get in touch with a member of the team to find out more.