All About the HubSpot CMS: Content Management System for Professionals

You understand marketing. And you know that your business needs a more targeted online approach. HubSpot Content Management System (CMS) may be just what you need.

Online marketing tools can be complicated. Managing a contact relationship management (CRM) system, CMS, website, blog, social media, sales funnels… the list never ends.

Do you want a way to manage your web content, social media, and CRM in one place? Do you want a content management system that is easy to use? Do you want an integrated tool that will save you time?

The HubSpot CMS can help.

It’s built for business owners and marketers who want an all-in-one solution. And it’s already helped over 150,000!

What is the HubSpot CMS?

HubSpot's content management system is a first and only.

It combines your CMS and CRM. But it also has the ability to personalize your customer’s experience. And not just on the first visit. But on every single interaction afterward.

Your CMS is the basis of all your marketing. You need to choose a platform that grows with you. HubSpot CMS can do that.

Features of the HubSpot CMS

A content management system is integral to delivering great experiences. Don’t just have a website that displays information. Create a site that builds relationships!

Speed

Visitors will leave your website if it loads slowly. So HubSpot's CMS is designed to load FAST! INDY 500 fast.

HubSpot has built its own global Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructure. They’ve optimized it so that your pages load quickly no matter what device is used or where a visitor is located.

The CMS optimizes image sizes and compression so they look great on devices and load quickly. Hubspot has tweaked how CSS and JavaScript load to ensure fast-loading pages.

Security

Security breaches are bad for PR. So HubSpot CMS has SSL baked right in. Do you know that lack of security can hurt your search rankings?

HubSpot’s global CDN automatically prevents DDoS attacks. And the Web Application Firewall prevents hackers from accessing data. If that wasn’t enough, HubSpot has a security team that constantly monitors the network.

Reliability

There’s a 99.999% uptime with Hubspot CMS. If a data center ever goes down, the system can switch to a redundant system and keep your site live. Downtime doesn’t just cost you revenue. It hurts a visitor’s perception of your brand.

Mobile-Friendly

Any content on HubSpot or built with marketplace templates is automatically optimized for mobile. It’s estimated that more than half of the traffic on the internet comes from mobile devices.

All-in-One

Hubspot CMS has it all! Create a high-converting site with all the tools you need. Use the integrated CRM to personalize the content and the experience. Optimize and analyze your site in one place. There are no plugins to update and no additional software to manage.

Conversion Tools

HubSpot includes all the tools you need to turn visitors into paying customers. Its integration with the HubSpot CRM lets you change content based on visitor interests. Use any detail from your CRM to serve up custom pages to visitors.

Analytics Tracking

You need to know who’s visiting your site, what interests them, and how long they stay to better market to them. HubSpot includes analytics tracking. You don’t need to visit another site or synchronize data to analyze and manipulate the data. HubSpot CMS is all you need.

Live Chat

HubSpot Conversations lets you add live chat to your site. Bots help you qualify leads and answer common questions. Again, totally built-in. No plugins that you have to worry about updating. No compatibility issues. Make sure that your visitors always have a direct line of communication.

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot’s CRM has been voted the #1 CRM for SMBs. And it integrates with the HubSpot CMS. You can track contact details, build contact lists, and follow a user from visitor to satisfied customer.

Content Creation

HubSpot CMS lets you create blogs, landing pages, and web content with your choice of thousands of available templates. Don’t like any of the thousands? Then simply create your own!

It’s easy! Drag and drop modules let you easily build or change any page. Even hire a developer to edit code directly.

Drag and Drop Modules

Drag and drop modules let you change the layout and change content on your web pages. There are hundreds of modules available in the marketplace.

SEO and Content Strategy

HubSpot CMS includes on-page SEO. No need to reference online resources, books, or cheat sheets. It’s all right there as you build your page!

Content Staging

Use content staging to set up a product launch or redesign your site. Don’t rush through your redesign or campaign to hold your site together. Do it the right way. Once you’re finally done with your modifications, publish everything with a single click.

Projects

HubSpot projects include thousands of templates to guide you through just about anything. Redesign your entire site or develop a new content strategy. Don’t feel that you have to recreate the whole process. Just follow the step-by-step guides to reach your goals in HubSpot.

Smart Content

With HubSpot, you can personalize your page content or even a whole page based on anonymous and known attributes of your visitors. Serve up custom content based on location, source, device, language, demographic information, and more. Let your site’s visitor experience change over time.

Templates and Modules

Hubspot CMS templates control the layout, style, and function of your pages. Hubspot provides built-in templates from CMS developers. You can also download pre-made templates from the HubSpot Marketplace.

Modules are the building blocks of templates. These blocks of content, which include images, forms, CTAs, rich text, and more make up your templates.

HubSpot allows a one-to-many relationship. The same module can be used across many templates. Your templates can be added to many unique pages.

HubSpot Pricing for the CMS

The HubSpot CMS is a valuable tool and contains many valuable features.

HubSpot CMS is available as a standalone service or as an add-on product at $300/month. A one-time $1,000 fee for Content Professional Onboarding is charged if the CMS is not purchased with Marketing Hub Professional or Marketing Hub Enterprise.

HubSpot CMS is most powerful if added on to the Marketing Hub, starting at $800/month. The HubSpot CMS pricing may seem high, but you’ll need to look at your website in a different way than you might today.

'HubSpot gathers marketing data that has the potential to boost your profits and result in more conversions, as it comes with built in on-page and technical SEO features, world class security, speed, smart content and personalization and is powered by HubSpot's secret weapon... its CRM.' 

If you want to learn more about why the HubSpot CMS is priced as it is, check out this blog where we break down it's value in detail, 'What You Need To Know About HubSpot Pricing For The CMS'.

The Backend of the HubSpot CMS

HubSpot CMS includes a number of tools to set up your online marketing channel. These tools allow you not only to create webpages, but also CTAs, Forms, Pop-up forms, conversations, and reports. Having your CMS data in the same place as your CRM helps you leverage your CRM and include the contact’s persona or pages they visit.

• Domain Manager. Connect your web domain to HubSpot to publish your site to your own custom domain.
• File Manager. Store and organize images, PDFs, videos, and any other asset you want to share.
• Template Design Tools. These tools let you create and edit templates, modules, and code.
• Landing and Website Pages. Create pages with content that engages and converts visitors into customers.
• Blog. Create and publish posts to keep your site up to date with current content.
• SEO. Map your content strategy using topic clusters.
• Marketplace. Here you can download pre-made templates and modules.

Coding on HubSpot CMS

Over 150,000 users are on HubSpot. And thousands of programmers are working with the HubSpot programming language.

HubSpot CMS lets developers build solutions to complex problems. They can also build marketer-friendly, unbreakable marketer website editing interfaces.

With these interfaces, you can set up guardrails and empower marketers and content creators to edit programming as well. This frees up the time of coders to focus on find solutions to the most complex problems.

HubSpot CMS takes care of the platform updates. No server maintenance is required. Security is built-in so you can focus on coding.

The HubSpot Marketplace

The Hubspot Marketplace lets you find thousands of pre-made templates and modules. This works great if you’re still working on your design and developer skills. Build beautiful, engaging sites in no time!

The Marketplace includes free and paid content. Thousands of blog templates, email templates, page templates, bundles, and modules are available. The Marketplace lets you view a live example and read customer reviews.

HubSpot CMS vs. WordPress

If you’re trying to decide between WordPress and HubSpot, it’s going to be easy to make that decision. It’s really like comparing peaches and pineapples.

If you hold HubSpot up to WordPress, WordPress is incomplete. You’ll have to add a lot of plugins to get it to do what HubSpot CMS can do.

But let’s do some comparisons anyway.

Inbound Marketing

HubSpot has the tools built-in for inbound marketing. Topic clusters have long been used marketers. What's that?

You pick a few broad topics and create a pillar page for each. Then you create detailed, cluster pages that support the pillar pages. HubSpot includes a Content Strategy tool to organize these clusters. The Content Strategy tool lets you link blog posts to support the strategy too.

To come close to this functionality, WordPress would need an add-on page editor, an SEO plugin, an add-on theme, and a widget to accomplish this. Some of those items are free. Many are not and would require ongoing subscriptions.

Social Media Promotion

HubSpot includes a social publishing tool. No plugins required! You can schedule a date and time for the post. You can select multiple accounts and different dates and times for each.

The HubSpot CRM even scans your social media activity and the information can be used to create smart lists. These lists target campaigns to reach contacts who are engaging on social media. It can inform your sales group who they should follow up with too.

Programming

WordPress uses the common PHP dynamic scripting language. HubSpot uses HubL, which requires developers or those coding in HubSpot to learn a new coding language. HubL is a proprietary language that doesn’t allow as much customization as PHP.

Tips on Using the HubSpot CMS

As easy as using Hubspot CMS is going to be, you’ll still benefit from these tips compiled from prior users.

Personas

When starting out on HubSpot, you create buyer personas. But it’s important to revisit these personas often. You want to make sure they’re still accurate for the audience you are targeting.

Custom-Templates

With HubSpot, you can choose a default template, a Marketplace template, or customize your own. If you create your own keep these things in mind:

• Visitors read left to right, top to bottom
• The weight and size of elements draw the eyes
• Poor navigation leads to abandonment
• Keep a consistent style throughout your site

Asset Marketplace

The marketplace can seem overwhelming, but there are features to find what you need.

• Category. Use this filter to see the type of product you need
• Price. Choose between free and paid products
• Purpose. Find a product with a specific purpose, such as a “Contact us” page

Content Marketing

Make use of all the content marketing tools, these are super valuable, so don’t let any go to waste.

• Customized Site Pages
• Landing Pages
• Blogs
• Emails
• Calls-to-Action
• Social Media

Faster Marketing

• Plan a blog post with team members
• Collaborate on drafts
• Include pictures, videos, and CTAs

Contact Forms and CRM Integration

With HubSpot CMS and CRM, you have insight into what a visitor did before submitting a contact request. This gives the salespeople context when following up on a lead.

• Use the CRM contact activity to identify how and when users arrive to the site
• Look into which pages they viewed
• See how many times they’ve visited the site and what they provided on contact forms
  

Is HubSpot CMS Right for You?

Even after reading about how the HubSpot CMS can help your marketing, are you still wondering if the HubSpot CMS will serve your needs? Do you question its value? Is it worth it?

If so, feel free to contact us and we would be happy to answer your questions!