CMS Content Modeling Considerations and Resources

Content Modeling is basically the definition of Content Types and relationships between Entries. Content Modeling should be the main part of a CMS implementation, and should begin with detailed requirements. Thoroughly evaluate content modeling features before selecting a CMS platform. Confirm basics such as support for referenced/nested Entries and custom Field Types that you can implement to provide a browser-based UI that accesses other systems and store values to Entries using JSON schema of your choice.

CMS modeling feature considerations include the following.

• The range of available Field Types.
• Support for repeating Values within a single Field.
• Support for Groups of Fields.
• Support for repeating Groups of Fields.
• Support for nesting Fields within Fields.
• Flexible but consistent data structures akin to Contentstack Modular Blocks (https://deliverystack.net/2020/07/22/how-contentstack-modular-blocks-fit-net-core/)
• Data modeling component reusability (reusable Field definitions, Content Type inheritance, and so forth)
• Support for hierarchies of Fields within Content Types.
• Support for hierarchical relationships between Entries.
• Support for validating references between Entries.
• Minimal use of vendor-specific data formats.
• Support for validating Field values including relationships between Fields.
• RESTful API support for serialization/deserialization of Content Type definitions, Entries, Assets, and any other data to JSON files for import/export between systems.

Choosing to use .NET Core for content delivery should have little, if any, impact on content modeling.

Some resources on content modeling:

• https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/concepts/data-model/
• https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/how-to-guides/content-modeling/
• https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/how-to-guides/content-modeling-best-practices/
• https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/create-content-types/
• https://kontent.ai/blog/8-content-modeling-pitfalls-to-avoid
• https://kontent.ai/content-modeling-hub

If you know of additional CMS content modeling considerations or resources, please comment on this blog post and I will update these lists accordingly.