Our top ten articles on digital customer experience and digital experience platforms (DXPs) from 2024
It’s hard to believe that we’re nearly at the end of the year! 2024 has gone so quickly. We’ve been very busy again, working on some great projects, continuing to support our amazing clients and sorting things out like our ISO 27001 accreditation. During that time, we’ve also managed to squeeze in a few articles on this blog, covering aspects of working with an agency, digital customer experience, platforms like Umbraco and more.
In this post we look back at ten of our most popular articles that you may have missed during the year.
Ten digital customer experience trends for 2024
Right at the beginning of the year we looked at some of the trends in the digital customer experience space that we thought we’d encounter in 2024. We covered everything from developments in the CMS and DXP space to increased cybersecurity threats to the widespread impact of generative AI. The big question is with the benefit of hindsight, did our predictions turn out to be right? Reading them now, they don’t actually look too bad!
11 critical boxes to tick before you embark on a website project
We sometimes get asked about what needs to be done to get ready for a new website project, or if the timing is right to embark on what can be a major investment. In this post from back in February we explored the ducks that ideally need to be in a row before embarking on a new website build. The post lists eleven points from deciding on the high-level strategy through to setting yourself up for good communication. We also cover RFIs, RFPs, making the business case, setting up the project team and more!
Sitecore Update: eight recent updates
One of the strengths of Sitecore is that they keep on investing in the product, adding new capabilities and features, as well as expanding the overall platform. Over the past two years Sitecore has been on a journey that offers the core platform on a SaaS basis with separate products that can be integrated individually into a composable or best-of-breed ecosystem.
Over two posts we explored the latest updates from Sitecore. The first was from back in March with a new CEO and more product roadmap in changes. We followed this up in October with another update that detailed announcements from the Symposium conference, a new revenue milestone and the release of Sitecore Stream – a branded set of AI capabilities.
What to expect when upgrading your Content Management System
All website teams will go through a CMS upgrade project from time to time. Generally, with the advent of SaaS and a move to more stable releases across many of the CMS and DXPs, they’re usually pretty straightforward. However, they are often still viewed with some trepidation from digital teams and occasionally an upgrade project can be a significant effort. In this post we try to take some of the mystery out of a CMS upgrade, detailing the process we follow at 3chillies and answering some key questions.
3chillies Umbraco 2024 Codegarden takeaways
We love Umbraco. It’s one of our favourite platforms to work with. It’s also had another busy year with acquisitions, new features, the release of Umbraco 14, changes at the top and more! We’ve covered Umbraco a number of times on the blog, including in this post about some takeaways from the annual flagship Codegarden conference held in Denmark. We also covered Umbraco events in more detail recently, with an update that looked at everything from the release of Umbraco 15 to the launch of Umbraco Engage. Reviewing these posts will give you a flavour of what happened at Umbraco HQ in 2024, and a sense of what will happen in 2025.
Seven tips for planning your website budget
Budgeting for either a project or for the year can be a mixture of sophisticated data analysis, guesswork and the dark arts. You need to get it right to be accurate but ask for enough so that if it is challenged and subsequently cut, then your project is still viable. In this post from June, we looked at some of tips for planning a website budget that we’ve learned over the years. These include partnering with your agency and – very importantly – never forgetting some contingency!
Eight ways to improve the environmental impact of your website
Being more sustainable and reaching Net Zero remain important goals for many organisations. Unfortunately, every website has a negative impact on the environment; but the good news is that there are lots that can be done to reduce this. In this important post we explore some of the ways that digital teams can reduce the carbon footprint of their website project and help contribute to sustainable goals. We’re finding more and more of our clients want to achieve this – and the good news is that often-taking actions also reduces costs and often increases usability too.
Nine components of a successful digital agency support model
In some digital agencies, support is sometimes regarded as a secondary service compared to the development work that happens within a project. Yes, it’s less glamorous but it’s actually critical to the success and value of any website or app, and often shapes successful working relationships between agency and client. At 3chillies we are very proud of our support service and team, and we view it as just as important as our project work. In this post from August, we explore the successful components of a support model, including the “proactive maintenance” which is at the centre of our proposition.
Ten ways to fall back in love with your CMS
It’s surprisingly easy to fall out of love with technology, especially if you have to use it every day and it has issues which cause frustration and waste time. Failing out of love with a Content Management System (CMS) is not uncommon for digital marketing teams and may eventually drive a re-platforming project. However, before you push the button there are multiple ways you can improve your CMS experience and even fall back in love with your CMS. In this post we cover ten things to consider to get your relationship with your CMS back on track.
Optimizely update: why the platform keeps on going from strength to strength
Optimizely is a leading Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that we love to use here at 3chillies. It’s also another platform that has had a very successful year. In this post from October, we reflected on the most significant recent updates from Optimizely, including announcements about revenue growth and a raft of new features and capabilities. We also explored the rebranding of the product to Optimizely One and mentioned the release of Optimizely’s CMS 13 in 2025. Next year looks set to be another exciting year for the DXP.
Here's to 2025!
Thanks very much for reading our blog during the year. We hope you’ve found it interesting and useful, and we’ll be back next year for another year of insights and observations, and a new revamped website too! Until then, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and winter holiday season, as well as very happy and healthy new year. See you in 2025!
