A Guide to Developing a Website Using Sitecore CMS

Packed with endless customization capabilities, Sitecore’s Content Management System (CMS) has become the choice of thousands of businesses for nearly 20 years. Amid the diversity of content management products, Sitecore certainly stands out as it provides an integrated platform for more than just information management. It provides experience management and handles content, commerce, data, and delivery. At the same time, the platform enables self-service website development, along with professional development.

Why Sitecore?

Sitecore Corporation’s product, the self-described CMS, has grown into a sustainable and mature platform, Sitecore Experience Cloud, since the company’s inception in 2001. The modular structure of this native .NET-based platform allows you to use only the necessary features that are tailored to each specific project.

Today, Sitecore Experience Manager is the enterprise content management solution. Manager is a comprehensive software package widely used for website development as it enables time-efficient creation, editing, control and creation of websites, with different levels of complexity. Unlike some of its big-name counterparts, Sitecore’s Manager is more than an intranet solution – it provides the functionality of both a CMS and a website.

Sitecore has been among the leaders in the Magic Quadrant for Gartner for Web Content Management for several years in a row. Gartner experts highly praise the “360-degree view of the customer” that this web CMS provides, a limitless push for innovations, and offbeat marketing practices that it focuses on.

The Sitecore Experience Manager has earned its leadership position by providing customers with the functionality required for top-tier website development. It has a wide range of benefits that attract companies around the world and help them develop end-to-end web-based solutions, such as:

• Unmatched customization capabilities
• Almost unlimited customization capabilities to configure websites according to each client’s requirements
• Sitecore based website management that does not require programming and web technology experience
• The built-in pattern analysis and targeting that enables dynamic content adjustment and customization of customer behavior
• Distributed support and easy access to content that enables convenient content sharing
• Forms assemblies and usability reports that allow user-friendly performance evaluation
• Seamless integration with customer databases and third-party websites
• Content reuse for each type of device specific ico
• Seamless integration of third-party tools and plugins and Microsoft technology ologies
• Efficient search engine optimization and social media integration
• Compatibility with various languages
• High scalability and user-friendly interface
• High level of security and protection

However, like any other software, it is not exempt from certain deficiencies, and in the case of Sitecore, an essential one is its very high cost. The price of the solution depends on the size of the company and the scope of functionalities that customers require in each specific case. Also, the product is licensed on a “per user” basis and large companies may find this unreasonable. However, the more a business takes advantage of its Sitecore-based CMS, the more advanced customization it gets.

How to Build a Sitecore-Based Website

In most cases, businesses who need a complete website turn to a service provider for a turnkey solution. However, in some cases they can take a completely different form: developing a website in-house without outsourcing.

Sitecore Based Outsourced Website Development Services

The Easier and certainly more. The traditional way is turning to companies that provide professional Sitecore development services associated with building Websites based on Sitecore Web CMS, such as SaM Solutions. Opting for Sitecore professional development gives you the following advantages:

• You do not need Sitecore training which implies a steep learning curve
• As can be deduced from the previous point, you do not needed for training saves time and gets development up and running immediately
• Delivering a quality secure solution that meets all requirements (if the partner is reliable)

So, turning to a professional organization allows you to reduce your website development efforts and focus on your priority business tasks. However, this method has a substantial shortcoming: the cost of Sitecore. As is often the case with long-term projects in software development, there is no set price that you can use as a baseline.

Sitecore-based websites absolutely require the purchase of a license, and their price is affected by two factors:

• The number of hosting servers
• The number of end users that can log into the system simultaneously

Usually the price of the website also includes a variety of components that change from one project to another and pertain both to Sitecore development and post-delivery use, such as:

• Number of domains
• Territorial coverage
• Number of languages
• Integration with other platforms
• Web traffic
• The requirement of additional modules
• Custom functionality

For an exact price calculation, you can contact the subject matter experts at SaM Solutions, who will estimate the total cost of website development for your specific case.

Site development web based on autoserv Sitecore icio

If your company is on a budget or simply cannot imagine spending a large sum on website development and maintenance, you may want to go for self-service website creation.

Even though this method significantly reduces its cost (but keep in mind that training involves direct and indirect costs), it has certain disadvantages, such as:

• Training can extend for an indefinite period of time and consume efforts and resources
• The process itself will extend for an indefinite period of time. a good time (in our work, we apply team development for Sitecore projects as it improves delivery time)
• Non-professionals cannot guarantee the impeccable quality of the solution

If these shortcomings do not deter you, then continue with the training. For this, you can apply our short Sitecore user guide below.

How to develop an internal website based on Sitecore

To develop a strong and healthy website with Sitecore, a -The professional developer must know how to create pages, understand the essence of data templates, renderings, layouts and other fundamental components. Additionally, you will need to have an understanding of the basics related to Sitecore architecture such as content management, publishing, delivery servers, publishing, and core, master, and web databases.

Follow our self-paced Sitecore tutorial to learn how to build a simple website that will have just two types of pages: the home page and the product page.

Creating data templates

Templates are created through the Template Manager which allows both the creation of new templates and the editing of existing ones. To start the data template creation, log in to Sitecore Desktop with administrator credentials and open the Template Manager from the start menu.

For page data template creation home page and the product page, do the following:

1. Select the User Defined folder in the Content Tree of the Template Manager
2. Select “New Template” in the Folder Editor
3. Enter “Home Page” or “Product” in the Select Name field of the New Template Wizard dialog
4. Set the default base template and click “Next”
5. Click “Next” in the Location dialog box and close the wizard by clicking “Finish”
6. Enter the data in the field ” Add a new section” of the Template Builder
7. In the first line “Add a field”, enter the title and select the type of required text
8. On the second line “Add a field”, enter the description and select the text type
9. For a product page, enter the price and select the text type in the third line “Add a field”
10. Press “Save”

Te Creation of standard values ​​of mplate

The standard values ​​of template define default values ​​and settings. To create them, use the following checklist:

1. Select the home page data template in the User Defined folder of the Content Tree
2. Select ” Standard Values” in the Builder Options of the Template group
3. Select “Standard Values” in the Content Tree
4. Enter the name in the Title field of the Element Field editor
5. In the Show Editor description field, select the required text type and enter the website or product description
6. Click “OK”
7. For a product page, enter the price in the price field
8. Save

Creating content element

To create a product element home page content, follow the steps below:

1. Select content Sitecore Desktop Home Menu Editor
2. Select “Content Item”
3. In the Insert group of the I tab Start, select “Insert from Template”
4. Select the Home Page Template
5. Enter “Home” as the element name and click “Insert”

To create a product element, do the following:

<ol

Right-click the Home element in the Content Tree

Select “Insert” and “Product”

Enter the product name and press “OK”

To add more items, repeat the above steps

Creating components Presentation

Presentation components relate to the look and feel of the website and its components.They can be external (definition elements) and internal (files in the system). As an example, we’ll show you how to develop a controller rendering, which is one of the most commonly used rendering types, for an MVC-based solution.

1. Select “Create a new controller rendering ” in the “Renderings” folder in the Content Tree
2. Insert “Controller Rendering” in “Renderings”
3. Choose the “Layout” folder in the Content Tree
4. Click “MVC Layout” enter the name and click “Next” put it in “Views” folder and click “Create” then – “Finish”

Creating the Browser Layout

Layout components can be executed as layout elements and system files, which is why in this tutorial we will learn how to develop a layout definition element and file. web form.

1. Select “Create a new design” in the launch panel of the Developer Center Home Page res
2. Enter “Browser Layout” in the name and click “Next”
3. Choose “Layouts” in the location dialog and click “Next”
4. Select the layout folder in the file location dialog, click “Create” and then: “Finish”

Link content to presentation

Sitecore developers determine how the layout renders specific content. Below are instructions for linking content to your presentation with detailed layout settings.

1. Open the Template Manager in the Sitecore start menu
2. Select “Standard Settings” in the data template for the home page in the content tree
3. Choose “Details” in the layout group layout tab
4. Choose “Edit” in the “Default” layout details dialog
5. Select “Browser Layout” in the device editor dialog.
6. Select “Controls” in the dialog box device editor dialog.
7. Click “Add” and choose “Generic Display” to add the generic. show sublayout
8. Enter the required content in the “Add to placeholder” line
9. Press “Select”, then “OK” in both the device editor and the sublayout boxes. Layout Details Dialog

Publishing Websites

1. Select “Publish Site” from the Start Menu
2. Choose “Incremental Publishing ” in the dialog and click “Publish”

Omnichannel Marketing with Sitecore

Building a website with Sitecore may seem simple if you follow instructions carefully.However, the process outlines only the beginning of development and provides you with a raw skeleton that needs considerable configuration and customization to achieve the unprecedented customization of the platform.Requires strong competition and only theme service providers , such as SaM Solutions, can get the best use of the functionality of this CMS.

SaM Solu tions has a considerable number of Sitecore-related solutions under its belt. We provide the following Sitecore related services:

• Comprehensive consulting on how to add value to your business with Sitecore
• Deployment of scalable corporate websites and e-commerce solutions, problems to test, modular and with unlimited functionality, including the following:
  • The development of websites with the following functionality: online ticketing, online reservation system, online bank card payments
  • Creating a home page for an automated solution for the travel industry
  • Developing an online catalog of personal essentials and style
  • Building an educational website for children
  • Creating a website for an insurance company that provides both general information for average users and unique content and services for the company’s customers
  • Developing a site website for a pension fund
• Support and refactoring of existing corporate websites
• Integration of our clients’ corporate solutions with critical external systems
• Updates of Sitecore Releases to Major Releases

February 2020 Update

Sitecore has recently launched a powerful digital experience platform – Sitecore Experience Commerce that merges the capabilities of a CMS and an e-commerce solution. In addition, a new version of Sitecore 10 has also been released. To learn more about its capabilities and benefits, feel free to contact our experts.

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