April 21 2016

Say Hello to Sitefinity 9.0

The popular Sitefinity CMS, a .NET CMS used by over 11,000 customers worldwide,sitefinity has just launched version 9.0 of their platform. The newest version allows developers and marketers to have more control over their work, including several updates that allow for more efficiency and a better user experience. While a lot of features have been added, all of the existing functionality that users expect from the Sitefinity CMS is still in place.

Improvements with content personalization
While previous versions of Sitefinity have offered personalization, it has been an area that Sitefinity developers have indicated would improve over time. The introduction of Sitefinity 9.0 delivers on this goal. Sitefinity 9.0 allows for faster and more effective personalization by allowing you to build your personalization audience using both demographics and behaviors, whereas previously you were limited to one or the other. This means you can add variations to your website that will be seen by highly targeted groups of people, with a higher potential for conversion.

Improved data reporting
Along with improved tools to market to your audience, comes the advanced ability to view your audience and their behavior. Sitefinity 9.0 allows for a 360 degree view of your audience, displaying increased data including all campaign touchpoints they’ve interacted with, conversions they’ve completed, and how they rank in terms of lead scoring. These enhancements will allow your business to achieve greater insight into what actions your site visitors are taking, how long they take to convert, and what your most effective means of reaching them are.

Improved form creation
While the ability to create forms has long existed in the Sitefinity CMS, version 9.0 introduces the ability to split your forms into multiple steps. This allows you to group similar questions together, with the user continuing to the next section of the form when they’re ready. This format allows you to fit a form with twenty fields into a much smaller area on your page, which is less likely to overwhelm your audience, and provides a better user experience.

More developer agility
The theme used by the Sitefinity team when developing version 9.0 was “agility”, meaning that all updates should allow the end user to get more accomplished in less time. Developers benefit greatly from the changes as they allow for faster and more efficient testing and migration of content.  Building custom widgets is made easier using their new Feather Framework, which will now be default on all new Sitefinity projects. They’ve also created several training documents and tutorials, as well as sample widgets that can be referenced to get developers up to speed.

More developer features
The new version also allows developers to create APIs using RESTful web services. This allows for easy creation and classification of web parts on your site, which can be used to build and share content. This also allows for better sharing of content if you’re also developing for a mobile app. Sitefinity 9.0 lets your team preview how content will look across devices using a mobile preview tool. Sitefinity 9.0 also offers several performance updates for back end users as well as improvements to the front end user experience.

Sitefinity Web Developer
Are you looking for a Sitefinity web development firm for your website upgrade, migration, or redesign? Take a look at some of the websites we’ve ZAG has built on Sitefinity and contact us to discuss your project needs.

  • Sitefinity

posted by
Patrick Trayes
Patrick Trayes
Associate Director of Client Analytics

ZAG Interactive is a full-service digital agency in Glastonbury, CT, offering website design, development, marketing and digital strategy to clients nationwide. See current job openings.
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