SaaS WebinarGeek’s move to a cutting-edge internationalized site

• Headquarters: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Technology Stack: Gatsby.js

Amid the pandemic, more and more organizations needed web conferencing capabilities to stay connected to their customers and teams. With demand surging, WebinarGeek decided to rethink the CMS they had been using since 2015. Previously using Bold CMS and Webflow, WebinarGeek moved to Storyblok to streamline their content efforts while leveraging internationalization for four languages and markets, speed, and teamwork benefits. They have since seen a 12% bounce rate and a boost in 50 scores in their Google Lighthouse speed marks.

Challenges faced to keep up in a time of crisis  

Having to keep up with the demands of the pandemic’s web conferencing needs meant their traditional setup became outdated. WebinarGeek had been using the same legacy system since its inception in 2015: a Gatsby framework, a Bold CMS, and a Webflow template. As such, it had started to become a restraint on its growth rather than a support for it. WebinarGeek faced numerous challenges found in its monolithic setup:

• Heavy-maintenance and problematic content updates: The most minor changes on a single page could trigger a site-wide crash and needed constant maintenance to upkeep.
• Redundant content updates: The system would often fail during editing, thus losing any progress they had made up until that point.
• Inability to streamline localization content efforts: Collaborating on cross-language content for 4 languages often resulted in odd errors, such as the Dutch site displaying English words, creating an incohesive internationalization marketing strategy.
• Static content updates that hindered workflows: Any content edits had to be drafted in a separate program, then moved to the CMS to work.

Moving to Storyblok: Streamlined & smoother content operations

WebinarGeek’s developers prioritized headless systems for a longer-term, more advanced approach. With the priority of a future-proof and API-based solution, the WebinarGeek team set its sights on Storyblok. It offered the flexibility they needed while providing the integrated features they sought. 

Storyblok was able to streamline WebinarGeek’s overall content operations in a time of crisis, which helped scale and support their business through: 

• Fewer potential security risks due to Storyblok’s headless architecture 
• A centralized best-of-breed system helps teams focus on one system rather than having to handle multiple systems and integrations separately 
• The Visual Editor - enabling the marketing team with a smoother real-time editing experience without development support
• A lowered bounce rate of just 12% after the website launch
• Storyblok’s field and folder-level translations to adapt content to different markets
• Seamless migration from their previous setup to Storyblok with nestable components that aided in reusing pages and layouts to stay consistent with their branding 
• Being a framework-agnostic system that allows WebinarGeek to use their preferred tech stack with Gatsby.js

WebinarGeek also reaped the benefits of moving to Storyblok without negatively affecting their speed scores. In fact, switching to Storyblok increased them by a full 50 points.

Storyblok’s Impact: Internationalization & Workflows

WebinarGeek’s marketing team also saw improvements to their workflows. Any new page can be created without developer support. The team can simply use the components available to them to work independently while ensuring consistency and branding quality. 

Storyblok’s internationalization featuresare also a welcome upgrade for the team. The ease of use associated with components carried over to internationalization was a key feature. The team can copy and paste text and add the translations directly to the field or folder type. This means that a multi-language project enjoys the same streamlined and centralized editing as a single-language one.

Storyblok helped support WebinarGeek to leverage its internationalization efforts, speed, and teamwork benefits during a time of need. Today, WebinarGeek can compete more effectively and reach more customers than ever.