Is now the time to upgrade your Umbraco Website?

#3 Less restrictions with drag and drop content

You no longer have to put up with your content elements being fixed by your page template. Umbraco 7 gives you the freedom to organise sections of content within any page by simply dragging and dropping them. These can easily be moved to other positions on the page (or hidden if necessary).

This makes changes to page layouts and designs much easier and allows you to test what content structure works best for your page.

#4 Everything is faster

Website loading speed has become much more important in recent years, starting with the increase in mobile and tablet usage and now search engines look at site speed as a ranking factor. You'll see a significant difference with Umbraco 7. We've launched upgraded sites for clients that have resulted in reducing their average site speed time by a 50%.

#5 More control with the powerful Content Palette

Gecko have created a suite of content modules (the Content Palette) for our clients to use. This is a range of  modules that lets you build bespoke page layouts for products, services, blog posts, PPC landing pages and anything else that you want to create. It really unlocks the potential and ownership of your website by giving you the freedom to structure your pages the way you want to.

Simply select and configure from a set list or create a module that is specific to your needs. Examples of modules available include:

All of which are reusable and can be placed into any page.

#6 Better security by default

Dictionary attacks were not uncommon in previous versions of Umbraco. A Dictionary Attack tries to work out your passwords by trying all the strings in a prearranged listing. These are usually derived from a list of words - such as in a dictionary - hence the phrase dictionary attack. But you no longer have to worry about this as it will now be automatically implemented during installation.

In version 7.6 Umbraco now uses a ‘Secure by Default’ which will prevent the risk of hacks into your Admin area via your login details using encryption with a HMAC-SHA256 hash combined with a 128-bit Salt. Without Salt, a SQL injection attack could easily crack your password. Because many users re-use passwords for multiple sites, the use of a Salt is an important component of overall website security.

#7 Cross-link your content like a SEO pro

The internal architecture of your website is important, and effective internal linking can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings.

Previous versions of Umbraco have limited ways to manage your internal linking, for example, you were limited to very basic call to actions or adding links manually to body text.

But fortunately, Umbraco 7 can help you out here too.

Gecko have created a number of options for cross-linking content and working in parallel with the page design options, you can really create a website that's as great for visitors user experience as it is for search engines.

The process for setting these up is really simple - as simple as setting up a new page or blog post. With minimal effort, you can really help improve your SEO efforts.

#8 Improved URL Rewriting performance

The URLRewriting.config no longer exists. This has been replaced by the IIS-module URL-Rewrite. Sites with a high number of rewrites (200+) would stop performing well in previous versions of Umbraco, so this is a long-awaited performance upgrade.

#9 Speedy List Views with Bulk Actions enabled

In previous versions of Umbraco, the tree navigation was all you had to access your content. This was a real pain if you had a large amount of content to wade through (not to mention slow).

Thankfully, Umbraco 7.6 has list views that not only let you view all your content nodes in an easy to read list, but it's also much faster and allows you to search and perform bulk actions.

You can also control the default sort order, the number of items to appear per page, and the option to add or remove columns.

Altogether, this is another vast improvement that makes managing your content much faster and easier

Umbraco 7 makes the implementation of your digital marketing efforts much easier. It takes less time and is more effective.

#10 Simpler Content Pickers

The Umbraco team have created simpler editor experiences with a focus on the Content, Media and Member pickers that editors rely on. They’re easier to use and for list views, it’s finally obvious how to pick the content you’re looking for.

#11 Improved Form Designer

The Form Designer has had a complete redesign. Whether you want a quick contact form, a detailed enquiry form or a blog comment form, Umbraco 7's form creator can let you build the form you want and easily attach it to any page as a content module.

Email notifications are simple to set up, and if your email goes down for the day, all form submissions are stored in the CMS, so you don't have to worry about missing any.

You can even assign individual ‘Thank You’ pages which are essential for your goal tracking activities.

#12 Live Google SERP preview

How your content is presented in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) can have an impact on how many click through on those results to your website.

Umbraco 7.6 comes with a handy preview tool that allows your team to see how your Meta information will be presented in live search results.

This is a handy feature for staff who might be adding new pages, but don't have a lot of SEO knowledge. It's a strong visual cue that helps to ensure your pages are search engine friendly.

#13 New Responsive Preview

Mobile has been here for a long time and any serious business that doesn't have a mobile-friendly version of the website is throwing away cash when they spend on digital marketing.

Umbraco 7 is mobile-friendly and you can now use the new preview tool before publishing a page to see what it will look like on different devices such as phones, tablets or desktops. Check out the video from Umbraco below:

#14 Manage multiple websites from a single install

This is a great feature of Umbraco 7. If your business operates more than one website, you can create a single Umbraco install and manage all of your websites from it.

Your team will spend less time logging in and out of different sites. It'll cost you less to keep them up to date. You can share content and modules across all of your sites.

And yes, Marketing people, we're still thinking of you. Don't worry about duplicating content across multiple websites - you can easily assign the primary URL the content should appear on and the others will use a canonical link.

#15 Marketing your content just got easier

Umbraco 7 just makes the implementation of digital marketing efforts much easier. It takes less time and is more effective.

Check out the organic traffic for this client over the past 12 months - almost 200% increase year on year!

Without the flexibility that Umbraco 7 offers, I wouldn't have been able to optimise this site quite as well as I did and the results wouldn't have been quite as good. Check out the average rankings on the SEMrush report:

Marketing is an interesting discipline as there's an infinite range of things you can do to help promote your business. Most of us are only constrained by time and budget.

Being able to deploy your marketing efforts in a much more efficient manner is a huge benefit - it enables you to accomplish much more. Most of the work we've implemented for this client would have taken much longer had it needed to involve a designer or programmer. In reality, we would usually have had to compromise our grand plans if the design and code resource wasn't available and we didn't have enough time to do everything.

Umbraco 7 can really help your marketing team unlock their potential. Whether you use an external agency or have an internal marketing team, the time and money you spend will offer a greater return with Umbraco 7.

Conclusion

Umbraco has come on leaps and bounds since we started working with it in 2008. From faster performance, easier use and better security, you can see there are plenty of reasons to take advantage of what Umbraco 7 has to offer. So if you would like to see what steps you would need to take to upgrade then get in touch and we would be happy to walk you through the process.