Most CMS decisions get made backwards, platform first, business second. We start with how your content actually works, then build or configure the system to match.
For Marketing Leads, IT Managers & Business Owners Choosing a CMS
The platform decision nobody warned you was this political.
Whoever picks the CMS is usually the one who answers for it afterwards, in board meetings, in support tickets, in every "why can't I edit this myself" email. We work with marketing leads, IT managers and business owners who need a platform that holds up under all three.
That means honest platform comparisons, not just the one we happen to build most, proper content modelling before a line of code gets written, and a structure your team can actually maintain once we've moved on to the next project. Get that right and everything downstream, marketing, sales, support, your business's whole online presence, gets easier to run.
Why Teams come to us?
“We inherited this CMS and nobody chose it.”
We start by mapping what you've actually got, then tell you honestly whether to keep building on it or move, no platform loyalty either way.
“I'm the only one who knows how to update the site.”
We build content structures your whole team can use, then document and train properly, so the site doesn't depend on one person's memory.
“Every CMS pitch sounds the same after a while.”
We tell you what we'd actually recommend, even when it's not the platform we specialise in. Strategy comes before the sales pitch.
“We can't afford to get this choice wrong again.”
We scope against your real content needs and growth plans first, so the platform fits for years, not just for launch day.
The Gecko Way™
Our approach to successful projects
For a CMS project, gathering starts with questions most agencies skip: who actually edits this site day to day, how often does content change, and what happens when someone new joins the team and needs to make an update by Friday. We look at your current platform if you've got one, what's working, what's actively getting in the way, and what integrations, CRM, booking systems, ecommerce, whatever your business runs on, the new setup needs to talk to. We're deliberately platform-agnostic at this stage. Umbraco's our specialism, but it's not the only CMS out there, and it's not right for every business. The goal here is understanding your business well enough that the platform choice becomes obvious, not persuading you towards whatever we already know best. We look across CMS platforms without any built-in bias, from legacy CMS platforms you might already be tied into, to newer content management software built for how businesses actually publish today, so nothing gets ruled in or out before we understand it properly.
Once we understand how you actually work, we evaluate platforms against that, not against a generic feature checklist. Headless or traditional, open-source or proprietary, single-site or multi-region, each comes with real trade-offs we'll walk you through honestly. A headless setup might suit a business publishing to a website, an app and in-store screens from one source, but it adds development complexity that a single marketing site doesn't need. We're candid about where a platform's limits sit before you commit, not after the invoice lands. If your existing CMS is actually fine and the problem's really about how it's been built or structured, we'll tell you that too, rather than selling you a rebuild you don't need. We also look at CMS architecture, how the platform's structured underneath, because that affects performance optimisation, website performance and data security just as much as any front-end feature. A platform that slows down search engines crawling your site, or drags on search engine ranking, is a technical problem wearing a marketing coat, so we factor that in during evaluation too. We'll flag where AI-driven features are genuinely useful for a platform like yours, and where they're just this year's shiny distraction.
Development starts with content modelling, the unglamorous work of deciding how your content's structured so it holds up as your business grows, not just for the pages you can see today. From there we build or configure the platform itself, whether that's a custom Umbraco build, a headless setup feeding multiple front ends, or configuration and integration work on a CMS you're keeping. We write clean code because we're the ones who'll be maintaining it, and because a badly built CMS becomes someone's problem eventually, usually yours. Integrations get built properly too, your CRM, your booking system, your analytics, connected the way they're meant to be, not bolted on and hoped for. That includes the template engine underneath, the workflows and approval logic your editors follow, and how the platform fits into your wider web stack.
A CMS your team can't actually use is a CMS that fails, however well it's built underneath. We document how the platform works in plain language, not developer shorthand, and we train the people who'll be editing it day to day, not just whoever sat in on the kick-off call. Role-based permissions get set up properly, so junior team members can update copy without accidentally breaking a template. If the platform's genuinely flexible, we show you where that flexibility actually helps you, rather than leaving you scared to click the wrong button. The measure of success here isn't how clever the build is, it's whether your team can run it without calling us every week. That covers publishing processes end to end, from role-based publishing controls and editorial QA through to the kind of internal collaboration that stops one person becoming a bottleneck. A content editor who understands their own user control, what they can safely change and what they can't, edits with far more confidence. None of this works if the editing experience itself is clunky, so we care about user experience and a responsive UI just as much as we care about what visitors see on the front end.
Once you're live, the site's genuinely yours to run. We stay on hand for support, security updates and the technical work most in-house teams don't want to own themselves, but day-to-day editing shouldn't need us at all. We keep an eye on performance and security as standard practice, not as an upsell, because an unmaintained CMS becomes a slow, vulnerable one fairly quickly. If your needs change, a new integration, a new region, a new content type, the platform and the structure we've built should flex with you rather than needing a rebuild. That's the actual test of whether the earlier stages were done properly. Ongoing CMS support and maintenance covers exactly this, security protocols kept current, website performance checked and tuned through regular performance optimisation, and CMS hosting sorted so you're not juggling a separate provider on top of everything else. Content governance, who can publish what, and content archiving, what happens to old pages, are part of content operations we set up from day one, not bolted on once things get messy, so internal collaboration keeps working even when someone's away.
What's Included in CMS Development Services
CMS Strategy & Platform Selection
Before we recommend a platform, we want to understand your content, your team and where the business is heading. That means looking at how often content changes, who's editing it, what needs to integrate with it, and whether multi-language or multi-region support is genuinely on the roadmap or just a nice-to-have. Our cms development services start here because the platform choice is the one decision that's expensive to get wrong later.
We'll give you an honest comparison, including whether Umbraco (our own specialism) is actually the right fit, or whether a different platform suits your business better. This isn't a sales pitch dressed up as strategy, it's the groundwork every good CMS build should start from. This is CMS consultancy in the practical sense, weighing CMS platforms on how well they actually fit you, not a workshop full of jargon, covering everything from single-site set-ups to full multisite and multilanguage support, including genuinely multi-lingual CMS builds where that's what the business needs.
We'll also look at how the platform handles search and metadata support, because content platforms that fight your SEO work aren't saving you anything. Ultimately it should support user engagement and conversion rates too, not just look tidy in a demo, whatever CMS website it ends up running on, open source or licensed.
Content Modelling & Structure
Content modelling is the part of cms website development services that clients rarely ask about and always end up grateful for. It's the structural work behind the scenes, deciding how your pages, products, articles or case studies are built as reusable content types rather than one-off page designs. Done properly, adding a new product range or service page doesn't mean a call to your developer, it means filling in a form your CMS already understands.
We build this structure around how your business actually grows, not just the pages that exist on day one, so the platform holds up as your content library expands rather than needing rework every time something new comes along. That structure covers the content relationships between types too, how a case study links to a service page, how a product links to a category, not just the types themselves in isolation. It's what turns a content estate into an actual content repository your team can search and reuse, rather than a pile of disconnected pages.
The same thinking applies to smaller things, blog posts, news updates, whatever regular content creation looks like for your business, right through to a proper content hierarchy taxonomy so nothing gets lost as the site grows. Where it's useful, AI-powered auto-tagging can help keep that structure consistent without extra admin for your editors.
Custom CMS Development & Configuration
Sometimes the right answer is a fully custom build, sometimes it's careful configuration of a platform you've already got. Either way, our cms web development services cover the actual engineering, custom templates, editor interfaces, workflow rules and permission structures built around how your team works, not a generic install.
We write clean, properly documented code because we're often the ones supporting it afterwards, and because a messy build becomes expensive to touch a year down the line. If you're on Umbraco already, this is where our specialism shows most, but the same standard of build applies whatever platform you're on. That's custom CMS development in the fullest sense, right down to the template engine and how it renders your pages, not just the bits a client sees in the editor.
Headless & Hybrid CMS Builds
Headless CMS setups separate your content from how it's displayed, which matters if you're publishing the same content to a website, an app and other digital touchpoints from one source. It's not automatically the better choice, it adds real development complexity that a single marketing site rarely needs. We'll tell you plainly whether headless suits your actual publishing needs, or whether a traditional or hybrid setup gets you the same result with less overhead.
When headless is the right call, we build the API layer and front-end integrations properly, so your content genuinely flows to every channel rather than needing manual duplication. Under the bonnet, that's headless architecture in practice, content delivery handled through APIs rather than baked into a single front end.
Proper headless CMS development means the presentation layer, front-end rendering, stays completely separate from the content itself, so API-based frontend delivery can feed a website, an app or a screen in reception with the same content, formatted however each channel needs it.
Third-Party Integrations
A CMS rarely works in isolation. We build proper integrations with the systems your business already runs on, CRM platforms, booking or scheduling tools, ecommerce systems, marketing automation, analytics and tag management. The goal is data that flows automatically in both directions, not a CMS that needs manual updates every time something changes in another system.
We test these integrations properly before launch, not just that they connect, but that they keep working as your other systems get updated too. If you're not sure what needs to talk to what yet, that's part of the conversation we have before any development starts. That covers CRM systems, ecommerce platforms, booking tools and, for some businesses, document management systems too, wired in as proper CMS integrations rather than a workaround that breaks the next time either system updates.
On the analytics side, that's usually Google Analytics or another set of analytics tools, plus whatever SEO tools your marketing team already relies on, connected properly so analytics and tracking actually reflects what's happening on the new platform, right down to user behaviour analytics software if that's part of your stack. We treat this as proper API and integration solutions work, not an afterthought bolted on once the CMS itself is finished.
Editor Training & Documentation
The best-built CMS still fails if the people using it day to day don't feel confident in it. We write documentation in plain language, not developer jargon, and run proper training with your actual editorial team, not just whoever attended the kick-off meeting.
Role-based permissions are set up so people can do their job without the fear of breaking something important. We also stay reachable after launch for the questions that only come up once you're using the platform for real, the "can I actually do this" moments that always surface a few weeks in, not on day one.
Training covers user control properly too, exactly what each role can and can't touch, so nobody's left guessing where their permissions end.
What's Included in CMS Development Services
CMS Strategy & Platform Selection
Before we recommend a platform, we want to understand your content, your team and where the business is heading. That means looking at how often content changes, who's editing it, what needs to integrate with it, and whether multi-language or multi-region support is genuinely on the roadmap or just a nice-to-have. Our cms development services start here because the platform choice is the one decision that's expensive to get wrong later.
We'll give you an honest comparison, including whether Umbraco (our own specialism) is actually the right fit, or whether a different platform suits your business better. This isn't a sales pitch dressed up as strategy, it's the groundwork every good CMS build should start from. This is CMS consultancy in the practical sense, weighing CMS platforms on how well they actually fit you, not a workshop full of jargon, covering everything from single-site set-ups to full multisite and multilanguage support, including genuinely multi-lingual CMS builds where that's what the business needs.
We'll also look at how the platform handles search and metadata support, because content platforms that fight your SEO work aren't saving you anything. Ultimately it should support user engagement and conversion rates too, not just look tidy in a demo, whatever CMS website it ends up running on, open source or licensed.
Content Modelling & Structure
Content modelling is the part of cms website development services that clients rarely ask about and always end up grateful for. It's the structural work behind the scenes, deciding how your pages, products, articles or case studies are built as reusable content types rather than one-off page designs. Done properly, adding a new product range or service page doesn't mean a call to your developer, it means filling in a form your CMS already understands.
We build this structure around how your business actually grows, not just the pages that exist on day one, so the platform holds up as your content library expands rather than needing rework every time something new comes along. That structure covers the content relationships between types too, how a case study links to a service page, how a product links to a category, not just the types themselves in isolation. It's what turns a content estate into an actual content repository your team can search and reuse, rather than a pile of disconnected pages.
The same thinking applies to smaller things, blog posts, news updates, whatever regular content creation looks like for your business, right through to a proper content hierarchy taxonomy so nothing gets lost as the site grows. Where it's useful, AI-powered auto-tagging can help keep that structure consistent without extra admin for your editors.
Custom CMS Development & Configuration
Sometimes the right answer is a fully custom build, sometimes it's careful configuration of a platform you've already got. Either way, our cms web development services cover the actual engineering, custom templates, editor interfaces, workflow rules and permission structures built around how your team works, not a generic install.
We write clean, properly documented code because we're often the ones supporting it afterwards, and because a messy build becomes expensive to touch a year down the line. If you're on Umbraco already, this is where our specialism shows most, but the same standard of build applies whatever platform you're on. That's custom CMS development in the fullest sense, right down to the template engine and how it renders your pages, not just the bits a client sees in the editor.
Headless & Hybrid CMS Builds
Headless CMS setups separate your content from how it's displayed, which matters if you're publishing the same content to a website, an app and other digital touchpoints from one source. It's not automatically the better choice, it adds real development complexity that a single marketing site rarely needs. We'll tell you plainly whether headless suits your actual publishing needs, or whether a traditional or hybrid setup gets you the same result with less overhead.
When headless is the right call, we build the API layer and front-end integrations properly, so your content genuinely flows to every channel rather than needing manual duplication. Under the bonnet, that's headless architecture in practice, content delivery handled through APIs rather than baked into a single front end.
Proper headless CMS development means the presentation layer, front-end rendering, stays completely separate from the content itself, so API-based frontend delivery can feed a website, an app or a screen in reception with the same content, formatted however each channel needs it.
Third-Party Integrations
A CMS rarely works in isolation. We build proper integrations with the systems your business already runs on, CRM platforms, booking or scheduling tools, ecommerce systems, marketing automation, analytics and tag management. The goal is data that flows automatically in both directions, not a CMS that needs manual updates every time something changes in another system.
We test these integrations properly before launch, not just that they connect, but that they keep working as your other systems get updated too. If you're not sure what needs to talk to what yet, that's part of the conversation we have before any development starts. That covers CRM systems, ecommerce platforms, booking tools and, for some businesses, document management systems too, wired in as proper CMS integrations rather than a workaround that breaks the next time either system updates.
On the analytics side, that's usually Google Analytics or another set of analytics tools, plus whatever SEO tools your marketing team already relies on, connected properly so analytics and tracking actually reflects what's happening on the new platform, right down to user behaviour analytics software if that's part of your stack. We treat this as proper API and integration solutions work, not an afterthought bolted on once the CMS itself is finished.
Editor Training & Documentation
The best-built CMS still fails if the people using it day to day don't feel confident in it. We write documentation in plain language, not developer jargon, and run proper training with your actual editorial team, not just whoever attended the kick-off meeting.
Role-based permissions are set up so people can do their job without the fear of breaking something important. We also stay reachable after launch for the questions that only come up once you're using the platform for real, the "can I actually do this" moments that always surface a few weeks in, not on day one.
Training covers user control properly too, exactly what each role can and can't touch, so nobody's left guessing where their permissions end.
"We build the content model so adding a new product range doesn't need a call to us, that's the whole point of a CMS."
Marlon Dedakis, Lead Developer at Gecko
CMS Development Case Study
[CASE STUDY PLACEHOLDER: pending a confirmed project with real metrics. Description should cover the client's starting CMS problem, what Gecko built or migrated them to, and a measurable outcome, load time, editor efficiency, reduced support tickets or similar, once a suitable project and sign-off are confirmed.]
It covers everything from choosing the right platform through to building, configuring and training your team to use it. That means strategy and platform selection, content modelling (structuring your content so it's easy to manage and grows with you), the actual development or configuration work, integrations with the other systems your business runs on, and documentation and training once it's built. It's not just the technical build, the strategy and structure work before any code gets written is usually what determines whether the finished CMS actually works for your team. Where relevant, we also factor in the SEO tools your team already uses, so the new platform doesn't fight against work you've already invested in.
Often it's not the platform that's the problem, it's how it's been built or structured. A CMS that's slow, hard to update or confusing to edit might just need better content modelling, cleaner templates or proper training, rather than a full replacement. We'll assess your current setup honestly before recommending anything, and if a rebuild on your existing platform gets you where you need to be, we'll say so rather than pushing a full migration you don't need.
No. Umbraco is our specialism, we're Scotland's first official Umbraco Partner, but our CMS development services aren't limited to it. We work platform-agnostically when it comes to strategy and selection, and we're upfront when Umbraco isn't the right fit for a particular business. Where we do recommend it, it's because the platform genuinely suits your needs, not because it's what we know best.
A traditional CMS handles your content and how it's displayed in one system, which is simpler to build and manage for most single-website businesses. A headless CMS separates the two, so the same content can feed a website, an app and other digital channels from one source. Headless suits businesses publishing across multiple platforms, but it adds development complexity that a straightforward marketing site rarely needs. We'll tell you honestly which setup actually fits your publishing needs rather than defaulting to whichever sounds more modern. In practice, that's the headless architecture question in a nutshell, whether your front-end rendering lives inside the CMS or completely outside it. Businesses considering headless CMS development are usually the ones already juggling more than one channel, not just a single website.
It depends on the scope, whether you're moving to a new platform or configuring an existing one, how much content needs migrating, and how many integrations are involved. A focused configuration project can move faster than a full custom build with multiple integrations and content migration. We'll give you a proper timeline once we understand your specific project during the discovery stage, rather than a generic estimate that doesn't reflect the actual work involved.
Yes. Content migration is part of most CMS projects, and we handle it as a proper piece of the build rather than an afterthought, mapping your existing content against the new structure so nothing gets lost or duplicated along the way. We'll flag anything that doesn't map cleanly early on, rather than leaving it as a surprise close to launch. Whether you call it CMS migration, content migration or migration services, the process is the same, map what exists, move it properly, and check nothing's broken on the other side.
Not in the sense of huge multinational deployments with dozens of stakeholders and complex procurement processes, that's a different kind of project to the ones we're built for. We work best with mid-sized and growing businesses who need a properly built, well-structured CMS rather than enterprise-scale complexity for its own sake. If your business genuinely needs that level of scale, we're honest about it rather than stretching to say yes. Get in touch and we'll tell you plainly whether we're the right fit. The same goes for anything branded an enterprise content management system or enterprise portals, if that's genuinely what you need, we'd rather point you towards an agency built for that scale than pretend we are one.
Yes. We stay on hand for security updates, technical support and the maintenance work most in-house teams don't want to own themselves. Day-to-day editing shouldn't need us at all once your team's trained, but we're there for the technical side, and for anything that changes down the line, a new integration, a new content type, a new region. That's the support and maintenance side of things sorted from day one, not something you have to think about separately.
The whole point of a properly built CMS is that your team can run it without needing a developer for routine changes. We set up role-based permissions so different people can safely update the parts of the site relevant to them, and we train your actual editorial team, not just whoever was in the kick-off meeting, so day-to-day changes don't need to come back to us.
It depends on scope, whether you need a full platform selection process, a custom build, migration from an existing system, and how many integrations are involved. Cost also varies a fair bit between a content-led CMS website and one built to support ecommerce platforms or heavier CMS integrations, and whether you're on an open source platform like Umbraco or something licensed. If SEO optimisation and conversion rates are the actual business goal behind the project, that's worth saying upfront too, it can change what we recommend. Rather than quote a generic range that won't reflect your actual project, we'd rather understand what you need first. Get in touch and we'll talk through your specific requirements and give you a proper, honest estimate.
