Practical Sitecore 8 Configuration and Strategy: A User Guide for Sitecore's Content and Marketing Capabilities

by Phillip Wicklund

Overview

Sitecore was recently recognized as one of the most reputable/reliable web content management solutions (WCMS) in the marketplace. Thousands of companies use Sitecore to help manage their web and mobile digital properties. Sitecore is a very large, complex platform that performs many robust functions and capabilities.

As such, marketers and end users often have a hard time coming up to speed on the technology. Practical Sitecore 8 Configuration and Strategy: A User Guide for Sitecore's Content and Marketing Capabilities provides that opportunity. The flow of the book will take newbies step-by-step on how to configure Sitecore content, personalization, and marketing automation capabilities. Sprinkled in through the book will be callouts that highlight strategies and best practices—taking the book beyond just the “how to” step-by-step procedures that can be found elsewhere. Practical Sitecore 8 Configuration and Strategy:

• Brings you up to speed on Sitecore without requiring a training class.
  
• Provides the information in a clear, logical outline that takes users from simple, foundational concepts to more advanced concepts at the end.
  
• Rounds out existing sources of documentation with strategies and best practices from real-world experience.

What You'll Learn

• How to manage content in Sitecore
  
• How to create web forms and landing pages
• How to optimize the site through personalization and A/B/N testing
• How to use Sitecore for your marketing campaigns
  
• How to leverage analytics for custom measurement/engagement strategies
  
• How to create a robust governance plan for your Sitecore properties
  

Who This Book Is For

The key target audience for this book are content administrators (content authoring, forms development, etc.) and digital marketers (campaigns, analytics, marketing automation, experience optimization, etc.) using the Sitecore platform.       

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484212363
Publisher:	Apress
Publication date:	12/12/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	317
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Phil Wicklund is a regional practice manager (responsible for the Sitecore team) at RBA, Inc. He provides managerial, operational, and profit/loss oversight across RBA's portals, business intelligence, enterprise social, collaboration, and managed services teams within RBA's North region. Phil started working in IT in 2003 and has since designed and deployed many dozens of large-scale enterprise solutions, including many for Fortune 50 companies.  As a regional practice manager he owns the profit/loss for his practice which has him performing many activities beyond a typical technologist, such as ownership of a great employee experience, ensuring unparalleled customer satisfaction, opportunity tracking/planning in CRM, pre-sales solution alignment with customers, account strategies, go-to market strategies, marketing/promotion strategies, and fiscal budgetary responsibilities. Phil is currently in his 2nd year of Doctoral studies at the University of St. Thomas. He works to extend his studies in technology and business by deepening his understanding of Organizational Leadership, working toward a dissertation that combines the three disciplines. He hopes to graduate in late 2016 or spring of 2017.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Administering content in Sitecore

Goal: This chapter provides a foundational understand of Sitecore to the reader. It focuses on core item/content management technical and best practices. Additionally, this chapter will help the reader understand how and when to work with a developer for more advanced customizations. Lastly, the chapter will introduce the reader to the example site/project used throughout the book. A highly customized site will be developed over the course of the book to serve as a real world backdrop to what the user is learning.

• What is Sitecore?
• High-level architecture
• When do you need a developer?
• Content editing tools
• Basic content editing
• Advanced content administration
• Managing rich media
• Content publishing and workflow
• Working with layouts
• Localization and translation
• Working with developers for advanced customizations

Chapter 2: Using SPEAK for rapid site development

Goal: SPEAK is a Sitecore module that allows for rapid site development through a suite of out-of-the-box layouts and components. This chapter walks the reader through the process and best practices for using this module.

• Overview of SPEAK
• When to use SPEAK, and when NOT to
• SPEAK layouts
• SPEAK components
• Building a SPEAK site from scratch

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Chapter 3: Web forms for marketers

Goal: Web Forms for Marketers is a great module within Sitecore that allows non-technical users an easy and flexible way to create web forms out-of-the-box they can publish to their web site for marketing campaigns, etc. This chapter walks the reader through the process and best practices for using this module.

• Hello World web form
• Actions
• Validation
• Localization and translation
• Publishing a web form from scratch

Chapter 4: Experience optimization, user profiling, and personalization

Goal: This is a core chapter in the book. This chapter helps the reader understand strategies for, and how to create personalized experiences on their web site based on user behavior, user profile data, and other optimization techniques such as A/B testing.

• Content profiling
• Content A/B testing
• Configuring personalization
• Customizing the experience profile
• Using explore mode for user simulation
• Creating engagement plans
• Experience optimization testing

Chapter 5: Marketing campaign management

Goal: This chapter walks the reader though campaign management within Sitecore, as well as guidance on how to use the email and print experience manager modules.

• Working with campaigns
• Working with channels<

Email experience manager

Print experience manager

Chapter 6: Site Search

Goal: This chapter discusses how to configure site search and best practices around UX and faceted search. It also covers how to tie into external data sources to create a federated experience.

• Search architecture
• Search UX configuration
• Configuring advanced search and facets
• Search federation with external sources

Chapter 7: Search Engine Optimization

Goal: SEO is a significant concern to most readers and marketers. While not directly a Sitecore concern, it is very complimentary to this book and will be a welcome addition for readers who need a primer on SEO and any configuration implications for Sitecore.

• Content strategy and information architecture
• Media strategy
• Keyword strategy
• URL strategy
• SEO and a great user experience
• Gaining authority
• Multichannel optimization
• Google webmaster tools

Chapter 8: Analytics and reporting

Goal: This chapter discusses the analytics capabilities within Sitecore. However, it also walks the reader through an example measurement strategy case to help apply the concepts in a "real" scenario. The chapter concludes by applying that example into external sites with the federated experience manager.

Sitecore analytics and reporting overview

Creating a measurement strategy

Configuring analytics for your measurement plan

Using the federated experience manager

Chapter 9: Sitecore Architecture

Goal: This chapter marks the demarcation where things start to get more technical by providing an overview of Sitecore’s technical architecture. It begins by helping the reader plan their installation, such as capacity planning and hosting/cloud considerations. It wraps with a discussion on code release best practices, and finally performance tuning considerations.

• Architecture overview and options
• xDB
• Capacity and high availability planning
• Installing Sitecore
• Code deployment and release planning
• Performance tuning

Chapter 10: Security

Goal: This chapter begins with a rather docile discussion around user and role management, however it goes deep pretty quick by discussing identity federation and best practices for security hardening.

• User and role administration
• Identity federation and social connect
• Hardening strategies

Chapter 11: E-commerce with Insite

Goal: Many web sites are also commerce sites and this chapter helps the reader understand e-commerce integration options with Sitecore. In particular, the chapter does a deep d="" insite,="" a="" popular="" 3rd="" party="" sitecore="" partner="" providing="" e-commerce="" capabilities.

• Insite architecture overview
• Working with the Sitecore connector
• Managing products and personalization
• Product search
• Checkout
• Analytics
• ERP and CRM integration