Content & CMS
A CMS your team can actually use. Content that does its job.
Proven results, built on experience.
500K+
pages migrated across client engagements
300+
client engagements over 15 years
60%
reduction in developer-dependent content updates post-launch
What content & CMS delivers
- Content that serves your audience.. Clear, well-structured content helps visitors find what they need and understand what you offer, whether you’re serving patients, members, or donors.
- A CMS your team can manage without outside help. Publishing shouldn’t require a support ticket. We configure platforms so your team can handle routine updates, new pages, and content changes independently.
- Protected search performance through platform changes. Careful SEO preservation during migrations means the organic visibility you’ve built doesn’t get lost when you move to a new platform.
- A documented system, not institutional memory. Content models, editorial workflows, and governance standards are documented and handed off so your team isn’t dependent on any one person, internal or external, to keep things running.
- Reduced production burden over time. AI-assisted prompts and configured tooling calibrated to your voice standards make content production faster without creating a new category of output that requires as much review as it saves time.
- A platform built to grow with you. Reusable components, flexible content structures, and clear workflows make future updates faster and less dependent on outside support.
Why COLAB for content & CMS
- We recommend the right platform, not the popular one. We take the time to understand your team’s capacity, workflows, and goals before recommending WordPress or Drupal.
- We build for the people who maintain it. A CMS that only your developer can manage isn’t a content management system, it’s a bottleneck. We structure content models and publishing interfaces so your team can work independently after launch.
- We treat content as a system, not a checklist. Inventory, planning, migration, SEO preservation, and formatting are managed as a coordinated body of work so nothing has to be redone.
- We supplement your team, not replace it. We scope engagements to match what your team can realistically carry, whether that’s full content execution or a strategy you run yourselves.
- Content governance isn’t an edge case for the organizations we serve. Approval workflows, accessibility compliance, and audit trails are baseline requirements for many of our clients, and we build with those constraints in mind from the start.
- We stay involved after launch. Our ongoing support engagements cover platform evolution, content performance, and editorial work well beyond the initial build.
What content & CMS includes
Scope varies based on where you are and what you need. Engagements typically draw from the following capabilities, and most combine content and platform work in the same engagement.
Our approach
Content projects stall more often than most. The bottlenecks are predictable: unclear priorities, scattered source material, and decisions that get deferred until they’re blocking development. Our process is designed to get ahead of those problems before they slow the work down.
Understand the full picture
We review your existing content library, audit what’s working and what isn’t, and get a complete picture of your team’s workflows, technical environment, and editorial constraints. If you have an established brand voice, we learn it. If you don’t, we help you develop one. This is also where we assess your current CMS and make a platform recommendation if one is needed.
Align on what matters
We plan all content work, for your team and ours, early enough to keep the engagement moving. That means identifying subject matter experts, establishing review and approval workflows, and building a content schedule that accounts for your team’s actual capacity. Content bottlenecks slow down nearly every digital project. Getting alignment here is how we avoid them.
Grow with intention
We develop a clear approach based on your specific needs and deliver a schedule, timeline, or roadmap for execution. For organizations building a longer-term content practice, this is where strategy work takes shape alongside the platform build: topic planning, editorial calendars, content frameworks, voice and tone documentation, and governance and approval workflow design.
From there, we execute: writing, editing, migrating, formatting, and configuring, with development and content work running in parallel so neither is waiting on the other. Content readiness is coordinated alongside design so editor training, migration verification, and SEO preservation checks happen before the site goes live, not after. Once it does, we review how content is performing and where gaps have emerged, and we offer ongoing support for organizations that want a partner beyond the initial build.
Who we work with
We partner with organizations where digital decisions carry real responsibility, and where the cost of moving in the wrong direction is measured in more than budget.
- Healthcare systems and specialty practices navigating patient experience, compliance, or post-merger consolidation
- Member organizations working to modernize platforms that serve thousands of constituents
- Nonprofits and social impact organizations that need to do more with less and can’t afford a false start
- Marketing and communications leaders who need stakeholder alignment before they can move forward
- Digital and IT teams inheriting sites or platforms they didn’t build and don’t fully understand
- Organizations that have outgrown their current structure but aren’t sure what comes next
Working with COLAB has been an absolute game-changer! COLAB has also improved our site’s functionality, which has streamlined our workflows and empowered us to manage content with ease. It feels like having a trusted team member who truly cares about our success—and delivers every single time.
Emily Niedermaier
Director of Marketing & Communications
When content & CMS matters most
These engagements tend to deliver the most value when at least one of the following is true for your organization.
- Your CMS works against you rather than for you: updates require developer involvement, workflows are missing, and governance or accessibility compliance isn’t built into how content gets managed
- Your content itself needs attention: it hasn’t been audited in years, and decisions about structure and messaging are being deferred until after the redesign rather than informing it
- Your team is being asked to do more with less, while also managing a platform migration or site consolidation after a merger
Frequently Asked Questions
Content strategy defines what you should say, to whom, and why, including how content is organized, what topics to prioritize, and how to structure messaging for different audiences. Content production is the execution: writing, editing, formatting, and publishing. We offer both and can step in at whichever level your team needs.
It depends on your team’s technical capacity, content complexity, and long-term goals. WordPress generally fits smaller teams managing straightforward editorial workflows. Drupal suits organizations with more complex content structures, stricter governance requirements, or larger technical teams. It may be the case that neither fits well. We’ll walk through that decision with you before committing to a CMS.
Yes. We assess your existing content, identify what’s worth migrating versus restructuring, and build a migration plan that preserves SEO value and avoids carrying technical debt into the new platform.
We map redirects from old URLs to new ones, migrate existing metadata, and verify that platform changes don’t cost you the organic visibility you’ve earned. Protecting search performance is treated as a requirement, not an afterthought.
Do you offer content work as a standalone service?
Yes. Some organizations engage us specifically for content strategy, copywriting, or CMS reconfiguration without a full redesign. We scope based on where you are and what you need.
We configure AI copywriting prompts specific to your brand voice, tone, and content types, giving your team a repeatable tool for producing on-brand content faster. This isn’t about replacing writers. It’s about reducing the time it takes to get from a blank page to a solid draft.
We offer support engagements that range from essential maintenance to a more active fractional digital team model, including content performance optimization, editorial support, and platform updates. The right fit depends on your team’s capacity and how frequently your content needs evolve.
Investment depends on scope, platform complexity, and content volume. Standalone content or CMS engagements typically range from $10,000 to $40,000. Larger implementations that include strategy, migration, and full redesign work are scoped separately. We provide detailed proposals after an initial conversation.
