Blending UX, strategy, and execution to fuel product growth.
Blending UX, strategy, and execution to fuel product growth.
CMS Platform – Powering Scalable Content Ops
Content Management
No-code
B2B SaaS
Content Operations
SEO
Workflow Automation
UI/UX Design
Internal Tools
A fully integrated CMS built to support content, SEO, operations, and sales teams at MiM-Essay and MentR-Me. It replaced scattered processes with a single system, making it easy to create and manage over 3,000 school pages, hundreds of blogs, and special listicles—boosting efficiency and helping teams scale.
TEAM
1 Product Manager
1 UI/UX Designer
5 Developers
4 QAs
ROLE
Product Strategy & Roadmapping
User & Stakeholder Research
UI/UX Designer
QA Lead
Cross-Functional Team Alignment
TIMELINE
7 Months
(strategy → design → launch → iterations)
Overview
Before this project, the content, SEO, operations, and sales teams relied on a patchwork of Google Sheets and Docs. This created significant inefficiencies and bottlenecks. The process for publishing a simple blog post or updating a school page was tedious and fragile, often involving a chain of emails and manual data entry. Non-technical teams were entirely dependent on developers for every content update, which led to delays in publishing, exhausted developer bandwidth, and a disjointed user experience. The absence of a single, centralized platform meant there was no reliable source of truth, making it difficult to manage and scale our content strategy effectively.
The Problem: Fragmented Workflows and Developer Dependency
Before this project, the content, SEO, operations, and sales teams relied on a patchwork of Google Sheets and Docs. This created significant inefficiencies and bottlenecks. The process for publishing a simple blog post or updating a school page was tedious and fragile, often involving a chain of emails and manual data entry. Non-technical teams were entirely dependent on developers for every content update, which led to delays in publishing, exhausted developer bandwidth, and a disjointed user experience. The absence of a single, centralized platform meant there was no reliable source of truth, making it difficult to manage and scale our content strategy effectively.
Research & Insights
My research began with a deep dive into the existing workflows. I conducted interviews with key stakeholders and users from the content and SEO teams, mapping out the current process, and auditing the fragmented data sources. Key pain points surfaced immediately, which I captured and clustered on a feedback board to identify the most critical issues.
“It takes me a full day just to get a single school review updated because I have to chase down a developer.” – Content Writer
“We have no idea which content is performing well from an SEO standpoint, we just publish and hope for the best.” – SEO Manager
The manual process was a major bottleneck, with content publication often lagging weeks behind.
This discovery phase revealed a clear need for a unified, intuitive platform that would empower non-technical users, reduce developer dependency, and provide real-time insights into content performance and SEO health.
The Solution: A Unified, Intuitive CMS
I designed and executed a comprehensive CMS with several key modules, focusing on a user-centric design that prioritized simplicity and power for three distinct content types. The core value of this solution was to replace the fragmented old system with a single, reliable platform.
Core Value of the New CMS
Centralized Source of Truth: A single platform to manage all content.
Empowered Teams: Non-technical users can update content without developers.
Efficient Publishing: Automated and simplified content updates.
Scalable Strategy: Enabled a more efficient and scalable content strategy.
Eliminated Inefficiency: Replaced manual processes with a productive workflow.
My Role & Responsibilities
As the Product Manager and UX Designer, my responsibilities were extensive and hands-on, covering the entire product lifecycle:
- Product Scoping & Vision: Defined the project scope, created a long-term roadmap, and articulated a clear vision for the CMS to all stakeholders.
- UX Design & Wireframing: Led the user experience design from concept to high-fidelity wireframes, ensuring the interface was intuitive for non-technical users.
- Developer & QA Collaboration: Wrote detailed user stories, managed the backlog, and worked closely with the engineering team to ensure the product was built to specification. I also led user acceptance testing (UAT) to guarantee quality before launch.
- Analytics & Dashboard Setup: Established the framework for tracking content status, SEO health, and key performance metrics within the CMS.
Challenges & Constraints
The primary challenge was building a robust system with a lean, fast-moving team. This meant prioritizing features that delivered the most significant impact and making strategic trade-offs. To deliver value quickly, we launched the interfaces in a phased manner, starting with a basic version and iteratively improving it to widen the scope over several months. For example, we simplified the initial permission-based system by launching with just two core roles, Admin and User, which allowed us to meet the go-live deadline and iterate on more complex permissions later.
Execution: Architecting a Multi-Functional CMS
I designed and implemented a comprehensive CMS system that integrates both Backend Customization and Frontend Visibility, aimed at managing Blogs, School Data Pages, and Listicles. The CMS allowed content teams to easily add, edit, and display content without needing developer support for each update.
🎓 1. School Review Module
Backend:
Modular Tab-Based Input: Fields split across tabs like Basics, Eligibility, Application Info, Program Highlights, Sales Data, and SEO Fields.
Live Preview & Real-Time Sync: Auto-updates fields like tuition, eligibility, recruiter list, etc., without developer help.
Smart Layout Enhancements: Customizable layout for each school page.
Frontend:
Sticky TOC on desktop, quick links on mobile.
Dynamic breadcrumbs (e.g., Country > Listicle > Program).
Dynamic CTAs on LHS (Book a Call > Ask a Question).
✍️ 2. Blog Management Module
Backend:
Rich Text Editor with autosave, image upload, and slug locking for URL integrity.
SEO Side Panel: Real-time keyword count and metadata settings.
Inbuilt SEO Validator: Highlights issues like missing links, low image count, and short word count.
Publishing Controls: Manage drafts, publish status, author tracking, and internal notes.
Frontend:
Formatted Blogs with rich text, images, and customized SEO settings.
SEO warnings and recommendations displayed in real-time.
📚 3. Listicles Builder
Backend:
Drag-and-Drop Ranking of schools pulled from CMS database with modal-based editing.
Content Block Editor: Manage H1, slug, intro, list body, FAQs, and custom CTA placements.
BAC Form Integration: Dynamically injects banner/CTA sections with heading, sub-heading, and form.
Frontend:
Flexible Layout: TOC on left, content center, dynamic RHS for marketing assets (optional).
Dynamic listicles with a clean layout and interactive content sections.
🗂️ 4. CMS Dashboard & Content Overview
Admin dashboard with filter & search for all blog/listicle/school pages.
SEO Score tracking, author name, last update, and status: Draft/Published.
Warnings Panel: Shows errors like missing metadata or internal links.
Notes Field for team collaboration, with autosave.
Clean, Organized Content View for admins to quickly track content status, SEO health, and publish updates.
Results & Impact
65% Increase in Traffic
Optimized SEO structure and consistent content updates boosted search rankings for blog pages, resulting in a 65% increase in organic traffic.
4500+ Content Pages Managed
Scaled content management from 200 to over 4,500 school pages, blogs and listicles - maintaining accurate and consistent formats.
80% SEO Compliance
With integrated SEO warnings and real-time suggestions, content reached an 80% compliance rate for SEO best practices.
Impact & Results
The implementation of the CMS had a profound, measurable impact on the business:
“The SEO validation tool is a game-changer. We’re confident that our new content is optimized from the start, and we’ve seen the impact on our traffic.”
~ SEO Manager
“This new system reduced the number of content-related tickets. This freed up our team to focus on core product development, which has been a huge win for everyone.”
~ CTO
User & Stakeholder Feedback
The launch of the CMS was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback from the teams it was designed to serve. The platform fundamentally changed their daily workflows, empowering them to work faster and more independently.
“This CMS has completely changed our workflow. We can now publish content in minutes instead of days, and we don’t have to bother the tech team for every small change.”
~ Content Writer
“The SEO validation tool is a game-changer. We’re confident that our new content is optimized from the start, and we’ve seen the impact on our traffic.”
~ SEO Manager
“This new system reduced the number of content-related tickets. This freed up our team to focus on core product development, which has been a huge win for everyone.”
~ CTO
Learnings & Takeaways
This project was a masterclass in empowering users and the power of a single source of truth. I learned the importance of:
Product Thinking: Focusing relentlessly on eliminating manual, repetitive tasks to free up teams for more strategic work.
Cross-functional Collaboration: Building a product that truly serves multiple teams requires a deep understanding of each team’s needs and challenges.
UX Decisions: An intuitive and well-designed user interface is not just a “nice-to-have” but is critical for adoption, especially for products aimed at non-technical users.
Modularity & Backend-First Design: Building separate flows for different content types and prioritizing the backend UX enabled clean scalability and improved SEO.
Empowerment & Visibility: Tools like rich editors, real-time SEO scoring, and transparent tracking drastically reduced tech dependence and eliminated communication bottlenecks.
Next Steps: AI Content Generation
Looking ahead, the next step for this CMS is to integrate AI-powered content generation. This would further empower the content team by:
Drafting content automatically: Using AI to generate initial drafts for blogs or school reviews, which can then be refined by a writer.
Suggesting SEO improvements: Providing more advanced, data-driven suggestions for keywords, topics, and content gaps.
Summarizing long-form content: Automatically creating summaries or bullet points for listicles, saving time and effort.
This feature would build on the foundational CMS, transforming it from a management tool into a generative powerhouse.