You’ve already learned the basics of different content types and their structures in the Content Modeling module. In this module, you’ll learn how to work with content types in CMS SaaS.

After completing this module, you should be able to create and manage:​

• Page type
• Block type
• Media type
• Experience type
• Section type

What is a content type and why does it matter?

Content is the primary resource type of CMS (SaaS). It can represent webpages, components, media, and almost any other type of items you can think of inside an application.

A content type defines the structure and data model schema of a content item. It serves as the foundation for creating experiences, pages, media or blocks by specifying fields and properties unique to that type that hold information such as links, images, or editorial text. For example, a News Article content type might include properties like headline, author, publication date, body text, and thumbnail image. A typical application utilizes a set of content types tailored to its functional needs.

A new CMS SaaS instance will come with some empty content types to get you started.

You can build up the content types tailored to your needs. To create a content type, go to Settings > Content Types > Create New. The main structure models for content types are Page, Block, Media, Experience, and Section.

You can customize content types into specific models for your purposes, such as Article, Article List, Call to Action, Card, and more by defining each model's properties. Each type contains properties where editors enter information. We’ll discuss more about properties in the next module.

Here are some important facts about content types:

• You must map the content type and its properties to display content to visitors in Visual Builder.
• Content types often support the localization of data by defining language-specific properties.
• They include a lifecycle feature to help manage publishing.
• Content types are registered in a corresponding graph schema within Optimizely Graph.

Page type

A page type is content that you can display with a template and unique URL, used to represent a webpage on your application. You can have multiple webpages using the same page type, but each webpage must be a page type. The following list shows typical uses of the page type:

• A template for a page where the layout is defined and you fill in content, such as a search result page or a product listing page.
• A container page where there is no set layout, and you can modify the layout and content, such as a special campaign page or terms and conditions page.
• A mix of template and container where there is some set layout defined, but you have some freedom for certain layouts or structures such as a homepage with predefined areas for content, but you can change two, three, or four columns in certain areas.

See the following walkthrough to learn how to create a page type, edit a page type and copy an existing page type.

Block type

A block type is a component that makes up a portion of a web page. It is reusable content you can display with a template. It does not have a URL. It can consist of other block types, content, and media types. The following are some examples of block types:

• A carousel container, used for holding multiple slides.
• A slide used in a carousel.
• A button.
• A navigation menu.
• SEO settings for a page.
• Label dictionary for the application.
• An interactive map.

Block types are like page types, and you can modify some settings from the Settings page.

See the following walkthrough to learn how to create a block type and use it as both a section and an element.

Block as an element

If you selected a block (such as Card Component) to display in Visual Builder as an element, when you click Add Element in a Visual Builder Outline, Card Component is listed among the selections.

Block as a section

If you selected a block (such as Card Component) to display in Visual Builder as a section, when you click Add Section in a Visual Builder Outline, Card Component is among the selections.

Selecting it creates a New Card Component section in the outline.

Media type

Media types are any file you want to load into CMS (SaaS). You can add properties, modify permissions, and edit some settings from the Settings view. The following list shows media types:

• Image – .jpg, .png, .webp, .svg, .gif, .tiff, and so on.
• Video – .mp4, .avi, .mov, .wmv, .webm, .mkv, .ogg, and so on.
• Media – Everything else such as .pdf, .docx, .mp3, .zip, .iso, .ttf, .js, .css, and so on.

See the following walkthrough to learn how to create and edit a media type from the settings view in CMS SaaS.

Experience type

An experience type is an extension of the page type, enhanced to be used with Visual Builder. Unlike page types and block types, experience types include a built-in Blank Experience managed by Optimizely. While you cannot adjust the Settings for this blank experience, you can modify Permissions and Properties, just as you can with page types.

However, that doesn’t mean you’re confined to the Blank Experience. You can always create a new experience type from the Settings view to meet your unique content needs by following the same steps used to create page types.

Section type

Just like experience types, section types also include a built-in Blank Section managed by Optimizely. However, you can create a new section type to help organize content within an experience type in the Visual Builder. The steps are the same as for any other content type.

After creating a section type, you can modify Settings, Permissions and Properties.