Latest Articles by Mike Wills

Mike Wills | Director of Development

With over 20 years' experience, Mike has developed solutions ranging from shrink-wrapped software to high-profile websites. A Kentico MVP since 2020, Mike manages several technical squads at BlueModus, providing guidance and support to help each team deliver complex and custom solutions for our customers. Whether consulting an enterprise or a startup, he consistently guides customers through tough technical challenges and leads teams to achieve their business goals.

The Only Way to Guarantee a Perfect Content Model
- Mike Wills
- Apr 01, 2021
Content modeling has come into focus with the growth of Headless CMS solutions to support content reuse and omnichannel marketing. But it’s still a new concept, and many businesses are looking for guidance. Our CMS Expert and Kentico Xperience MVP, Mike Wills shares his with content modeling.
- BlueModus
- Kentico
What to Look for in a Kentico Xperience Developer: Four Essential Traits
- Mike Wills
- Mar 12, 2021
Hiring the right Web Developer is challenging. Hiring the right Web Developer to help manage your Kentico Xperience project can be even more challenging. Kentico Xperience MVP Mike Will shares the four essential traits he looks for when hiring a Kentico Xperience Web Developer.
Improve Content Authoring in Kentico Xperience Using Allowed Types and Global System Events
- Mike Wills
- Feb 05, 2021
Kentico Xperience MVP, Mike Wills reviews on how using a headless CMS (Content Management System) architecture for a Kentico Xperience client project allows the client to adapt Xperience as a headless CMS and a headless online marketing platform. This involved creating Web APIs using Xperience’s robust extensibility and creating a solid content model that enabled content reuse.

- Kentico
Cross-Platform .NET Dependency Injection in Kentico Xperience 13
- Mike Wills
- Jan 13, 2021
Kentico Xperience 13 is among the first CMS platforms to adopt .NET Core. In version 13, websites are built using Core, but the CMS application is still on ASP.NET Web Forms. Because of this, developing code that is shared between the applications can be awkward. Mike Wills, BlueModus Director of Development and Kentico MVP, shares a solution that allows you to register the dependencies in your shared libraries using patterns that are familiar in .NET Core.
- Kentico
Improve Content Authoring with Kentico Xperience’s Robust API
- Mike Wills
- Nov 19, 2020
A user experience challenge arises in Kentico Xperience from using inherited page types because most field properties can only be set in the base page type. Xperience allows you to configure most field properties in alternative forms. Unfortunately, when using alternative forms to override the settings of inherited fields, you can't make only one alternative form. You must create an alternative form for each edit mode – that is an alternative form for “update”, “insert”, and “newculture”. This solution often becomes too much overhead. Instead, BlueModus’ Director of Development and Kentico MVP, Mike Wills recommends looking to Xperience’s robust API to solve the user challenge.
- Kentico
Streamline Kentico Xperience Deployments using the Staging Configuration Module
- Mike Wills
- Nov 03, 2020
Mike Wills explores how using Kentico Xperience’s Staging Configuration Module allows you to stop tracking the objects to deploy for Kentico Xperience projects.
- Martech
Leveraging Kentico Marketing Automation in a GDPR & CCPA World
- Mike Wills
- Jul 16, 2020
Step-by-step tips on using Kentico's Marketing Automation functionality with and without cookie consent from the user.
Customize Kentico to Provide Form Response Emails with Rich Marketing Content
- Mike Wills
- Apr 30, 2020
Learn this Kentico trick: Mike Wills shows how to customize Kentico so that you can send form response emails to customers that include rich marketing content.
How to Leverage Kentico’s Newsletter Subscriptions in a Headless Architecture
- Mike Wills
- Mar 12, 2020
Kentico MVP Mike Wills shares how to enable Kentico’s subscription and confirmation features within a headless architecture, by adding integrated API endpoints.
- Headless CMS
Kentico Headless Email Marketing – Creating Email Tracking Endpoints
- Mike Wills
- Feb 11, 2020
Kentico MVP Mike Wills explains how to build a Kentico headless architecture that supports email tracking endpoints, allowing headless use of email marketing.
Bring Content to Customers with a Headless Architecture
- Mike Wills
- Nov 22, 2019
Mike Wills explains how using a headless CMS like Kentico provides meaningful, structured content to public platforms where your audience is already engaged.
- Headless CMS
A Headless Architecture Enables Enterprise Adoption of Kentico EMS
- Mike Wills
- Nov 06, 2019
We explain how implementing a headless Kentico EMS architecture can be a solution for an enterprise-level website with an established, complex architecture.
Kentico Extensibility: How to Identify Unique Visitors in a Headless Architecture
- Mike Wills
- Oct 17, 2019
Mike Wills explains how, when implementing Kentico with a headless EMS, we were able to implement contact management and activity tracking through a Web API.
Kentico Extensibility: How to Enable Double Opt-In with Kentico Forms
- Mike Wills
- Oct 10, 2019
Mike Wills explains how to enable Kentico's double opt-in subscription to work in conjunction with online forms, by using a custom marketing automation action.
Kentico Extensibility: Logging Contact Activities in a Headless Architecture
- Mike Wills
- Oct 01, 2019
Learn how we were able to easily customize Kentico CMS to fix a form submission error encountered when using a Web API for form data submitted by end users.
Kentico Optimization Tip: Improving SQL Server Round Trip Performance
- Mike Wills
- Sep 17, 2019
Learn a helpful tip to optimize Kentico performance: we explain how to leverage Kentico's ObjectQuery API to reduce the number of SQL Server query round trips.
Kentico Optimization Tip: How to Measure SQL Server Round Trip Performance
- Mike Wills
- Jul 09, 2019
Learn how to accurately test SQL Server round-trip performance for a Kentico site. BlueModus Kentico expert Mike Wills provides the step-by-step procedure.
Kentico Tip: How to Manage Scheduled Publishing of Cached Content
- Mike Wills
- Jun 10, 2019
Using long cache intervals along with the scheduled publishing feature in Kentico? Learn how to ensure content gets displayed at the proper time, not cached.
Solving the Technical Challenges of Privacy Regulations
- Mike Wills
- May 21, 2019
Adhering to privacy regulations continues to be a challenge. We provide hands-on examples on how to solve organizational and integration issues using Kentico.
Solving Design Challenges in a Headless CMS
- Mike Wills
- Mar 26, 2019
Designing a headless CMS requires collaboration among designers, developers, and strategists to balance the challenges. The payoff is a strategic game changer.
A content-first approach in a multi-channel world
- Mike Wills
- Feb 12, 2019
Implementing a CMS or redesigning your site? Here's why you should take a content-first approach and implement a platform that supports multiple channels.