Accomplish More with Less: The Power of Multisite Platforms

Many large organizations face the challenge of managing hundreds—sometimes thousands—of independent websites. Business units, product lines, subsidiaries, or regional offices all need their own sites, often with specific preferences for functionality and design. However, managing them separately leads to inconsistent branding, accessibility gaps, and wasted resources. 

In an environment where budgets are tightening and efficiency is paramount, having the ability to manage a sprawling digital ecosystem without increasing headcount or overhead is critical. A multisite or centralized web platform allows organizations to regain control of their web presence and accomplish more with fewer resources. 

At a recent session hosted by Jakala, digital leaders shared how they’ve navigated the shift toward centralized, multisite web platforms. Their conversation sheds light on the opportunities, challenges, and best practices for organizations considering this model. 

Read on for key takeaways from the presentation. 

Building each website independently is tedious, inefficient, and leads to problems with governance and design cohesion over time. A multisite approach improves this process. 

Multisite management can be defined as creating a single, shared foundation of code and design that can be reused across websites or subdomains within one platform. 

This leads to several key benefits: 

• Content management efficiency: Instead of coding each site from scratch, teams can quickly spin up new sites from a proven foundation. 
• Design consistency: Brand, design, and accessibility standards are built into the system from the start. 
• Scalability: From a handful of microsites to thousands of subdomains, organizations can scale their web presence without multiplying maintenance work. 
• Resource and cost savings: New sites can be launched, maintained, or updated quickly, reducing both time and costs. 
• Better experience for editors and users: Content teams enjoy an easier editing experience while staying true to brand guidelines, and users benefit from a cohesive experience across sites. 

A multisite approach can be likened to a car factory: every website rolls off the same production line, but each can be customized with its own features and options. This balance allows individual business units to maintain their uniqueness while benefiting from shared resources. 

(Note: While this presentation focuses primarily on higher ed use cases, these concepts and applications are highly relevant for organizations managing many disparate websites.) 

A centralized approach balances control and consistency with flexibility, helping internal teams manage content efficiently while improving the experience for customers, employees, and partners. 

• Resource efficiency: For example, one organization manages over 1,000 sites with a small core team thanks to a single multisite codebase. 
• Accessibility compliance: Built-in accessibility standards make it easier to maintain compliance across all sites. 
• Scalability: From a handful of microsites to thousands of subdomains, organizations can scale their web presence without multiplying maintenance work. 
• Brand cohesion: Each division or region can express individuality while reinforcing the parent brand. 
• Faster launches: What once took months can now be done in days (or even minutes). 
• Shared improvements: Updates to the platform benefit all sites at once, and training and documentation are easier to scale. 

From the user perspective, the ABCs—Accessibility, Branding, and Consistency—make this model powerful. For internal teams, efficiency, governance, and scalability drive lasting value. 

The greatest challenges in implementing a centralized platform are often organizational rather than technical. Stakeholders fear too many limitations or restrictions on how they manage their content, leadership balks at initial investment costs for a new web platform, and getting everyone on board internally comes with resistance. However, there are solutions to every internal challenge. 

Sound impossible to get your full organization supporting a new web platform? Here's a presentation with additional ideas to help address common issues. One of the best ways to align internal teams is to work with a trusted third party partner (like Jakala!) to help navigate the project. 

Multisite management is ideal for organizations with many sites that share common structures, need brand cohesion, or face budget and resource constraints. 

However, a fully centralized approach isn’t always right for everyone. It may not suit organizations that are highly decentralized, where each unit has its own web and marketing teams, or specialized digital systems that require unique integrations. 

In those cases, a hybrid approach, where teams share a design system, component library, or content model, can still deliver significant benefits.