A Headless CMS Website Build for a Global Coaching & Leadership Institute
IECL trains coaches and leaders across Australia, APAC, and the US. Their content (courses, coaches, and a large knowledge bank) had outgrown the old site. We rebuilt it from scratch on DatoCMS and Next.js, engineered for speed, search, and a content team that no longer waits on developers.
Overview
A from-scratch headless build, not a reskin
The Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership has professionalised organisational coaching since 1999: ICF-accredited coach education (Level 1 / ACC, Level 2 / PCC, and advanced team coaching), a 100+ coach network, and bespoke leadership programs for enterprise and government clients across Australia, APAC, and the US. The brand was world-class; the website had fallen behind.
We rebuilt the whole site from scratch on a headless stack: content modelled in DatoCMS and rendered by a Next.js front end that ships statically and revalidates on publish. The result is a fast, search-ready site the content team owns, with AI automating the repetitive work behind the scenes.
Who it serves
- Marketing & content teams
- Prospective coaches & members
- Enterprise & government L&D buyers
- A multi-region (AU / APAC / US) audience
What we owned, end to end
The Challenge
A world-class brand on a website that couldn't keep up
It was not a traffic problem, it was a platform problem. IECL's content had outgrown its old site, and speed, search, and slow publishing were the cost.
Publishing meant developer tickets
Every content change needed a developer and a redeploy, so the site moved slowly.
Speed worked against it
Page weight and layout shift hurt the experience and Core Web Vitals.
No real multi-region model
An AU / APAC / US audience had no proper localized content structure.
Thin for search
Courses, coaches, and articles lacked the structured data search engines reward.
Hard to grow
The knowledge bank and coach directory were hard to scale and merchandise.
Content tangled with code
No clean separation between content and presentation.
The Approach
One content source, every surface
We modelled IECL's content by meaning, not by page, then rendered it from a fast, static-first front end. Structure the content once, deliver it anywhere, and keep the team in control.
Model by meaning
Courses, coaches, events, and articles as first-class types built from reusable blocks.
Static-first delivery
Pages pre-rendered (SSG) and revalidated on publish (ISR), served from the edge.
Localized for every region
A locale-aware model serves AU / APAC / US from one content source.
Search built in
schema.org structured data, per-page metadata, canonicals, and a sitemap from day one.
What We Built
The content surfaces, modelled to scale
Every surface is structured content in DatoCMS, composed from a shared block library.
Catalogue
Course & event catalogue
- ICF pathways: Level 1 / ACC, Level 2 / PCC, and advanced team coaching
- Upcoming courses and free introductory events
- Structured content, not hard-coded pages
Directory
Coach finder
- A 100+ coach directory
- Each profile driven from DatoCMS
- Searchable and filterable
Knowledge
Knowledge bank
- Articles, research, and podcasts
- Built to scale and to rank
- Grows without a rebuild
Reach
Multi-region & localization
- Locale-aware pages for AU / APAC / US
- Multi-currency information (AUD / HKD / SGD / USD)
- One content source, served per region
AI Agents & Automation
AI where it earns its place
Behind the scenes, agents take the repetitive content-operations work off the team. Out front, an assistant routes visitors to the right journey. A person stays in control of every decision.
Humans stay in the loop. The agents do the repetitive lifting; a person reviews and approves before anything publishes.
Adverse media
Cited sources
Built to Scale
Component-based on both sides, built for enterprise scale
The choices that let a content-heavy site keep growing without slowing down or bottlenecking the team.
The challenge
Keep content and code cleanly separated as the site grows.
How we solved it
Component-based architecture: every DatoCMS content block maps one-to-one to a React component in Next.js. Build a component once and reuse it across every page.
The challenge
Let marketing ship pages without a developer bottleneck.
How we solved it
Reusable blocks plus one-click, template-based landing pages. New pages go live in minutes, no bespoke page code.
The challenge
Stay fast as content and traffic scale.
How we solved it
Static-first SSG + ISR with on-publish revalidation, optimized images and fonts, and edge delivery.
The challenge
Stay findable across regions.
How we solved it
schema.org structured data, clean canonicals, an auto-generated sitemap, and a localized content model.
Editor Autonomy
From a template to a live page, in one click
Content creators build and ship landing pages themselves, no developer and no redeploy in the loop.
Pick a template
Course launch, event, coach profile, or article.
Add content
Compose from reusable blocks in DatoCMS.
Publish
One click. A webhook fires.
Revalidate
Next.js rebuilds only the changed pages.
Live in minutes
Edge-served, no full redeploy.
Day-to-day publishing no longer needs a developer, exactly what the CTO called out.
Results
Real-user results
Core Web Vitals from the Chrome UX Report (real-user field data, desktop, 28-day origin), all inside Google's "good" range.
Chrome UX Report, desktop field data
Google "good" < 2.5s
Google "good" < 200ms
Google "good" < 0.1
No developer, no redeploy
Before & After
What the rebuild changed
Core Web Vitals: Passed, and marketing ships new landing pages in minutes.
Publishing
Page speed
New landing page
Content model
Regions
SEO
In the client's words
What IECL said
A huge shoutout to the team for their outstanding work on the IECL project! They were a breeze to communicate with and super responsive from day one. The website looks great, but the way they set up Dato CMS is the real game-changer: our marketing team can now spin up new landing pages in minutes. Highly recommend working with them!
Andy Sheats
CTO, IECL
Common questions
What this project shows
IECL is content-heavy: courses, coaches, events, and a growing knowledge bank, across several regions. A headless model separates that content from presentation, so editors publish independently while the front end stays fast and consistent. DatoCMS gives a clean, structured content model; Next.js renders it statically and revalidates on publish.
A brand this good deserves a site that keeps up.
If your content has outgrown its platform, a headless rebuild on DatoCMS and Next.js puts the content team back in control and the performance back on your side.