The Longview — Headless Editorial Platform

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React / Next.js

The Longview — Headless Editorial Platform

Editorial platform with Sanity CMS + Next.js ISR. Editors kept their block-editor workflow, engineers got a headless architecture. 340K monthly readers.

ClientThe Longview (SAMPLE)
Year2024
ClientThe Longview (SAMPLE)
Timeline10 weeks
Budget range$18K u2013 $28K
TeamSolo build
01 Challenge

The problem they were solving

Substack-scale editorial team on Ghost. Hit rendering limits on their long-form investigative posts. SEO wasnu2019t matching their Substack traffic. Needed a headless architecture that editors could still use without engineering.

02 Approach

How I approached it

Sanity CMS for content editing (editors loved the block editor). Next.js frontend with ISR for on-demand rebuilds when posts publish. Custom paywall integration with existing Stripe subscriptions. Newsletter double-opt-in via ConvertKit API.

03 Results

By the numbers

99
Lighthouse score
340K
Monthly readers
8,200
Paid subscribers
12s
Publish-to-live time

Overview

The Longview is a long-form journalism publication. They needed a fast, editor-friendly platform that could handle traffic spikes when a big story hit and let their team publish without touching code.

Stack

  • Next.js with Incremental Static Regeneration for near-instant page loads
  • Sanity headless CMS with custom studio configuration
  • Algolia for full-text search across archives
  • Vercel edge network for global distribution
  • Custom typography-focused design system