If your company hosts a mid to large-scale website with hundreds of thousands of pages, you’re likely to have multiple, geographically-dispersed and siloed teams with different content creators. The question is who does what, and when, with which permissions, and according to who’s guidelines?
Are portions of your site inconsistent in voice, look and feel and brand messaging? Who can upload content, and what happens when content is inconsitent or out of date? Who is monitoring the fact that your website hosts hundreds of pages without a single Google visitor in the last quarter, and is dragging the whole website SEO down? Who is responsible for performance? How is it measured and by who?
Shall I continue?
Who is minding content lifecycles for various sections of the site and or the whole? What happens to old legacy content when you rebrand and relaunch all or portions of the website? What about the hundreds of PDF’s with the old branding? Who’s taking care of those? And what happens when people leave the company; is there content continuity?
How about compliance? Is the team located at X, fully cognitive and complaint with the relevant geographical-based website compliance requirements at location Y. Is all of your website compliant with the relevant legal requirements?
If you or your colleagues are unable to answer all these questions definitively, your company needs a website governance framework. And you’re not alone in your frustration. As websites become increasingly complex and expand in terms of the number of stakeholders and the volume of content, a governance framework is essential.
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What is a website governance framework?
Website governance is the framework for maintaining a corporate website.
It provides set of policies and procedures for managing all aspects of a website.
It provides staff with the guidance to create, manage and measure content across all digital properties. Identifies a single point of accountability including the skills required, staffing, roles & team structures.
It guides the development and implementation of new capabilities, development pipeline, and related project work.
A governance framework establishes best practices, policies and procedures related to the content, people and processes for websites (or intranets). Having a well-planned and documented governance framework helps to:
Avoid duplication and silos
Speed time to completion
Reduce costs
Boost performance
Maintain a consistent brand presence
Ensure compliance
The framework should establish:
Defined website goals and objectives
Guidance for creating, managing and measuring content across all digital properties
Guidance to prioritize the development and implementation of new capabilities, the development pipeline, and related project work
A single point of accountability including the skills required, staffing, roles and team structures
A review process to measure traffic, engagement and conversion
Standards that can be easily replicated by all team members in any location
A checklist to ensure a review process, documentation and budgets are in place
Website Consideration Areas
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Getting started with your governance framework
Creating a governance framework may appear to be a daunting task. The following guide help kickstart the creation of your framework. Aim to create a strong foundation that you can continue building on over time.
Large websites tend to grow messy and inefficient over time. Outdated or low-quality quality content rarely gets any visibility and not only adds bloat to your site, but negatively affects your UX and SEO success.
So, if you haven’t done it before, it’s time to conduct a content audit to identify these ghost town pages, and then, revise or remove them.
It's content inventory time - start your own audit!
