Imagine an office without a manager or any policies in place! No one has role clarity, no hierarchy, and no systems…only chaos. Such a workplace would not be an ideal choice to work, right? Similarly, think of your website. Websites are generally the first thing anyone would read about your company or business; they set the tone for a new customer regarding what you offer and how you operate.
So, having a consistent and stable website is at the core of any business in today’s digital world. You communicate your brand to the world through your website, and a web governance plan must be in place.
What is Web Governance?
Website governance is all the rules and policies that guide the day-to-day maintenance of your website. It is a structure of people, policies, and processes that maintain and manage your website; web governance also ensures that the web team upholds the policies you have set for your site’s maintenance. Web governance policy sets accountability for the digital presence of your business.
All Organizations Need Web Governance
Web governance framework creates accountability and provides a clear guide to roles, tasks, and goals of the organization’s online presence. This is basic to any organization with an online presence. When the roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, all the website’s maintenance work, updates, etc., is done smoothly and in accordance with the guidelines, so the website becomes more functional.
Also, whenever you decide to expand or uplift your website, these guidelines will help by providing a clear structure to the web designers, both internal and external.
3 Primary Components of Website Governance
The web governance guidelines outline how things should be done and who will do it. For web governance to be efficient, ensure these three components are in place.
- Policies: All the aspects of your digital presence need policies, be it blog, website, or social media. Policies should be minimum, clear, and concise. Policies should not create confusion or be misleading. A great example of a policy would be that all your website pages should have the company logo in the upper right corner.
- Standards: Many people are working on your website: designers, developers, stakeholders, and everyone has their own style. However, the company website must be standardized for brand voice, quality, and design consistency. This way, individual preference is not reflected in the company website; instead, there is consistency across all digital properties.
- Process: The steps to ensure that policies and standards are maintained. Processes ensure compliance, and having a checklist of the processes makes it easy for everyone to finish the task assigned.
Key Elements of Web Governance
For a web governance strategy to be successful, the following factors play a crucial role: They are like the four pillars of a web governance policy.
Pillars:
- Development: All the features and how your website is built.
- Maintenance: To ensure that the website runs smoothly and efficiently.
- Infrastructure: You must upkeep your servers, hosting accounts, and cloud-based CMS platforms to ensure smooth content management and performance.
- Leadership: The above activities must be successfully implemented, which will be the leader’s role. Good leaders will oversee, support, and make strategies for the other activities.
The following resources would execute all these activities.
Resources:
- People: everyone performing the above activities, from employees, freelancers, consultants, or the agency.
- Tools: The products and services required to do the tasks.
- Budget: Money allocated to acquire the resources.
- Processes: All the people involved must ensure they follow the processes to execute the activities successfully.
6 Important Web Governance Guidelines
A good web governance policy means sticking to the guidelines and protocols. These guidelines and principles help the organization to grow, improve, and become efficient.
- User Confidence: It is very important to build user confidence. Users who don’t trust your site’s content will not buy your product or service. A website should always aim to boost the user’s confidence and be as user-friendly as possible.
- Business Planning: Your website should always have a business plan aiming to reach the target audience and help your business succeed. A clearly defined business plan also helps communicate it to everyone contributing to the site, such as content creators, designers, bloggers, etc.
- Accountability and Monitoring: To avoid confusion and have clearly defined tasks and roles, there needs to be a clear job structure and hierarchy. One person or committee at the top should monitor the rest and ensure everyone is working towards the site’s goals and adhering to the web governance guidelines.
- Follows the Latest Standards and Legislation: All the websites should follow the industry-specific legal standards. Also, websites should be made more accessible to everyone; most websites are not designed to be accessible to people with disabilities. This needs to change.
- Communication and Training: Web governance is a continuous, round-the-year activity that is also ever-evolving. So, anyone working on the website must constantly upskill and learn the latest technology and skills. This will make them work better and keep them motivated to comply with web governance and work more effectively.
- Ongoing Maintenance and Review: As web governance is an ongoing activity, it requires constant maintenance and reviews to ensure that all the guidelines are followed and the website goal is achieved.
Conclusion
Like any governing body, web governance is also very vital to the functioning of your digital presence. Web governance policies and guidelines help you to achieve your website goals consistently and with more accountability.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Is a Web Governance Framework beneficial?
Yes, there are multiple benefits of a web governance framework. It helps establish best practices, policies, and procedures related to the website and its content. When you have a web governance strategy and framework, it will help you to:
- Boost performance
- Reduce costs
- Maintain a consistent brand presence
- Use AI and ChatGPT-type tools more responsibly
2. What is website content governance?
With website content governance in place, you define who will review the content, who will make editorial planning decisions, and also what to do once the content is published. It will also help you to point to any content that is outdated or not working out well.
3. Who is accountable for adhering to website governance?
Everyone involved in designing and running the website is responsible for adhering to website governance, whether the website manager, designer, content creator, editor, or external agencies and consultancies. Ideally, there should be a manager who overlooks the rest of the team and employees working on the website and ensures that everyone complies with the website governance guidelines.
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