Organize Your Team’s Website Management
Managing your corporate website production is like directing a film—everyone involved has a unique role to play in advancing the message. While contributing employees can be compared to cast members, your project lead functions as the director—the one who shapes collective efforts to create a shared vision. The best directors know how to set team expectations, clearly communicate deliverables, and check quality standards at every step—all of which is difficult without an organized approach.
Perhaps your company has an all-star cast of employees poised to lend their talents to your website goals. While that’s a promising start, it doesn’t guarantee that your end results will captivate audiences like an award-winning movie. With effective tools and planning, however, you can empower your team to produce websites that make an impact and leave audiences with your intended message.
Whether your aim is to convert customers, attract new recruits, or increase brand loyalty, building a seamless website management workflow is critical to achieving it. Here are some tips for optimizing your team’s website-building efforts.
Delegate website tasks strategically
Pair jobs on your task list with team members whose skills and interests best qualify them for handling. Instead of assigning employees tasks at random, match them where they might feel the most motivated and likely to deliver quality results. For example, if you’re publishing a blog that offers readers financial advice, consider having someone on your accounting team review it or even write the first draft if they’re willing. This may result in a stronger piece that provides a more authentic perspective from a subject matter expert.
Likewise, if one of your marketers isn’t the strongest writer but has an eye for visual appeal, have them set site styles and create Enterprise templates to establish branding for your company’s landing pages.
To keep approval workflows clear, choose a website platform where guest contributors on your team can safely collaborate on new content and designs under direction. Assigning them the role of Draft editor empowers them to create and edit new page drafts but prevents them from pushing any content live, leaving that responsibility to your content management team. The Draft editor role may also be appropriate for junior members of your content management team who require supervision.
Once you’ve parceled out project responsibilities and delegated them appropriately, tag your assignees on every website that requires their attention. With Squarespace Enterprise tagging and filtering, employees can filter projects on their dashboard to ones that require their input, without the distraction of unrelated websites.
Define web project goals before you start
Setting goals before you begin a web project helps to keep your team aligned on progress and focused on its objectives. Construct a brief document that outlines your KPIs at multiple steps in the journey, such as after the project is launched and at various stages of its development. Creating this type of roadmap before you begin production can shape the nature of your team’s contributions and keep them consistent with what you’re trying to accomplish.
For example, you may have decided to overhaul your company’s websites in order to standardize the customer experience across locations or franchises. In that case, your post-launch metrics might be increased sales, traffic, and/or email signups in locations that previously lagged in those areas. Or perhaps you’re seeking to increase the number of students attending your university, health studio, or another educational program—in that respect, you might want to set a percentage goal for applications completed or interest forms submitted.
Share these metrics openly with your team at project kickoff and reiterate them at check-in meetings to make sure your contributors keep the bigger picture in mind—especially when they encounter roadblocks. Feeling team encouragement and support in working toward a common goal can motivate employees to push through setbacks and propose creative solutions.
Your pre-launch metrics, on the other hand, can be more stakeholder and deliverable-based, such as “draft blog by June 15,” or “have website images approved by July 20.” Create a list of these mile markers and set proposed deadlines for each. While they don’t have to be set in stone, these should serve as aspirational guideposts to keep your team accountable and on track.
Squarespace Enterprise’s tagging and filtering empower you to clearly mark all of your team’s websites with action-related deadlines and next steps that are visible across your organization. This helps to ensure that your contributors are aware of their outstanding tasks, along with any bottlenecks that may be stalling team progress.
Separate website workstreams
As your company landing pages grow in number, they’re likely to become segmented according to subject matter, audience, and business objectives. That’s why it’s important to plan ahead for expanding your project—you may need to launch more landing pages quickly to accommodate new product or program offerings or the integration of new partners and franchises.
These pages should seamlessly roll into your overall website management workflow, but you’ll need more hands on deck to run each. Designate an owner for every website who’s equipped to handle overseeing updates, managing contributors, and reviewing final drafts—then tag them on the website as owning that particular role.
Of course, it’s easy to see how multiple landing pages can begin to visually crowd a team dashboard and interfere with productivity. That’s why it’s important to choose a platform where you can add tags to each website based on the material it covers, the audience it serves, or the line of business it supports.
Squarespace Enterprise’s tagging and filtering enables you to separate work streams this way. As an administrator, you can add tags that are visible to everyone in your company— so your whole team is aligned on the purpose of each website. Employees can then filter their dashboard view to projects they’re assigned to, eliminating the distraction of any that don’t require their involvement. Such organization may lead to an overall productivity boost by keeping contributors focused on their outstanding tasks.
Although directing a complex production like a corporate website project may seem intimidating, the right planning can yield impressive results worthy of a red-carpet nod. Don’t let disorganization prevent you from achieving your goals.