As you move from building to stewarding your website, your Web team will evolve. Ideally, some of the individuals who helped plan the site will also be involved in stewarding it. It is important that original team members bring any new team members up to speed so that everyone understands how your site developed. Key team members involved in stewarding a website include the Site Owner, Content Owner and Web Strategist.
Owns the strategy, purpose and successful outcomes of the site. Sets expectations and coordinates with the Site Manager. Communicates outcomes with the Unit Web Leader.
The Site Manager owns day to day operations and is the individual responsible for overall management of your website. Responsibilities include:
Coordinating or executing the management of assigned site(s). This involves:
- Building and monitoring schedules for updating content regularly
- Maintaining a plan for reactive updates, which are those updates that are urgent or unexpected
- Requesting staff and other resources for stewardship
- Monitoring the work of members of the stewardship team
Identifying the need for content updates. This involves:
- Making sure that authors launch and remove time-sensitive information, such as event listings, in a timely manner
- Monitoring changes at the university, such as leadership changes, that may necessitate content updates
- Keeping track of content developed across the university, with the goal of identifying content that can be reused or repurposed
- Staying informed about what other sites will be affected by changes made to your site
Monitoring the quality of assigned site(s). This involves:
- Ensuring that content is fresh and positioned correctly for target audiences
- Ensuring that authors are writing for the Web
- Implementing search-engine optimization (SEO) to make it easier for users to find your site
- Identifying and building on successes
- Identifying areas of improvement and giving related feedback to the stewardship team
Depending on the size of your site, you many have a large group or just a handful of content owners. Each content owner is responsible for a content area within your website. A content area may consist of multiple pages, a single page or a particular section of a page. Content owners work with the Unit Web Leader's direction to proactively update content. Responsibilities include:
- Reviewing and updating content according to the schedule the Site Manager provides
- Proactively updating content as major changes occur
- Positioning content to support the website’s business strategy
- Content may include:
o Basic, informational copy
o News and announcements
o Student, staff and faculty profiles
o Calendar entries
o Lists of links
The Web Strategist works closely with the Site Manager to assess whether your website is meeting predefined goals. Responsibilities include:
- Reviewing site performance using Google Analytics and other appropriate measures
- Assessing whether goals are being met
- Suggesting changes to the Site Manager and Site Owner that may trigger the development of new content or site revisions