Web Governance and How to Use it for Website Management

Of all of the things that go into making a functioning website, web governance hardly seems like the most exciting part. But web governance can ultimately make or break your website in terms of meeting your goals.

Simply put, web governance is all of the policies and procedures that go into maintaining and managing a website. All websites have a system of web governance in place. Yes, you read that right. ALL websites have web governance, whether they realize it or not. The problem is that few websites have a clear, supervised web governance system in place.

Have you ever heard a colleague say, “I thought you were doing that”? If so, it is a sign that your web governance needs some work.

Where a lot of websites go wrong is that they don’t understand the difference between governance and management.

Website management is all of the tasks that go into running a website, such as posting new articles or updating product pages. By contrast, web governance is all of the policies and procedures that say how management should be done. It is the supervision behind the management.

Robert Jacoby at website-governance.com explains the difference well: 

“Management is responsible for running things, and governance is responsible for running in the right direction… If your head is down looking at what's in front of you, that's website management. But when you're 'heads up' and scanning the horizon for possibilities in social media, responsive design, cloud computing, APIs, analytics tools, strategies for business, mobile, or content, [next big thing] — and exploring how you might bring those new ideas into the fold — that's website governance.”

When talking about web governance, an important word to remember is “supervision.” The supervisor is in charge of defining the web governance policies, standards, and procedures that will dictate how everything is done, whether it is updating new content or performing a website audit.

The web governance supervisor can be a CEO, advisory team, or management team. Regardless of the web governance model, it is important that the policies, standards, and procedures are clearly defined. You don’t want any guesswork going into the job of running your website.

These are the policies that apply to each online channel, whether it is social media marketing, blogging, or product pages. It is vital that you keep policies to a minimum. Policies should not change unless it is absolutely necessary.

For websites, governance standards are established to deliver consistency in voice, quality, and customer service. When you have multiple people, each with different styles and skills (such as your content department and design department, or when you outsource to contractors), then maintaining these standards can be difficult. This is why your web governance map will need to include editors who ensure all standards are being met.

These are all the steps that must be taken to make sure that the website is in accordance to policies and standards. For example, you might make a checklist of processes that go into each blog post, such as optimizing URLs, title and H1 tags, and meta descriptions. Scheduling is also a big part of web governance processes. You will probably rely on multiple tools for your processes.