NEW Website Governance

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1			WEBSITE GOVERNANCE ROADMAP - By ToTheWeb and Meghan Soule	Adapt columns to your company's needs.
2	CATEGORY	QUESTIONS 🚀	CONSIDERATIONS	IS THIS IN PLACE?	REVIEW CYCLE	TITLE	NOTES

3	BUSINESS	What are the business goals and how are they defined?	.: Is there a clearly defined list of KPIs for the website? .: Are budgets in place to support these goals and KPIs?		Annual
4	BUSINESS	How are expectations set within the company; what is the review process?	.: What stakeholders are involved in setting website expectations in terms of leads, pipeline, exposure, etc? .: Is there a reporting structure and review timeline?
5	LEGAL & COMPLIANCE	Are the legal and compliance requirements documented?	.: Yes/No - if no, is there a plan in place to create. .: Who manages the maintenance of this document?		Annual	CTO
6		Who is responsible to ensure the website adheres to all requirements?	.: What is the review cadence to enforce compliance?
7		Is the website set up to comply with current and upcoming legal and regulatory requirements?	.: Can the website support new legal requirements such as GDPR compliance?
8	PEOPLE & TRAINING	What tools are in available and who managing the programs?	.: Are these tools in place now? Who is managing them? Who has login access? .: Is a review process in place to test their effectiveness?		Annual
9	PEOPLE & TRAINING	What training is need to use these tools and who should be trained on these tools?	.: Is clear documentation available for teams to understand? .: Is there a process in place to train relevant staff when new tools are deployed, or when existing tools are updated?		Rolling Review
10	CONTENT & LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT	What are the standard content requirements? How does the content fit in to the customer journey?	.: Have personas been created? .: Is content personalized by user type, geo, etc? .; Is content mapped to the high-level personas and throughout the customer journey? .: Is there an ongoing user journey analysis?		Rolling Review
11		Are content owners defined?	.: Does each piece of content have an owner? Do they have a way to view performance?		Annual
12		What is the content review and revision process?	.: What is the process to update and add new content? .: Who is responsible for managing updating content and ensuring compliance with performance and content standards? .: Is content developed on a set cycle or as needed? Who determines when new content should be added? .: Are there content templates and guides available for writers to follow.
13		What is the process for creating and managing content throughout the lifecycle.	.: Is there an established process for when and how new content will be created? .: Is a content template available for writers? Have content standards been created and shared with all writers? .: Is an archiving process in place?		Rolling Review
14		Content Optimization: Is content optimized for search and usability?	.: Has keyword research by product area been completed? Do relevant teams have access to this information? .: When new content is created are optimization techniques incorpoated? infographic .: Is meta data and other important search optimization factors incorporated for every piece of content? .: Is non-HTML content such as PDFs optimized? .: Is there an ongoing internal linking strategy in place to improve search crawling? .: Is organic reporting in place? .: Has an SEO technical audit been ever been completed? Is this done on a set schedule?
15		Content Inventory & Audiing: Is an annual content audit being conducted?	.: Is there a process for inventorying and auditing the content in place? .: Does this process include all content types such as PDFs, video, tools and apps? .: Who initiates and manages this process?		Annual
16		Is there a content localization strategy?	.: Does the site reflect that strategy? .: Is the right content for each market being delivered to that market? What are the gaps? .: Is there a plan to identify new content for localization?
17		How is the taxonomy defined, implemented and enforced?	.: Is content presented in appropriate silos so that visitors can quickly understand how content is organized? .: Can new content be easily integrated into this structure? .: Are the relevant pages and related content to reflect the existing taxonomy? .: Is reporting set up to reflect this content structure?
18		Asset Management	.: Is there a review of non-HTML content (PDFs, videos) for freshness, messaging and up-to-date branding? .: Are there standards in place that have been created for search optimization?
19		Blogs, Videos and Podcasts	.: Is a blogger checklist in place to align with best practices, engagement and post-launch success? .: Is a blogging calendar set up and followed? Is topic and keyword research created for each blog? .: Is video content optimized and distributed on-site and across other channels such as YouTube and Vimeo? .: Is there content approval process before blogs posted?
20		Content Performance Reporting	.: Have standards been defined and shared? Are there performance benchmarks for content? .: How often is content performance reported on? Who has access to this data? .: Is a process in place to review and act upon the types of content that drive high-converting traffic? - Who monitors this? Who sees this data?
21	BRAND MANAGEMENT	What are the brand requirements and standards and how are they enforced?	.: Is there a well-documented messaging and brand voice guide available? How is it communicated? .: Are there established brand guidelines for items for images, messaging, style? .: Are there variations of the brand guidelines that need to be created based on channel selection or use case?
22	BRAND MANAGEMENT	Is a process in place to facilitate compliance with new and existing content?	.: Is there a frequency for ensuring brand compliance? .: Who is involved in this process and what is the workflow?
23	MARKETING	Who is responsible for strategy and execution?	.: Is there a team or department responsible for maintaining online/offline channels such as Wikipedia, YouTube? .: How is content selected for cross-channel publication? .: Do lead generation standards exist and how are they communicated? - How is compliance with these standards enforced?
24		What is the process for managing consistency in messaging?	.: Who is responsible for ensuring consistency - everywhere, including images, messaging, etc? .: Is it clear that all communications - across all channels - originate from your company?
25		How is reporting standardized across channels?	.: Is there a process in place to ensure a consistency of marketing performance reporting? .: Who needds to see this?
26		What is the current lead nurture process does it reflect the business KPIs?	.: Has a lead nurture program been established for every lead? .: How does it get implemented across all campaigns? .: Is there a way to implement as campaigns scale and evolve? .: Is there a process to measure against KPIs?
27		Who manages demand generation and ensures relevance and volume?	.: Do you know the channels where people are coming from who “convert” on your website? .: Is this information being communicated across all marketing teams? .: How are campaigns run to ensure that they are not competing against each one? .: Is there a guide that includes workflow, design samples and advertising guidelines for all teams? .: Are cost-per-action goals defined? Does the campaign manager know how much a campaign lead costs? .: Is "Owned, Earned and Paid" content platforms part of the marketing mix?
28	SITE STRUCTURE & UX	What is the decision hierarchy for deciding the site structure and organization?	.: Is the structure designed to be flexible and scalable? Does it work for current and future content needs? .: Who is involved in deciding the site structure? sitemap .: Does the structure support business strategy goals such as target markets? .: What happens with content that doesn't naturally sit within this structure i.e. microsites, landing pages, etc?
29	SITE STRUCTURE & UX	Does the site reflect best practices in user experience and design?	.: Does the content provide a consistent, intuitive, useful user experience that leads to an action? .: What ongoing processes are happening to ensure user engagement? .: Is ongoing user testing being conducted? How are improvements identified and prioritized?
30	ACTIONABLE ANALYTICS	Measuring KPIs	.: What are the KPIs and is there a system in place to measure and report on success?
31		How is visitor behavior measured?	.: What key behavior metrics are tracked i.e. homepage bounce rate, days to a conversion, conversion URLs? .: Is data from on-site search evaluated? .: Is IP tracking in place to identify activities by target accounts?
32		Campaign Measurement	.: Is there a tool or guide in place that identifies correct tracking based on an agreed naming conventions and definitions? .: Are campaign managers and agencies aware? How is this enforced? .: Are campaign tracking URLs being used for accurate measurement?
33		Has there been an analytics audit to ensure data accuracy.	.: Has an analytics audit been conducted? .: Is there an regular, ongoing crawl to ensure analytics code is present throughout the site? .: Are employee IPs excluded from the metrics? Is this updated on a set frequency? .: How does the company anticipate and address disruption in analytics? For example, when Google changes it's reporting or problems with tracking code?
34		What is the reporting cadence?	.: When is reporting completed, in what format and who is this shared with?	Not Sure
35		Tracking and Access	.: Where and how is data tracked and who has access to it: e.g. Google Analytics and Data Studio, Salesforce, Marketo? Who can create or modify reports? .: Is the data tracked across platforms measuring on a consistent basis. i.e. .: Is there a review process to identify cross-platform reporting inconsistencies? .: Who is approved to view and edit analytics setup: GTM, Google Analytics, Google Search Console? .: Is there an SEO reporting dashboard for content owners and writers?
36	AGENCY SUPPORT	When do we bring in agency support	.: What triggers the hiring of an outside vendor? .: Who owns that relationship?
37		Who manages vendor review to ensure business alignment and legal compliance.	.: Is this decided at the product team level or by corporate? .: Will new vendors be permitted by Accounts Payable?
38		Onboarding	.: What access does a vendor to people, platforms and processes? What access is required? Are there platform or permission restrictions?
39	WEB TECHNOLOGY	Website Testing	.: Does the website meet current performance requirements such as speed, mobile devices, load balancing, etc.
40	WEB TECHNOLOGY	Capabilities + Integration	.: Does the website support required technologies, capabilities and applications (e.g. chat, personalization, localization)? .: How are integrations identified, implemented and managed (e.g. Marketo, Salesforce)