Ever web manager has received THAT call from the senior admin, reporting an issue on the site that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. While some of these issues are minor, many tend to be serious and have both legal and reputational risk to the company.
The chief reason why this occurs is that continuous operational support for the web tends to be an afterthought. There are no procedures or processes in place to ascertain the operational integrity of the site. That’s why creating a web operations plan is of vital importance.
The goal of each and every site should be to improve over time and developing a web operations plan that puts focus on efficient operations and quality assurance helps maintain the quality of the website and helps meet the goals of the organization.
That being said, here are some aspects that you should consider in order to create a comprehensive web ops plan.
A Process For Compliance Monitoring
It is essential to implement a process for monitoring compliance on the company’s web policies, standards as well as editorial style guides.
A Quality Assurance Process That’s Systematic
It’s ideally important to have a systematic quality assurance process in order to check the operational integrity of the website. This should including checking for spelling and grammar errors, broken links, SEO best practices as well as adhering to web accessibility standards.
Getting Instant Downtime Notifications
A good web operations plan should include notifying you when the website is defaced or goes down.
Manage Regular Web Operations
It’s important to create a system that manages regular web ops and requests for ongoing support. Webmasters usually rely on phone calls and emails, which are not only inefficient but hard to manage with a large web team. A centralized web operations plan that includes external and internal communication tools, workflow as well as resource tracking will significantly improve efficiency and provide essential data on how resources are distributed to support the site.
Identify and Get Rid of Old Content
A set of procedures and processes to manage content including getting rid of redundant, outdated and trivial content is important. You should embrace the concept of the content lifecycle and review all content on a daily basis. Keep in mind that content doesn’t provide value forever.
Assesss The Efficiency of Web Ops
A process for constantly assessing the efficiency of your web ops is required. Factors to consider in this regard include how fast and accurately content is published, the overall stability and quality of the website, ideal documentation of all the procedures and processes as well as backup and redundancy of technical infrastructure.
Budgeting for Web Resources
An ideal web budget ought to include the resources required for ongoing operations as well as the long term support required for future features and projects.
Given how important the web is, an approach to maintaining a quality site has to be proactive instead of reactive. Learning about issues on your website from your seniors and users is a telltale sign that you are on the reactionary side. Developing and adhering to a web ops plan will help avoid risks and give you peace of mind.
