Before we dive into the deep and sometimes complex world of what’s involved with web governance and how WTG helps customers overcome some of these challenges, lets first consider what we mean by the term.

Web Governance: A Definition?

Web Governance in simple terms is a set of rules, roles and relationships required for web product management. This includes:

• The implementation of a Web Governance Framework
• The installation of Web Policy
• The implementation and enforcement of Web Standards.

Essentially, web governance is one of the core dimensions of a mature web operations approach. It helps reduce web development risks by establishing clear decision making authority, identifying web accountability and improving web standards compliance.

What it means for you?
For most organisations web governance and strategy is an area of high priority or at least an operational priority. With the maturity of the internet; lots of web standards, legal and regional boundaries have been introduced. Where on one hand this provides a sensible and unified approach to web content and application development and thereby provides an effective measurement of web performance; on the other hand this can involve planning, strategy and high maintenance cost.

For an organisation:
• It determines who gets to sit around the table when the organisational decisions are made
• Identifies who has final decision making authority
• Ensures clearly defined web-specific policies are in place (that reduce risk to the organisation)
• Identifies and defines the team to write the web standards (that raise the quality of the Web presence)

The above is enforced through a Web Governance Framework. Having a framework helps minimise and settle internal website ownership disputes and can smooth the relationship between various web stakeholders.

What can WTG do for you?
At WTG as part of any web governance project we provide customers with a comprehensive web strategy solution approach. It allows customers to pick and choose the required services to fit their organisational needs, starting from simple a web audit to a complex web optimisation.

The first step towards your web governance strategy is to know what you have. This gives any organisation a starting point from which to plan, layout and prioritise what they want to achieve.

This approach will help you and your organisation to:
• Organise your data
• Identify the content owners
• Breakdown the types of content on site
• Check brand reliability & compliance
• Review content strategy (IA)
• Check against web standards including:

• Accessibility, usability and design – priority 1 and 2 checks
• Validate against XHTML & CSS 2.0 mark-up’s
• eGMS metadata standards validation
• Checks against IPSV vocabulary
• e-GIF
• Marketing communication standards
• Legal and technical requirements
• Search Engine Optimisation standards
• Platforms and devices checks
• Appropriate use of media

Here at WTG were have helped a number of customers achieve this through thorough engagement, clearly understanding the current web governance and putting in a defined and measurable solution that delivers real results.

If you would like more information please visit www.wtg.co.uk or email info@wtg.co.uk