Website Roles for Large Teams

About the recommendations

In addition to the minimum recommended, Website Product Owner role (aka website manager), these roles and responsibilities should be used to establish processes for content creation, maintenance, and review. The roles will help determine training needs and provide the governance required for all state agencies to provide trustworthy, equitable, and user-friendly state websites.

We recognize that each team is different and encourage you to mix and match the roles as appropriate for your needs. You may also find that there are other titles that better fit your agency's needs than what is listed here.

Content SMEs/Authors

SMEs provide website content that assists people with completing tasks on a website. Content SMEs/Authors have a detailed knowledge of their subject and the status of their content on the site. A Content SME/Author should:

• Identify new areas or topics for development as web pages or improvements to a web page, and discuss with the Website Editor and Website Manager. 
• Develop original content and content updates to be approved by the Content Approver.
• Ensure content balances user and business needs and follows the content strategy set by the Website Manager.
• Keep content up to date and reliable, know the intended lifespan of the content, and notify the Website Editor of out-of-date content.
• Undertake a review of pages for which they are responsible and advise the Website Manager if pages are obsolete every six months. If the manager agrees, the removal and archiving will be managed by the Website Editor.
• Adhere to the quality assurance procedure and agency digital content style guide. 
• Ensure accessibility compliance for all new content.
   

Website Editors

Impact: Website Editors understand how to edit content within the CMS and have knowledge of HTML. They are tasked with understanding and fixing content issues related to accessibility and formatting.

Website Editors are the overall custodians of the CMS files and website content. The role includes:

• Managing content additions and changes to be approved by the Content Approver.
• Maintaining user experience consistency and navigational and file integrity in the CMS.
• Troubleshooting website problems (e.g., quality assurance issues in Siteimprove).
• Ensuring compliance with website accessibility standards.
• Publishing to the live site when required.
• Monitor website automated accessibility scores, remediate as needed, and communicate with the Website Manager about platform accessibility issues that are not related to content editing.

Content Approvers

Content Approvers are the quality assurance scanners needed to ensure content that is about to be published meets state guidelines and standards to maintain consistency. This role ensures agency reliability and trustworthiness.

Content Approvers are responsible for authorizing the publication of content assigned to them. Content Approvers cannot approve their own content. The role includes:

• Ensure that the content submitted to them is accurate and current.
• Make sure content balances user and business needs and follows the content strategy set by the Website Manager.
• Double-check that content adheres to the agency's digital content style guide. 
• Check that content meets accessibility standards. Advise authors of any revisions required before content is suitable for publication.
• Reject content (with appropriate reasons) if it should not be published.