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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Web Content Manager

πŸ’° $60,000 - $95,000

ContentMarketingDigital

🎯 Role Definition

The Web Content Manager is responsible for planning, creating, publishing, optimizing and governing digital content across corporate websites and microsites to drive traffic, engagement and conversions. This role combines editorial leadership, technical CMS expertise, SEO and analytics, and cross-functional program management to ensure content aligns with brand voice, business goals and user needs.


πŸ“ˆ Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Content Specialist / Content Writer with hands-on CMS experience
  • SEO Specialist or Digital Marketing Coordinator responsible for on-site optimization
  • Copywriter, Communications or Editorial Coordinator with digital experience

Advancement To:

  • Senior Web Content Manager / Content Lead
  • Content Director / Head of Content
  • Digital Marketing Manager or Head of Digital Experience

Lateral Moves:

  • UX Writer / Product Content Manager
  • Content Strategy Consultant or Information Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop, own and execute the end-to-end content strategy for corporate websites and campaign microsites, aligning content objectives with product, marketing and revenue goals while maintaining a consistent editorial voice and brand guidelines.
  • Plan and maintain a rolling editorial calendar coordinating product launches, seasonal campaigns, blog posts, thought leadership, SEO initiatives, and evergreen content across channels to ensure timely delivery and cross-team alignment.
  • Create, edit and publish high-quality web copy, landing pages, blog posts, microsite content and resource center assets using the organization’s CMS, ensuring accuracy, brand tone, grammar and legal compliance.
  • Implement and maintain on-page SEO best practices including keyword optimization, H1/H2 structure, title tags, meta descriptions, canonical tags, schema markup, URL structure and internal linking to improve organic search ranking and visibility.
  • Perform regular content audits and gap analyses to identify outdated pages, thin content and SEO opportunities; coordinate rewrite, consolidation or archival plans to improve content quality and site performance.
  • Establish content governance and workflows (version control, review cycles, approvals, publication schedule) across stakeholders β€” product, legal, PR, design and engineering β€” to minimize errors and speed time-to-publish.
  • Configure, maintain and extend the CMS (e.g., WordPress, Drupal, Adobe Experience Manager, or headless CMS), including content types, templates, modules/components, and publishing permissions in partnership with engineering.
  • Collaborate with UX/UI designers and front-end developers to ensure content fits responsive design, template constraints and component-driven architectures while preserving readability and conversion focus.
  • Use analytics platforms (Google Analytics / GA4, Adobe Analytics) and content measurement frameworks to set KPIs, track traffic, engagement, bounce rates, conversion funnels and attribution; translate insights into content optimization actions.
  • Lead keyword research and content planning via SEO and keyword tools (SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz) to identify priority topics, map content to user intent, and drive organic traffic growth.
  • Optimize landing pages and editorial content for conversion using CRO tactics (A/B tests, CTA placement, form optimization) collaborating with growth or product marketing teams to increase leads, trials and purchases.
  • Manage content localization and internationalization processes β€” coordinate translation teams, maintain language-specific SEO, and ensure cultural relevance across locales.
  • Define, implement and maintain site information architecture, taxonomy, metadata standards and tagging schemes to improve search, personalization and digital asset organization.
  • Implement and enforce web accessibility (WCAG) best practices and remediation efforts in content β€” alt text, semantic HTML, captioning and ARIA attributes β€” working with development to ensure compliance.
  • Own content migrations and site redesign projects: inventory content, map content to new templates, prioritize rebuilds, QA published pages and run post-launch sweeps to resolve redirects and SEO issues.
  • Manage digital asset workflows and the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system: ensure images, videos and downloadable resources are optimized for web performance, correctly tagged, resized and licensed.
  • Partner with product marketers, demand generation and paid media teams to build landing pages and content that support campaigns, ensuring consistency in messaging, UTM tagging and landing page optimization.
  • Vet, select and manage external agencies, freelance writers, and translators as needed; create briefs, set quality standards, and review deliverables to ensure consistent editorial quality and on-time delivery.
  • Train and enable content contributors and internal stakeholders on CMS use, editorial standards, SEO basics and governance processes; create documentation and playbooks to scale content operations.
  • Develop and maintain content performance dashboards and monthly reports for leadership, translating metrics into prioritized editorial and technical recommendations.
  • Drive structured content and reusable component strategies (content models, JSON/structured data) to enable personalization, syndication and omnichannel delivery across mobile, web and app.
  • Monitor industry trends, algorithm updates and competitive content moves to proactively adapt content strategy and preserve search and UX advantage.
  • Enforce security, privacy and compliance best practices in published content β€” ensure PII handling, cookie disclaimers, data collection transparency and legal/brand sign-offs where required.
  • Lead continuous improvement initiatives to reduce time-to-publish, increase content ROI, and improve site speed by optimizing image usage, implementing lazy-loading and minimizing heavy assets.

Secondary Functions

  • Support editorial research and thought leadership development by coordinating interviews, sourcing subject-matter experts and translating technical content into user-friendly formats.
  • Provide ad-hoc content support for customer success pages, help centers, release notes and knowledge base articles to ensure consistent help documentation.
  • Assist growth and product teams with content experiments and personalization rulesets to increase user retention and lifecycle engagement.
  • Participate in sprint planning, stand-ups and backlog grooming with digital product and engineering teams to triage content-related tickets and technical SEO priorities.
  • Maintain documentation for content models, templates, CMS processes and SLAs; refine playbooks based on retrospective outcomes and stakeholder feedback.
  • Manage content-related budgets for freelance resources, tools and SEO subscriptions; track spend and evaluate ROI.
  • Coordinate with legal and compliance to review claims, disclosures and regulated content prior to publishing.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Content Management Systems (CMS) administration and publishing β€” strong hands-on experience with platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), Contentful, or other headless CMS solutions.
  • On-page and technical SEO expertise β€” keyword research, meta tags, canonicalization, schema.org markup, XML sitemaps, hreflang and crawlability diagnostics.
  • HTML and CSS proficiency β€” ability to edit templates, troubleshoot styling issues, and ensure content renders correctly across responsive breakpoints.
  • Web analytics and data interpretation β€” practical use of Google Analytics (GA4), Adobe Analytics or equivalent to build dashboards, run cohort analyses and report on content KPIs.
  • Keyword research and SEO tooling β€” experience with Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, Screaming Frog, or similar platforms to discover opportunities and monitor performance.
  • A/B testing and conversion rate optimization (CRO) β€” familiarity with tools such as Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize and experimentation best practices.
  • Basic knowledge of JavaScript and JSON for working with interactive components, structured content, and dataLayer implementations.
  • Content modeling and structured content β€” experience defining content types, fields and reuse strategies for component-driven sites or headless architectures.
  • Accessibility (WCAG) and semantic HTML best practices β€” practical experience auditing and remediating accessibility issues.
  • Digital asset management and image/video optimization β€” skills with DAM platforms, Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom or similar tools, and knowledge of responsive image techniques.
  • Localization and international SEO β€” experience coordinating translations, hreflang, and region-specific content strategies.
  • Familiarity with marketing automation and tag management β€” experience with platforms like Marketo, HubSpot, Google Tag Manager or similar for campaign integration.
  • Experience with editorial and workflow tools β€” Asana, Trello, Jira, Confluence, or editorial platforms to manage content pipelines and approvals.

Soft Skills

  • Strong editorial judgment and excellent command of language, grammar, and tone-of-voice management.
  • Excellent cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management β€” able to negotiate priorities between marketing, product, legal and engineering teams.
  • Project and program management skills β€” ability to run multiple initiatives with competing deadlines and deliver to timelines.
  • Analytical mindset and data-driven decision making β€” translate metrics into actionable content improvements.
  • Attention to detail and quality orientation β€” rigorous QA on copy, links, metadata and visual assets prior to publishing.
  • Problem-solving and adaptable thinking β€” comfortable with ambiguity and iterative product delivery cycles.
  • Leadership and influence β€” capable of driving change, mentoring contributors and building consensus for content governance.
  • Customer empathy and user-centric thinking to craft content that answers user intent and improves the user journey.
  • Time management and prioritization β€” focus on high-impact activities that move KPIs and business objectives.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Journalism, Marketing, English, Information Architecture, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree or postgraduate certification in Digital Marketing, Content Strategy, UX, or a related discipline is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Communications
  • Marketing
  • Journalism
  • English / Creative Writing
  • Information Architecture / Human-Computer Interaction

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–7 years of progressive experience managing web content, with at least 2 years owning CMS processes and SEO-driven content programs.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of combined editorial, SEO and CMS experience with a proven track record delivering measurable improvements in organic traffic, engagement and conversions. Experience working with enterprise CMS platforms, content migrations and cross-functional digital teams is highly desirable.