Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Website Manager

🎯 Role Definition

This role requires an experienced Website Manager to own the operational, strategic and tactical aspects of our web presence. The Website Manager will act as the single owner for site performance, content governance, search and conversion optimization, analytics instrumentation, accessibility and secure site operations. This role requires a strong mix of hands-on technical CMS skills, digital marketing mindset, cross-team collaboration and experience managing vendor/agency relationships to deliver measurable business outcomes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Digital Marketing Specialist with website/CMS ownership
Web Developer or Front-end Engineer with content operations experience
SEO Specialist or Content Manager with technical SEO experience

Advancement To:

Senior Website Manager / Head of Web Experience
Director of Digital/Head of Digital Marketing
Product Manager (Web Platforms) / E‑commerce Director

Lateral Moves:

UX/Product Designer (with interest in CRO)
Analytics/Conversion Optimization Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own end‑to‑end website strategy and roadmap, prioritizing initiatives that increase traffic, conversion rates, customer retention and overall site ROI while aligning with business goals and KPIs.
Manage the day‑to‑day operations of the corporate website and microsites including content publishing workflows, editorial calendars, release schedules and QA processes to ensure timely, accurate and brand‑compliant updates.
Serve as primary CMS administrator (e.g., WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Contentful): configure templates, manage user roles, create templates/components, troubleshoot content issues and drive CMS improvements.
Implement and maintain SEO best practices across site architecture, URL structures, meta data, schema markup, internal linking and content templates to maximize organic visibility and search rankings.
Lead site performance optimization efforts (page speed, core web vitals, image optimization, lazy loading and caching strategies) and collaborate with engineering and hosting vendors to maintain high availability and fast load times.
Configure, maintain and validate analytics and tracking (GA4, Google Tag Manager, server log analysis) to ensure accurate measurement of traffic, conversions, attribution and marketing campaign performance.
Design and execute A/B and multivariate tests for landing pages, templates, and flows using Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize or similar platforms, and translate results into prioritized improvements.
Ensure web accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA) through audits, remediation plans and coordination with developers and content creators to create inclusive experiences.
Oversee site security, SSL management, vulnerability scanning, regular backups, incident response procedures and coordination with IT/security teams and hosting providers.
Lead and manage site launches, migrations and platform upgrades including planning, content migration, redirect maps, staging QA, rollback plans and post‑launch monitoring to minimize traffic and SEO disruption.
Optimize site architecture and internal linking to support content discoverability, search engine crawls and user navigation using SEO audits and information architecture best practices.
Collaborate with product, marketing, design and engineering to scope website projects, define acceptance criteria, estimate work, and drive initiatives through agile ceremonies and backlog prioritization.
Manage third‑party integrations (CRMs, marketing automation, analytics, payment gateways, personalization engines, CDNs) and maintain API contracts and event schemas for accurate data flow across systems.
Own vendor and agency relationships for hosting, CDN providers, SEO consultants, accessibility auditors and development partners; negotiate contracts, manage SLAs and evaluate performance.
Produce and present regular website performance reports and insights to stakeholders, translating technical metrics into business impact and clear recommendations for growth.
Maintain content governance, brand consistency, editorial standards and SEO content templates; train and support content authors and business stakeholders on CMS best practices.
Implement and monitor conversion funnels, form analytics and lead capture mechanisms; troubleshoot drop‑offs and recommend UX/content changes to improve conversion rates.
Coordinate internationalization and localization efforts for global sites, including hreflang implementation, translated content workflows and region‑specific performance optimizations.
Maintain disaster recovery and continuity plans for web properties, including failover strategies, backup verification and post‑incident retrospectives to drive continuous improvement.
Drive continuous improvement by staying up to date on web standards, browser/device trends, SEO algorithm updates, privacy regulations (GDPR/CCPA) and emerging web technologies.
Create and manage budgeting and resourcing for website projects, ongoing site maintenance, third‑party tools and infrastructure to ensure cost‑effective operations.
Mentor and train junior web team members or cross‑functional contributors on CMS usage, SEO fundamentals, analytics interpretation and web governance processes.

Secondary Functions

Support marketing campaigns with landing page builds, tracking implementation and post‑campaign analysis to optimize acquisition spend.
Assist in ad‑hoc analytics requests and exploratory data pulls to help stakeholders answer business questions from site data.
Contribute to the digital strategy by identifying new features, personalization opportunities and technical enhancements that align with customer needs and company goals.
Participate in sprint planning, backlog grooming and agile ceremonies to ensure website tasks are prioritized and delivered with quality.
Provide on‑call support rotation for critical site incidents and participate in post‑mortems to document root causes and remediation actions.
Work with legal and compliance teams to ensure privacy, cookie consent and data collection practices meet regulatory requirements.
Create training materials, playbooks and run regular CMS office hours for content authors and business stakeholders.
Monitor competitive landscape and benchmark site metrics against industry standards to identify areas of differentiation or risk.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

CMS Administration: Deep experience with WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Contentful or other headless/enterprise CMS platforms — configuration, templating, user roles and migrations.
SEO & Technical SEO: Proven ability to perform site crawls (Screaming Frog), implement schema.org, manage hreflang, redirects, canonicalization and on‑page optimization.
Analytics & Tagging: Expert in GA4, Google Tag Manager and event instrumentation; ability to configure conversion events, attribution models and dashboards.
Front‑end Fundamentals: Solid understanding of HTML5, CSS3, responsive design and basic JavaScript to validate issues and work with developers.
Performance Optimization: Experience with browser caching, CDNs (Cloudflare/Akamai), image optimization, Lighthouse audits and improving Core Web Vitals.
A/B Testing & CRO: Hands‑on with Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize (or similar) to design experiments, analyze results and roll out winners.
Web Security & Hosting: Familiarity with SSL/TLS, WAFs, vulnerability scanning, backups, hosting providers and reliability engineering basics.
Accessibility (WCAG): Experience conducting audits and implementing accessibility fixes to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
API & Integrations: Experience with REST APIs, webhooks and integrating marketing/CRM systems (Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot) for lead capture and personalization.
CMS Deployment & DevOps Basics: Knowledge of staging/production workflows, CI/CD for website deployments, Git and basic command line operations.
Tagging & Marketing Integrations: Experience implementing marketing pixels, consent management platforms, and campaign tracking across channels.
SQL / Data Literacy: Ability to run basic SQL queries or work with data exports (CSV) to validate reporting and collaborate with analytics teams.

Soft Skills

Strategic thinking with a results‑oriented mindset; able to translate web metrics into business outcomes and influence cross‑functional priorities.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; experienced at presenting technical concepts to non‑technical audiences.
Strong project management and prioritization skills; comfortable managing multiple concurrent initiatives and deadlines.
Detail oriented with a quality mindset for content accuracy, UX consistency and reliable site operations.
Collaborative team player who can work across product, marketing, design, engineering and external vendors.
Problem solving and troubleshooting under pressure; calm and methodical during incident response.
Continuous learner mindset, curious about new web technologies, SEO trends and analytics approaches.
Coaching and training skills to upskill content authors and less technical stakeholders on web best practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Computer Science, Communications, Web Design, Digital Media, Information Systems or related field; equivalent practical experience considered.

Preferred Education:

Advanced degree in Digital Marketing, Computer Science, Human‑Computer Interaction or professional certifications in SEO, analytics or project management (Google Analytics, GA4, HubSpot, Scrum).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Marketing, Computer Science, Web Development, Information Technology, Communications, UX / Human‑Computer Interaction

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

3–7 years of progressive web management, digital marketing and CMS experience; 5+ years preferred for enterprise sites.

Preferred:

Demonstrated experience managing high‑traffic corporate or e‑commerce websites, performing site migrations, and producing measurable improvements in SEO, page performance and conversion metrics. Experience working with cross‑functional teams, vendors and presenting to senior stakeholders is highly desirable.