Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Website Officer

🎯 Role Definition

The Website Officer is a hands‑on digital specialist responsible for maintaining, optimizing and growing an organization's web presence. This role combines content management, technical website maintenance, SEO and analytics, accessibility and performance optimization, and cross‑functional stakeholder coordination. A successful Website Officer operates the CMS (e.g., WordPress, Drupal), implements technical SEO and metadata strategy, monitors site performance and uptime, coordinates content publication workflows, troubleshoots front‑end issues (HTML/CSS/JavaScript), and translates business goals into measurable website improvements. This job is ideal for detail‑oriented candidates who balance technical fluency with content governance and user experience best practices.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Web Coordinator / Web Content Coordinator
Digital Marketing Coordinator / Marketing Assistant
Content Editor / Content Producer

Advancement To:

Web Manager / Website Manager
Digital Product Manager / Digital Manager
Head of Digital / Digital Strategy Lead

Lateral Moves:

SEO Specialist / SEO Manager
Content Strategist / Information Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own day‑to‑day website content publishing and CMS administration (WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore or equivalent): create and edit pages, schedule content, manage templates, enforce content governance and version control to ensure a consistent, brand‑aligned site experience.
Implement and maintain technical SEO best practices, including metadata strategy (title tags, meta descriptions), structured data/schema markup, canonical tags, hreflang implementation, and XML sitemap management to maximize organic search visibility.
Monitor and analyze website performance using Google Analytics (including GA4), Adobe Analytics or similar platforms—produce weekly/monthly dashboards and actionable insights that drive content and UX improvements.
Lead site speed and performance optimization efforts: audit and remediate slow pages, optimize images and assets, leverage caching and CDNs, and collaborate with developers to reduce page load time and improve Core Web Vitals metrics.
Maintain website security and reliability: apply CMS and plugin/core updates, manage access controls and user roles, coordinate security patches, perform backups, and support incident response for downtime or security events.
Conduct accessibility (WCAG) audits and implement remediation plans to ensure the site meets legal and usability standards for diverse audiences; coordinate with content authors and developers to make pages accessible.
Execute QA and UAT for releases: create test plans, validate content and functionality across browsers and devices, log defects, and coordinate fixes with developers and vendors prior to production deployment.
Manage redirects, URL restructures and canonicalization during content reorganizations and site migrations to preserve SEO equity and minimize traffic loss; maintain a redirects map and monitor search console for crawl errors.
Configure and manage tag management and tracking systems (Google Tag Manager, Adobe Tag Manager) to ensure accurate event tracking, conversion tracking, marketing tags and data layer hygiene for campaigns and analytics.
Perform regular content audits and information architecture reviews: prune outdated content, update taxonomies and navigation, recommend content consolidation or migration to improve findability and conversion funnels.
Coordinate front‑end troubleshooting and minor front‑end updates: implement or triage fixes for HTML/CSS/JavaScript issues, responsive design regressions and layout inconsistencies in partnership with developers/designers.
Run A/B tests and conversion rate optimization (CRO) initiatives: define hypotheses, set up experiments (Optimizely, Google Optimize, VWO), analyze results and translate findings into iterative UX and content changes.
Implement and maintain site health monitoring (uptime, error rates, server response) and respond to alerts; produce SLA‑oriented reports and post‑incident reviews to reduce recurrence.
Support content localization and multilingual sites: manage language versions, coordinate translations, and configure hreflang and locale‑specific SEO settings to support international audiences.
Maintain search functionality and internal site search optimization: tune search relevance, manage synonyms and filters, and ensure search analytics inform content and taxonomy improvements.
Collaborate with marketing, product, communications and legal teams to align website initiatives with campaign goals, product launches, regulatory requirements and brand guidelines.
Manage external vendors and contractors for hosting, CDN, analytics implementation, development and accessibility remediation—define scope, review deliverables and ensure timely work within budget.
Create and maintain runbooks, SOPs and release notes for content editors and stakeholders: document publishing procedures, troubleshooting steps and rollback plans to support operational continuity.
Prepare and deliver regular executive and stakeholder reporting on website KPIs—traffic, conversions, engagement, page performance and SEO trends—along with prioritized recommendations and roadmaps.
Drive continuous improvement by identifying automation opportunities in content workflows, deployment processes and reporting using scripts, CMS plugins or integrations to reduce manual effort and increase accuracy.
Support privacy and compliance requirements related to tracking and cookies: implement consent management platforms, audit tags for PII, and ensure tracking aligns with GDPR/CCPA and internal privacy policies.
Plan and execute website migrations and platform upgrades: lead pre‑migration audits, preserve SEO signals, coordinate with hosting/engineering teams and validate post‑migration performance and indexing.
Provide training and day‑to‑day support to content authors and business stakeholders: run CMS workshops, create style guides and enforce editorial standards to maintain high quality and brand consistency.
Maintain a backlog and prioritize website tasks and tickets in collaboration with product owners and stakeholders—use agile/scrum or kanban practices to deliver iterative improvements.

Secondary Functions

Assist with ad‑hoc analytics requests and exploratory data analysis to support marketing and product teams, producing clear visualizations and actionable recommendations.
Contribute to the organization's website strategy and roadmap by identifying opportunities for UX, content and technical improvements tied to measurable business outcomes.
Collaborate with IT and security teams to ensure hosting, DNS and SSL/TLS configurations are current and aligned with best practices.
Participate in sprint planning, standups and agile ceremonies where site work is scoped and prioritized; provide estimates and acceptance criteria for website tasks.
Support campaign launches by configuring landing pages, tracking, UTM governance and ensuring rapid QA turnaround for live campaigns.
Maintain and improve documentation for analytics implementations, tag maps and data layer definitions to support long‑term data accuracy.
Conduct competitor and market analysis related to web presence and share findings that inform content and product priorities.
Support disaster recovery planning for website operations, including recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) for critical web systems.
Facilitate user testing sessions and gather qualitative insights from customers to complement quantitative data and prioritize UX improvements.
Help manage budget and procurement for web tools, plugins and third‑party services; evaluate vendor proposals and provide recommendations.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

CMS administration (WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Joomla or similar) — authoring, templating, user roles and plugin/module management.
Technical SEO expertise: metadata, schema/structured data, XML sitemaps, canonicalization, hreflang and redirects management.
Web analytics (Google Analytics / GA4, Adobe Analytics) — event tracking, goals, funnels, cohort analysis and dashboarding.
Tag management (Google Tag Manager) and experience implementing data layers and conversion tags.
Front‑end fundamentals: HTML5, CSS3, responsive design and basic JavaScript troubleshooting for layout and interaction issues.
Page speed and performance optimization techniques (image optimization, lazy loading, caching, CDNs, Core Web Vitals remediation).
Accessibility standards and remediation (WCAG 2.1) — accessibility testing and remediation workflows.
Version control awareness (basic Git) and familiarity with staging/production deployment processes.
Basic understanding of server/hosting concepts, DNS, SSL/TLS and common web hosting control panels or managed hosting environments.
SEO and site health tools: Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, SEMrush, Ahrefs or similar for crawl audits and monitoring.
A/B testing and experimentation platforms (Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize) and CRO methodologies.
Basic SQL or familiarity with query/reporting to extract analytics or CMS data (optional but advantageous).
Experience with CMS migration, redirects planning and post‑migration validation.
Tag auditing and privacy/compliance tooling, including consent management platforms and cookie management.

Soft Skills

Excellent written communication and editorial judgment for clear, brand‑consistent web content.
Strong stakeholder management and ability to translate business requirements into technical tasks and prioritized backlog items.
Analytical mindset with the ability to interpret data and produce concise recommendations for non‑technical audiences.
Attention to detail with a process‑driven approach to QA, release management and content governance.
Time management and prioritization skills to balance reactive site support with proactive improvement projects.
Collaborative team player who can work with designers, developers, marketers and legal/privacy teams.
Problem‑solving orientation and ability to troubleshoot under time pressure during incidents or launches.
Adaptability to learn new tools and technologies quickly and evaluate tradeoffs for web initiatives.
Customer/UX focus with empathy for end users and an orientation toward measurable improvements.
Project management fundamentals and familiarity with agile or kanban workflows.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree, associate degree with equivalent experience, or relevant certification in a related discipline.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Web Design, Digital Marketing, Communications, Information Systems or related field.
Certifications such as Google Analytics/GA4, Google Tag Manager, HubSpot CMS, or relevant SEO and accessibility credentials.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Digital Marketing / Marketing Communications
Web Design / Interactive Design
Information Systems / IT Management
Journalism / English / Communications (for editorial strength)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–5 years of progressive experience managing websites, CMS platforms and web analytics in a corporate, agency or nonprofit environment.

Preferred:

3+ years end‑to‑end website ownership, with demonstrated accomplishments in technical SEO, analytics (GA4), accessibility remediation, and performance optimization. Experience coordinating multi‑disciplinary teams, leading CMS migrations or major platform upgrades is highly desirable.