Web Optimization and Web Development
Web development usually falls under the IT department in large organizations, and is typically outsourced in smaller companies. Whichever situation you are in, you will face some of the same challenges when you start optimizing your website. With no discredit to IT departments, as a general rule, their primary focus is not to create an optimized website. What I mean is, they have security issues, CRM, ERP, administration rights, and a myriad of other priorities that typically trump the marketing department’s requests for web optimization. However, in most cases, it will be absolutely critical to involve your web team in the process (one exception may be if you have a fairly robust content management system and a person with some basic web skills).
Web site optimization is primarily a customer-focused activity, which means it is primarily a business activity, not a technical activity. However, you cannot avoid the technical aspects, such as adding content, changing layout, creating additional web pages, changing page names, altering site navigation, and the list could go on forever…. The point is, if you have aspirations to create the optimal web experience for your visitors you have to get buy-in from your development team.
The other key here is to realize the most web developers are really good at what they do (very general statement), and they may lend you insight to the optimization process that will save you time and money. Your web developer(s) should be involved in the process because they will help you realistically determine your immediate capabilities and costs associated with expanding capabilities.
The web metrics that developers care about will be completely different than the metrics that marketers care about. The key for website optimization is to report to your technical team the metrics that will help them make better decisions about the things that they have specific responsibility for. That means conversion rates are probably not the most valuable metric, but the number of and which pages are crawled by the search engines may be a relevant metric.
The primary job of the person managing your web optimization efforts will be to give each responsible party the minimum amount of web data that still enables them to complete their job. That isn’t to keep people in the dark, but to help them keep from getting paralyzed by too much irrelevant information. There is no hard and fast rule about who needs what; the amount of data you pass on will be as much related to the recipient’s personality as it is to their job function.
