New Year's Resolutions for Managing the Web

As we look at the dawn of 2009, it's once again time to make (and keep) our New Year's resolutions. Personally, I resolve to blog more and do my part to share WOM best practices... of course, losing a few pounds wouldn't hurt either...

If you're a Web manager looking for ways to optimize your site in '09, here's a few resolutions to consider:

1. Out with the old - this is the online equivalent of cleaning out the closet. Basically, if your site is more than five years old, odds are you have a few dust bunnies lurking on your Web server - things like that memo that talks about Y2K protocols, or the itinerary for the 2004 annual conference, or the thirteen copies of last year's new product announcement. It's one thing to keep boxes of old documents around the office, but in the Web world, that stuff is exposed to the public. You may not be seeing it, but your audiences are. And each time they stumble across an outdated, irrelevant page you lose a little bit of credibility. Take the initiative this year to clear out the ROT. Start by conducting an inventory of your site and make some determinations of what should stay and what needs to go. 

2. Do more with less - in today's economic climate, the pressure will be on for Web managers to cut costs, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to escape ongoing demand for new functions and features. This is the year to step back from the never-ending wave of one-off projects and think about the Web product holistically. What is it you're really trying to accomplish? Is the goal to launch a new Sharepoint site, or are you trying to foster collaboration across multiple silos? If so, what can you do to structure existing content so it can be easily shared? You may find it's worth more in the long run to invest in the content you've got rather than throw more technology on an already broken process.

3.  Make your assets work for you - you've invested a lot in the Web over the years, but what do you really get from it? You know people visit the site, so there is some implied value there, but can you actually quantify an ROI? Take time this year to figure out what you want to accomplish via the Web and then put some tools and process in place to measure the site against those metrics. Whether it's audience satisfaction, operational efficiencies or old-fashioned revenue generation, you'll need sound analytics to measure the effectiveness of your Web initiatives. By the end of the year, you'll have a stockpile of data you can use to formulate new resolutions for 2010!