Many organizations think that once the web team has finished the website, the job is done. But the reality is much more complex. When organizations wait a long time to communicate with their development and content teams, many challenges can arise, including drifting from the originally established information architecture, design principles, SEO, and more.
This guide will cover some of the key reasons you need to communicate regularly with your web team and how this communication can ensure that you stay informed about major updates to your content management system. You’ll also learn from experts and thought leaders about how these concepts can boost the effectiveness of your owned digital presence.
Preventing Drift From Established IA and Design Styles
After your site goes live, new pages, features, or content updates continue to creep in, gradually shifting away from your originally defined content structure and the design language that constitutes your brand, whether that’s a particular set of color schemes, fonts, or wordmarks.
Without consistent oversight from the original team, your site’s IA can become unwieldy and confusing for visitors, and your visual style can lose the cohesiveness it once had. And that matters for organizations of all types.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group, a leader in usability research and best practices, clear and consistent information architecture ensures that users can find what they need quickly and easily. They emphasize that periodic IA evaluations are key to maintaining usability.
Action Step: Regular meetings with your web team can help you identify areas of drift and plan incremental improvements. Addressing small misalignments early can prevent costly, time-intensive overhauls that may be required later.
Conducting Ongoing Content Management Checkups
Content isn’t just some static object that sits on your site and can remain the same for extended periods of time. The reality is that content will need to grow and change over time to remain relevant, both in the eyes of your visitors and in the eyes of search engines. As content is updated, the way it is presented may drift from best practices for accessibility, SEO, and page speed.
Your site’s content should remain accessible, load quickly for mobile users, and be optimized for search engines and their various index tools and crawlers. Over time, outdated content, broken links, and poor performance can accumulate in the form of “tech debt.” If left unchecked, these issues harm user experience and diminish your site’s search visibility on organic SERPs.
This concept is so important that the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 stress the importance of ongoing content reviews to ensure that websites meet evolving accessibility standards.
Action Step: Schedule quarterly or biannual audits with your web team to review pages for accessibility compliance, page load speeds, and SEO strategies. This ensures that your site keeps pace with current best practices and maintains a positive user experience for both your human guests and any search engines that happen to be passing through to index and rank your content.
Learning About Newly Available Tools and Features
Most likely, your site is using a major content management system such as WordPress, Shopify, or a similar platform. Their development teams constantly upgrade these platforms, and new features come online frequently. Tools that didn’t exist when your site launched — such as improved analytics solutions, personalization engines, or next-generation frameworks — may now offer capabilities that can enhance your online presence. Regular dialogue with your web team means that you’re aware of new solutions to organizational problems that could have a chance to improve user engagement and even site performance.
Many industry research bodies, such as the Baymard Institute, stress the importance of iterative improvement based on new technologies and tested best practices for user experience. Things move quick on the web, if you are staying the same you are falling behind.
Action Step: Ask your web team for periodic briefings on new features available for your content management system or web platform. It may also make sense to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to see if it makes sense to take advantage of new features, including conversion rate optimization tools, SEO capabilities, and other marketing functions that may not have existed when you originally developed your site.
Adjusting Site Structure Based on Real-World Feedback
No matter how thoroughly you plan your site’s structure before launch, reality rarely matches theory once “the rubber hits the road.” User behavior, feedback, and site analytics collected post-launch offer valuable insights into how people actually interact with your site. This real-world data often reveals unforeseen pain points or opportunities that your initial planning couldn’t predict.
For example, if you notice that your visitors aren’t making it to a particular page on your website, that could indicate a problem with the information architecture. In turn, this means that critical content that might otherwise be helpful to your visitors isn’t being seen or — more importantly — acted upon.
As a prominent usability expert, Jakob Nielsen has frequently emphasized that true usability improvements happen when you iterate based on observed user behavior. Continuous testing and real-world feedback are crucial to refining your site’s architecture and design.
Action Step: Regularly review analytics and user feedback with your web team. Identify areas where you can simplify the site’s layout or navigation, better organize content, or make calls-to-action clearer, potentially by using tree testing. Then, work together to implement incremental changes that support your business goals.
Is It Time to Get Back in Touch with Your Web Team?
The answer is simple: Yes! Regular checkups with your team can help identify issues with your site’s IA, refresh and revamp existing content, ensure your brand maintains cohesion and familiarity with visitors, and proactively solve problems before they grow.
Consistent communication with your web team is a proactive approach to digital stewardship. By meeting regularly — be it monthly, quarterly, or at another cadence that fits your business needs — you can:
- Keep your information architecture logical and your user experience smooth
- Prevent design elements from drifting off-brand.
- Maintain accessible, high-performing content optimized for users and search engines.
- Stay ahead of the technology curve by learning about new tools and features.
- Continuously refine your site based on real-world user feedback.
Ultimately, this ongoing collaboration ensures that your website remains a dynamic, user-centered platform that supports your organization’s long-term objectives.
Next Steps
By following the guidance of experts like Nielsen Norman Group, W3C, and other thought leaders, you not only maintain a robust, future-proof web presence but also foster stronger relationships with the people who bring that presence to life — your web team.
At Getfused, we’re here to help. As your creative marketing agency on record, we can produce and maintain an IA that will stand the test of time. Get in touch today to get started!
