It might seem like an obvious statement to anyone who understands the power of brands, but the minute a brand is put online it is all too often left to roam free, ungoverned by the same discipline we would expect in the offline world.
Why? The web is a publication channel that can be difficult to control, especially for global corporations. Most companies struggle to retain order online, firefighting errors and inconsistencies on a daily basis. And because they don’t have good visibility about what’s actually out there on their websites, most problems are only identified and corrected long after the damage has been done.
The penalties for poor management are high: damage to the brand and reputation, loss of revenue and customer loyalty, operating inefficiencies and the risk of litigation.
To address these risks, companies are becoming increasingly aware of the need for web standards and for more effective processes for managing and enforcing those standards.
Web standards typically cover:
- Brand and presentation standards – the creative representation of the brand
- Infrastructure standards – the technology
- Accessibility standards – ensuring the website works for those with disabilities
- Legal standards – IP protection, privacy and data protection
- Search engine optimisation standards
- Usability standards – incorporating best practice usability to optimise the visitor experience
It is important to remember that web standards are not just a matter for the technology team. If you care about your brand, you need to care about web standards too. Effective management of these standards yields tangible business benefits including:
- Protection of the brand and company reputation
- A consistently high quality user experience
- Managing online risk
- Protecting investment in web-related projects
- Reduced costs and time to market for new projects as well as ongoing management
- Formal mechanisms for enforcing best practice
- Measurable performance
- Communication of best practice across web teams
Despite the importance and advantages of getting it right, the effective implementation and management of web standards is still largely found only in early adopters’, as the process is viewed as too complex to manage by many companies.
What is needed is a simple guide to web standards and how to put them into practice. Magus is currently working with the BSI British Standards to produce an independent Publicly Available Specification on “Defining, implementing and managing organisational web standards”, PAS 124. It will address the issues mentioned above and provide a clear framework to help organisations apply standards effectively to improve online performance and protect the integrity of their brands.
PAS 124 will be available in early 2008. In the meantime here are some hints for marketers on how to use standards to effectively manage their brand online:
1. Understand the medium. Online brand standards are about more than just fonts and colours. A website is an immersive experience of your brand and your standards should cover everything which contributes to that including usability, editorial, SEO, legal and technical standards.
2. Establish governance procedures. There needs to be a central body which will monitor, support, and if necessary, enforce standards. This is no different to how you manage your offline brand of course.
3. Communicate with your web editors. Maintain dialogue with your editors so they are always up to date.
4. Define your standards clearly. Avoid ambiguity when you document your standards. Give people clear rules which are easy to follow. Ensure your standards are created by someone who understands the web.
5. Explain the benefits of following standards.
6. Standardise code wherever possible. This will give you more control over your website quality and save time and money by preventing similar code being developed repeatedly.
7. Keep your standards guidelines up to date. Any change in your web standards needs to be in all the places your editors look to for guidance.
8. Measure web standards compliance regularly. You need to establish some mechanism for monitoring whether standards are being followed and communicating issues with the web editors. Given the sheer scale of this task it is advisable to automate the process and Magus ActiveStandards can help here.
9. Make sure the main “.com” site accurately follows your web guidelines. There’s nothing more confusing for your web editors than your flagship website not following standards.
10. Take standards contraventions seriously wherever they are. Your web editors will find it easier to copy peer websites than read guidelines; so bad practice has a nasty habit of repeating itself right across your web presence.
