Manage your own website without a developer

A new campaign is starting. The copy is ready, the visuals have been chosen, the call to action is in place. Now the landing page still needs to be built, and for that you depend on a developer with a full schedule. The campaign starts in three days. Sound familiar? Then it is time to manage your own website. In this article you will read what your marketing team should be able to do itself, how to set that up safely and where the limit lies.

Why is dependence on development a problem?

Dependence on development is a problem because every small change has to join a queue. In many organisations the website is the domain of IT or an external party. Marketing may submit requests, but not make changes itself. Every text change, new page or banner becomes a ticket.

The reasons are understandable. Nobody wants something to break by accident. But the consequences are significant. Marketing cannot respond quickly to what is happening. A test with a new headline becomes a project instead of an experiment. Content goes stale because updating it is too much hassle. And developers spend time on text changes instead of on work where their expertise is really needed.

What should your marketing team be able to do itself?

Your marketing team should be able to do everything that concerns content. Editing copy, publishing blog articles, replacing images, adding case studies and testimonials, updating team members, placing a banner for a promotion. And putting together landing pages for campaigns themselves, based on predefined building blocks.

These are not technical tasks, but content management. And content management belongs with the people who are responsible for the content.

What do you gain by managing your own website?

Managing it yourself mainly brings speed, ownership and room to test.

Speed. No tickets and no coordinating schedules. What needs to happen today, happens today.

Ownership. A team that has control over the site itself pays more attention to it. That leads to more up-to-date content and better results.

Room to test. A different headline, a different order, a different image. When testing is easy, it actually happens.

Focus for development. Developers work on new features, integrations and technical improvements instead of small text changes.

How do you keep self-management safe?

You keep self-management safe with structure rather than restriction. The fear that someone will break something is justified if the site is not set up for it. Five measures make the difference.

Separation between content and structure. Editing content is something different from changing the structure of the site. Content editors work within existing templates, without being able to change those templates themselves.

A system of building blocks. Instead of a free hand, the team gets a set of components made by design and development to work well together. Marketing combines them into pages that always stay on brand.

Review before publication. Changes are checked before they go live, by the person who made them or by a colleague.

Roles and permissions. Not everyone needs to be able to publish. Editing and publishing can be separate permissions.

Explanation. A short training on how the CMS works and what the agreements are. Most people work perfectly well within boundaries when they understand those boundaries.

How does self-management work in Webflow?

In Webflow, self-management works through a separate editing environment for content editors, apart from the environment in which the site is built. Content editors edit copy, replace images, manage CMS items such as blog articles and case studies and publish changes. They cannot accidentally change the layout or the code. You can read more about the platform on our Webflow page.

For landing pages we prepare components and page templates. The team picks a layout, fills in the content and publishes. That way you combine freedom for content with protection of the structure. When we build a marketing website, this is a starting point for us, not an extra.

Where does the limit lie?

The limit lies between what is on the site and how the site works. If it is about content, marketing can do it. If it is about how things work, it is work for development.

New page types or templates are design and build work. That happens once, after which the team can get started with them. Structural changes, such as adjusting the navigation or rearranging the homepage, deserve an extra pair of eyes. And integrations, such as forms to your CRM or setting up tracking, are technical work. Do you regularly need help with questions like these without hiring a developer yourself? That is what content support is for.

How do you make an existing website suitable for self-management?

You make an existing website suitable for self-management by looking at how it is currently built. Sometimes it is enough to clean up the CMS structure, turn loose sections into components and train the team. Sometimes the site is built in such a way that every page is unique and every change requires technical knowledge. Then a bigger overhaul or a new site is the logical step.

Weigh the investment against what the current situation costs: the time marketing loses waiting, the campaigns that start later and the content that stays out of date.

Where do you start?

Start with an honest inventory. Which changes does your team request most often? How long does it take before they are live? And what would change if the team could make those changes itself? Want to know what that looks like for your site? Get in touch.