Defining, implementing and managing website standards

Website standards are the library of standards specified by an organization to govern the content, function and appearance of their web estate. Managed effectively, they deliver tangible performance and operational benefits, and are powerful tools for regulating the process of website creation and publication. However, defining, implementing and managing website standards presents organizations with common logistical challenges.

A best practice framework

Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 124 provides a best practice framework to help organizations deploy website standards efficiently and harness their full potential. This best practice framework is of value for anyone who manages, or has responsibility for, a website or a multi-site web estate. It will guide web developers and content creators and it will improve the experience of the website visitor. For organizations that are considering or planning to develop website standards, it will give them a head start. Overall it helps organizations to successfully utilize their website to support their online goals.

Quality and compliance management

Safeguard takes care of the quality & compliance management for your online presence. It manages your company's website standards and PAS 124 best practice framework and it makes it effective for your online presence in order to achieve your online marketing objectives.

Safeguard automatically scans every page of all of your sites to reveal quality issues, from usability rules to brand guidelines and SEO best practices presented on a dashboard. What would take thousands of hours to do manually, Safeguard does in a fraction of the time, including reports that make things simple and actionable for managers, editors and technical teams.

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Download the Introduction to PAS 124 website standards

Best practice approach

PAS 124 has been prepared by the British Standards Institute (BSI), in collaboration with Magus and a panel of industry experts (e.g. SDL), to establish a best practice approach to website standards.

Defining website standards

The standards should aim to be as comprehensive as possible, and specify how the organization's websites should meet a broad spectrum of criteria, including: brand, legal, behavioural and functional criteria. In parallel, organizations should also define the processes involved for meeting, managing and maintaining the standards.

Implementing website standards

The implementation phase covers the deployment of standards via website templates, and the build and population of new websites through to launch. A key determinant of the implementation of standards will be the organization's publication framework.

Managing website standards

An organization's website standards require ongoing management. For standards to succeed it is important to establish a clear governance structure, and to define a standards management process, in particular addressing ownership and responsibility for the standards.

Guide to the key categories of website standards

Website standards should include both organizationally defined standards (e.g. brand and editorial standards), and standards specified by external agencies, such as governments and official standards bodies (e.g. legal and accessibility standards).

Download the Introduction to PAS 124 website standards