Why stakeholder engagement is crucial for website redesign and content strategy success

When it comes to redesigning a website, having a solid content strategy, and executing on the content strategy, different stakeholders within the organization must be engaged and consulted to ensure success of the project and to ensure effective governance.

Diverse perspectives

You’ll get diverse perspectives when you engage stakeholders. You need these perspectives when doing the heavy lift of a website redesign or a content redesign. Coworkers, staff, employees, managers, directors, and executives all hold viewpoints on what the content should do. You’ll find out things you didn’t know (as well as complaints you’ve heard before). Hearing these ideas can lead to a more innovative solution or approach, as well as a more comprehensive view of business and user needs.

Alignment with business goals

Stakeholders bring their business needs and goals to the table, and help ensure that the redesign takes into account their needs. On the flip side, stakeholders don’t always know why websites or content are redesigned. They may need to be informed on how the website and its content support the business goals. You may want to reduce calls to the support line. You might want to educate customers on product offerings. You may want to convert visitors into leads. 

When you expose coworkers to the business goals and learn about what they are trying to achieve for the company, the website and its content can work even harder to support the organization and help it succeed.

Start on user-centered design

Stakeholders can give you the first information about your users. Many sales people, support staff, and call centre staff hear complaints or questions about the website, the content, the service, or the product. This can give you valuable feedback on usability and user experience. Then you can use the user research portion of the project to discover what website users need. This research feeds into content needs, content gaps, personas, user journeys, and can provide valuable reflection for the stakeholders. 

Improved communication and collaboration

In grammar school, were you ever the last picked for the kickball team? Were you ever the one on the outside and knew something was going on but no one would tell you? This still happens in the workplace. People often don’t mean to be exclusive; it often happens because coworkers are overworked and don’t have time to do everything. Or they simply don’t know who all is involved or interested in the work.

Everyone likes being involved. Everyone likes to have the opportunity to decide if they need to be involved in a project or not. Engaging stakeholders fosters better communication and collaboration throughout the project. Stakeholders can become project champions, can talk about the project at the water cooler, and help spread the word. This can lead to a smoother design and development process with happier stakeholders.

Risk mitigation

One main way to mitigate risk is to improve communication and collaboration. Involving stakeholders early and throughout the redesign process helps identify and address potential issues. This can save time and resources in the long run.

It is easier to adjust something earlier in the process rather than adjust it after it has been implemented. It’s easier to redraw a wireframe or adjust a site map. It’s a lot less work than re-coding a website visual design or adjusting how the navigation functions.

Ownership and buy-in

When stakeholders are involved, they are more likely to appreciate the effort involved in the work, feel a sense of ownership in their part of the project, and support the outcome. This can lead to greater support and enthusiasm for the redesigned website and content once it is launched. A lot of decisions happen during the life of a website project, and not all of them lead to ideal outcomes. Sharing the process with stakeholders gives them insight into the level of difficulty of the project and appreciation for the work done.

In essence, stakeholder engagement is about making sure that the redesign is not only aesthetically pleasing but also functional, effective, and aligned with the needs and goals of the organization and its users.