Website and Optimisation Manager

County Hall, Newport, agile across council locations and home working

Grade 13, £46,772.00 to £50,251.00 per annum

Contact: For further information or an informal discussion, please contact Jenifer Davis at 01983 821000 or Jenifer.Davis@iow.gov.uk.

Vacancy Reference: 2023_235

Closing Date: 02/02/2024

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours: 37 per week

In this pivotal new role, you’ll apply your expertise and experience to shape the council’s approach to its 30+ websites. You’ll provide advice to senior leadership, council services and partners on the strategic management, development and delivery of our Website and digital agenda, taking the lead on:

- Customer journey
- Content
- Digital Accessibility
- Platform, Data driven decision making
- Statutory compliance
- Best practice

You’ll hold the key to digital transformation and accessibility, leading on decisions which affect how our residents interact with the council, opening the door to a more available, cost effective service, 24/7.

As an experienced and skilled individual, you’ll provide digital insights that will inform our approach to digital developments and ensure that decision making is based on solid analytical information.

The work you undertake with us will be immensely rewarding, making significant difference to services covering vital aspects of Island life, from Adult Social Care and Childrens Services to regeneration activities and environment considerations.

If you want a job where you will have impact, where you are valued and where you can make a difference, then join us at TeamIWC where you’ll see the benefits of your hard work coming to life all around you.

People management will be key in this role as you’ll be leading a fantastic team of staff, and working collaboratively with others from across the business.

As Website and Optimisation Manager you’ll directly support the ‘digital experience’ team, be a point of contact and guidance for our team of over 20 content superusers as well as those who maintain individual service websites across the council. You’ll provide advice and examples of best practice, compliance and innovation, along with the enthusiasm needed to grow and develop digital skills and solutions organisation wide.

You’ll enable our ‘digital experience’ team to manage day-to-day upkeep of council websites, ensuring site availability 24/7, including creating and amending pages as required, resolving issues, commissioning technical support where required and ensuring web content is tagged with correct metadata for SEO, dynamic content delivery models, and effective data layer set up to increase ease of customer use. Your digital marketing experience will be key in helping the organisation effectively promote and develop its digital facing services, with landing page optimisation and conversion rate top of mind - you’ll embed a more commercial mindset into our everyday content creation.

Plus, you’ll provide leadership to the ‘digital experience’ team as they deliver day-to-day website management alongside a rolling programme of iterative review and transformative change, using appropriate project methodology to afford good governance and effective delivery.

For a full breakdown of the duties of the position and the skills required, please download the job summary attached to this page, but key focus will include:

- Identification, prioritisation and development of key web developments, to bring significant benefit to both customer and council.
- Compile strategic outline business cases for large scale website business improvements.
- Understand commercial need and implement digital marketing strategies to support service need/growth.
- Build strong relationships with comms, ICT and senior service managers to improve transactional business processes and website digital cultural change.
- Identify opportunities to streamline, improve and adapt existing and future website connected digital functionality.
- Lead on digital accessibility, undertaking research, coaching, training and guidance to services, complying with statutory obligations.
- Drive forward digital accessibility compliance against statutory duties and ensure all council websites are accessible to everyone.
- Lead on search engine optimisation (SEO) programmes that will maximise opportunities across all sections of the council’s websites.
- Embed the use of web analytics data council wide and identify, analyse and recommend tools to improve user experience, conversion rates and data capture.

In your application we will be looking for evidence of your experience of successful working in this field, including reference to the following:

- Your experience in strategy, management, and production experience for websites
- Your experience of the full marketing mix from awareness to conversion
- Demonstrating a strong knowledge of GDPR, digital accessibility legislation and WCAG
- Strong strategic and operational awareness of a multi-channel design and delivery
- Experience in improving processes/customer journey through use of digital functionality

The Isle of Wight Council offers a fantastic work environment with a range of services and tools to ensure you make the most of your career. You will be supported you in your goals, with direct access to strong leadership and management support and investment in your career with a wealth of learning and development opportunities available to you. As well as being a great place to work, we also offer a competitive reward and benefit package.

For further information or an informal discussion, please contact Jenifer Davis at 01983 821000 or Jenifer.Davis@iow.gov.uk.

When you join #TeamIWC you'll receive our staff benefits package, including:

- Annual leave entitlement of 32 days p/a PLUS public holidays!

• Local Government pension scheme

• Discounted Solent ferry travel

• Island bus network discount

• Cycle to work scheme

• Staff parking permit scheme

• Discounted island sports & leisure gym membership

• National and local discounts & benefits schemes

For some vacancies (subject to criteria)

• A relocation scheme of up to £8,000 may be available if you are specifically relocating to the Isle of Wight to take up a new role with us

• If you choose to commute to the Isle of Wight daily, you may be eligible to have some travel costs reimbursed

The Isle of Wight Council protects its employees from discrimination and this is supported by the Unacceptable Behaviour Policy, Employee Code of Conduct and Behaviours Framework. We actively promote the diversity of our workforce and we provide flexible working options (where appropriate) to support the different needs of our employees.

The Isle of Wight Council’s Terms & Conditions of employment are available upon request. Please contact our recruitment team via adverts@iow.gov.uk if you would like to receive a copy.

The Isle of Wight Council is an equal opportunities employer, who is proud to encourage applications from all cultures, backgrounds and abilities to better reflect the diversity within our local community. In addition to this, we are also a Disability Confident Employer. Along with a number of other areas of commitments, this means that providing you meet the basic essential requirements of the advertised role and have declared yourself as disabled, you will be offered an opportunity for an interview within the council.

If you have difficulty completing your online application or if you need further information about how to apply, telephone 01983 823134 or email callcentre@iow.gov.uk. Please note only applications completed and submitted online by the closing date will be accepted.

We often receive a high volume of applicants for our vacancies. If you do not hear from the recruiting manager within three weeks of the closing date, we regret that your application will not have been successful on this occasion. If unsuccessful, we actively encourage you to revisit our job pages and apply to alternate posts that may be suitable.

Closing Date: 2 February 2024