Content management systems are now evolving faster than ever. It covers all content, such as video, audio, and images. However, every website needs web content managers to control and manage these digital documents.
They will realize them vividly and creatively to bring a sense of excitement to the viewers. To maintain these jobs, content managers must possess many skills.
To help you better understand this profession, I will describe the job, related skills, and qualifications required for you to advance quickly in your career.
Continue reading this article for more details!
Job Description
What is a Web Content Manager?
A web content manager is responsible for creating, composing, organizing, editing, and publishing content. They also manage websites, videos, images, posts, and marketing content. The web content manager will self-regulate or act as a coordinator who oversees projects involving other departments.
Your work is managerial and has a lot to do with audience tastes. So, you need to have website reader insights and test the content before publishing them.
If you want to work smoothly, you must link up with organizational departments to deliver valuable content to users.
Duties and Responsibilities
Each job has its duties and responsibilities; the same is web content managers. You must perform them skillfully to maintain your position in the profession.
Here are the main tasks that a web content manager will handle.
- Control all articles.
- Work with editors
- CMS Management
- Check the content to find errors.
- Develop website-related policies
- Update Javascript, HTML, and CSS on the website
- Create a visual map that helps your associates understand the site
Where Do Web Content Managers Work?
You can work in an office or company if you are a web content manager.
You must work from 9 a.m to 5 p.m for meetings, presentations, reports, website creation, and client meetings. Sometimes, to launch new websites, you may have to handle continuous work tasks with many hours, including weekends.
Besides full-time office work, you can choose web content as a part-time job to support and interact with many companies. They will hire you short-term to support a specific project.
Depending on the company, the work will be divided differently. Large and multinational corporations build many departments, so you only take on a particular position. It may be the manager coordinating other departments.
If you work in small establishments, you’ll typically take on quite a lot of work. Although it causes difficulties and challenges, they help you gain experience working independently on computers.
Education Requirements
Education requirements are a prerequisite for employers to select candidates. It is essential for your career path. Refer to the information below to prepare for your interview for education training, work experience, and certifications.
Education & Training
Employers often require applicants to have a bachelor’s degree in majors such as communications, journalism, English, or areas related to writing.
Some companies still recruit people with college degrees or outside courses. Of course, to achieve perfect performance, even experienced managers need to attend short-term training to update new knowledge.
Work Experience
Any employer prefers to choose employees with a lot of work experience. So, fresh graduates often need help finding a suitable position.
If you need to gain experience in management, you can refer to software that supports utilities such as WordPress or Drupal.
These can help you more quickly and conveniently to control article quality, measure content effectiveness, and handle errors.
Also, as a student, you should actively seek opportunities to collaborate with web development teams to add teamwork and coding audit skills to your CV.
You can apply for admin positions on university websites. Besides, please be interested in part-time positions or internships in small companies. Although the job may be short-term, you will undoubtedly gain practical experience.
Certifications
Although the certificate is optional for web content managers, we recommend taking short courses, giving you a better chance of competing with other experienced candidates.
Plus, systems management, SEO, and content audit certifications can help beginners feel more confident with their professional skill set.
Essential Skills
Web content management is a highly competitive profession with constant updates from the browser platform. So, if you want to work long-term with further development in this field, you must prepare yourself with essential hard and soft skills.
Hard Skills
- Writing skills: Because the job is mainly related to the content, mastering the outline and writing content is the minimum requirement for a content manager. Once in a higher position, you can use this skill of yours to oversee and regulate the editor or writer.
- Web design skills: Content managers do not require fluency in HTML or Java. Yet, getting acquainted and practicing the above skills helps you create a logical website interface that should attract more readers.
Soft Skills
- Marketing skills: You need to be responsible for activities such as promoting, presenting the website, and creating campaigns for the company. You will not gain this experience from the theoretical lessons. Besides, you must learn from successful people and draw expertise.
- Communication skills: If you hold some higher position, you will go directly to your customers or partners. Clever words and proper courtesy in your communication are the criteria for customers to use your website or services. Besides, you must communicate well with associates for teamwork to run smoothly and achieve peak performance.
- Management skills: skills to help you organize, direct and manage departments or associates to help projects go according to plan.
Essential Tools
Many CMS tools are available today, which can be seen as opportunities and challenges for web content managers. Although they have more essential tool options, picking the best ones takes work.
- You need to define your website’s goals to make the right choice.
- Next, you’ll see CMS usability and editing.
- Finally, pay attention to the support policy and the tool’s price.
The right essential tools will significantly help your best campaign. Here are the top 5 essential tools that can help web content managers complete their work.
- WordPress
- Hubspot
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Bolt
Job Outlook
A web content manager has a lot of small tasks to complete on your website. You will not succeed in leaps and bounds, but you must keep trying to learn daily.
Inexperienced people often start as content assistants for a simple company blog or website. Once you’ve worked continuously for several years, you’ll take on the coordinator role.
When you have more experience in contacting and adapting to the job, you can manage the entire website, create and edit content and deliver meaningful content to hit the user’s psychology to attract customers.
Now you’ll work more with partners and test the site you’ve created. Also, after many years, you can climb to marketing director and coordinator, managing digital marketing projects and strategic planning.
Although to get to this senior position, it will take you many years to accumulate experience and particular skills. However, web content manager is a job with a good outlook now and for many years to come.
We live in the digital age, and almost everyone likes to use websites related to entertainment, news, and e-commerce. So, if you have skills in this field, you will always avoid unemployment or underemployment.
Salary
A web content manager’s salary mainly depends on education, core, and interpersonal skills. You will receive different income levels in various positions, job descriptions, and companies.
On average, the annual salary of a web content manager is $70,500. Meanwhile, experienced candidates can earn $122,000 annually. They may also receive some extra allowance for business travel or bonuses.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Let’s check out the pros and cons of becoming a web content manager.
- High creative potential
- Short study time
- High salary
- Innovation opportunity
- Flexible working environment
- Stressful
- Lots of work time
FAQs
A career as competitive and complex as a web content manager is subject to many questions. Below are some answers to the frequently asked questions.
Do content managers write content?
As shared, content managers create, manage, edit, publish, and write new content for their websites.
Is the content manager an excellent job?
The content manager is an excellent job for those who love creativity and writing. It brings highly high job opportunities at present.
However, if you prefer to avoid creative work but instead do repetitive work that follows many rules, being a content manager is a big obstacle.
What makes a great content manager?
The key things that make up a great content manager are detail orientation, clear goals, creativity, marketability, SEO, and web browsing knowledge.
The above factors help you become more developed and stand in the profession.
Is marketing a content manager?
Marketing is a field that encompasses many different professions. Marketing is responsible for building and planning promotional strategies to attract customers. A content manager is also considered a part of marketing.
How do I prepare for a content manager interview?
Here are the steps to prepare for a content manager interview:
- Research for the company
- Read job descriptions carefully and understand their requirements
- Know SEO and content marketing
- Understand the target audience of the company
- Know the social platforms
- Build a long-term plan for yourself with the profession
- Prepare questions for the interview
How can I improve my content management skills?
You can totally improve your content manager skills by joining professional organizations and taking short content manager courses.
Are content managers in demand?
The content manager is a job that is rapidly increasing and attracting human resources. There is more need for entertainment and information viewers, so the production and management of websites are essential.
How do I train to be a content manager?
To become a content manager, a prerequisite is to have a university degree, college degree, or industry-related certificate. You will practice copywriting and small-scale blogging. After getting used to it, you move to a prominent position.
How do I manage content on my website?
Here are steps to manage content on my website:
- Website Backup
- Web speed test
- Click through a private web
- Download a program that notifies you if the site is down
Career Advice
With the vigorous development of the internet, website content management is essential. So, web content manager will always be a job that requires excellent human resources in the coming years.
With unlimited income and many other advantages, web content manager is a job you should pursue if it suits your personality and interests.
The above information will help you in the career selection process.
Thank you for reading!