Changing a phone number on one website is a small job. Across a group of connected websites, it can turn into a hunt through contact pages, service summaries, old announcements and footer details. Miss one copy and visitors may find conflicting answers.
The same applies to service areas, project status, audience descriptions and links. The hard part is remembering every page that repeats the information.
Website content ownership identifies where the current version of a fact is kept, who confirms it and which pages need checking when it changes. A small business can manage this with a short shared record rather than a complicated publishing system.
Choose an authoritative page for each important fact
Start by deciding which website owns each type of information. A parent website may own the list of current brands and the group story. A specialist website should usually own the current detail about its own service, product or community. Contact information may belong to each brand rather than a single group-wide page.
You can still repeat useful information, but each repeated fact needs one source. Anyone checking a claim knows where to look first.
On MightyGroup.net, the Our Brands page lists the current MightyGroupUK family and links to the relevant specialist websites. The parent site provides the overview; each brand website carries the detail for its audience.
Keep a shared information register
A spreadsheet or simple document is enough. Record the facts that are most likely to cause confusion or wasted enquiries if they become stale.
- the information itself, such as a telephone number, service area or project status
- its authoritative page
- the person responsible for confirming a change
- other pages where the information appears
- the event that should trigger a review
- the date it was last checked
Do not try to catalogue every sentence. Start with information that affects whether someone contacts you, makes a purchase, signs up or understands what is available. That keeps the register short enough to maintain.
Name an individual owner
“The team looks after it” is not clear ownership. Give each important item a named owner and, where sensible, a backup. The owner does not need to make every website edit personally. Their job is to confirm the correct information and make sure every affected page is updated.
When several people can edit content, each may assume someone else has checked the parent summary, specialist page and contact route. A named owner can confirm the correct information and verify that the pages agree.
Use change triggers as well as review dates
Quarterly or annual reviews can catch outdated information, but they will not help when a change needs to appear today. Add checks to the process that changes the information.
When a telephone number changes, check contact pages and footers. A change to a service area means checking the main service page, related summaries and enquiry wording. If a project moves from development to live, update the parent portfolio and project website, then review any announcement that still calls it unfinished.
The Government Digital Service’s guidance on managing existing GOV.UK content is written for government publishers. It covers content audits, regular monitoring, review dates, factual corrections and retiring outdated material. A smaller organisation can use a simpler register while applying those checks.
Update the source first, then check every dependency
Make the change at the authoritative source before editing summaries elsewhere. That prevents a parent page or old article from becoming the accidental source of a newer claim.
Then work through the dependent locations in the register. Check the public result rather than assuming that a saved edit is visible. Open the page, read the changed wording, test the link and check the mobile view if the change affects navigation or contact details.
Use judgement with older news posts. A dated article may accurately record what was true when published, so changing it could distort the record. If readers could mistake the old information for a current offer, add an update or link to the authoritative page.
A short checklist for every shared update
- Confirm the new fact with its owner.
- Change the authoritative page.
- Find every dependent page in the register.
- Update current summaries and contact routes.
- Check whether older material could mislead readers about the current position.
- Open the public pages and verify the wording and links.
- Record the check and close the task.
The News & Updates page follows the same division: group developments appear there, while specialist guidance stays on the brand websites.
Start with the facts that would cause the most confusion if they were wrong. Assign each one to an authoritative page and name the person responsible for its next update.