Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Web Specialist

🎯 Role Definition

The Web Specialist is a cross-functional practitioner who owns the technical and content-driven elements of an organization's web presence. Acting as a bridge between marketing, product, design and engineering teams, this role executes front-end development tasks, manages CMS implementations, optimizes pages for search and performance (SEO, Core Web Vitals), configures analytics and tracking (Google Analytics, GTM), and drives incremental improvements through data-informed A/B testing and UX refinements. The ideal candidate balances hands-on coding (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) with strategic digital skills like on-page SEO, accessibility (WCAG), and conversion optimization to improve traffic, engagement and conversions.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Web Developer / Front‑End Developer
Digital Marketing Coordinator / SEO Coordinator
Content Manager or Marketing Specialist with web responsibilities

Advancement To:

Senior Web Specialist / Lead Web Developer
Web Manager / Digital Experience Manager
Head of Web / Director of Web & Digital Experience
Product Manager (Web/Platform)

Lateral Moves:

UX / UI Designer
SEO Specialist / Paid Search Manager
Content Strategy or Marketing Operations

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead front-end development for marketing and product pages, writing clean, semantic HTML5, modern CSS (including Flexbox/Grid) and vanilla JavaScript or framework-friendly scripts to implement responsive, mobile-first layouts that meet business requirements.
Manage CMS (WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore or equivalent) templates, themes and plugin configurations: create, update and optimize page templates, custom fields, and content components to support scalable editorial workflows.
Implement and maintain on-page SEO best practices, including meta tags, canonicalization, XML sitemaps, structured data (JSON-LD), hreflang, and internal linking strategies to improve organic search visibility.
Configure and maintain web analytics and tag management systems (Google Analytics 4, Universal Analytics, Google Tag Manager) to ensure accurate event tracking, conversion tracking and data-driven decision making.
Optimize site performance and Core Web Vitals by auditing and addressing render-blocking resources, lazy-loading assets, compressing and modernizing images, implementing efficient caching and working with CDNs to reduce Time to First Byte and Largest Contentful Paint.
Conduct A/B and multivariate testing through experimentation platforms (Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize or similar), design test hypotheses with stakeholders, implement variations, and analyze results to increase conversion rates and engagement.
Maintain cross-browser and cross-device compatibility, performing QA on modern and legacy browsers, resolving layout regressions, and ensuring consistent UX across desktop, tablet and mobile.
Ensure web accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA or higher) by implementing semantic markup, ARIA attributes, keyboard support, color contrast fixes and running audits with tools like Axe, WAVE, or Lighthouse; collaborate with design and content teams to remediate issues.
Build and integrate front-end components that consume RESTful or GraphQL APIs, handling data hydration, error states and client-side caching while ensuring efficient network usage and security.
Implement and manage deployment workflows for web assets, using version control (Git), CI/CD pipelines, staging environments and rollback procedures to minimize release risks and improve release velocity.
Troubleshoot production incidents, debug JavaScript/CSS issues, analyze server response behavior, work with DevOps/engineering to resolve performance or uptime issues and participate in on-call rotations as required.
Maintain and document technical specifications, runbooks and component libraries (Storybook or design systems) to promote reuse, consistency and faster onboarding for new features.
Collaborate with UX/UI designers to translate wireframes and prototypes into accessible, performant front-end code while providing feedback on feasibility, technical constraints and performance implications.
Drive content migrations and large-scale site restructures (replatforming, taxonomy changes), plan redirects and URL mapping strategies to preserve SEO value and minimize traffic loss.
Monitor site health with uptime, performance and security monitoring tools, triage alerts, and coordinate remediation for issues such as broken links, form failures or security vulnerabilities.
Implement client-side and server-side caching strategies, optimize asset delivery (preload, prefetch, critical CSS), and reduce payload sizes to enhance page speed and user experience.
Execute image and media optimization strategies including responsive images (srcset), modern formats (WebP/AVIF), and lazy loading to reduce bandwidth and improve page load times.
Integrate marketing pixels, social tags and affiliate tracking while ensuring privacy compliance (GDPR/CCPA) and coordinating with legal/privacy teams to maintain consent frameworks.
Collaborate with content authors and marketing teams to optimize landing pages, create performance-driven templates, and maintain a content governance model that ensures quality and measurement alignment.
Analyze user behavior via session recordings, heatmaps and funnel analysis tools (Hotjar, FullStory) to identify friction points and propose prioritized improvements.
Lead or participate in discovery sessions and sprint planning to scope web initiatives, estimate effort, define acceptance criteria, and manage delivery of iterative enhancements.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Provide training and best-practice guidance to content editors and marketing teams on CMS workflows, accessibility and SEO fundamentals.
Assist with vendor evaluation and management for third-party services such as CDNs, tagging solutions, and testing platforms.
Maintain and update internal documentation and knowledge base articles for common troubleshooting steps and standard operating procedures.
Participate in security reviews and help implement basic hardening practices for public-facing web assets.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expert HTML5, semantic markup and modern CSS (Flexbox, Grid, responsive techniques).
Proficient JavaScript (ES6+), DOM manipulation and familiarity with front-end frameworks/libraries (React, Vue, or similar).
Strong experience with CMS platforms (WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Contentful) including templating and plugin/module management.
Web performance optimization techniques: image optimization, code splitting, lazy loading, caching, and CDN configuration.
SEO technical skills: structured data (Schema.org/JSON-LD), canonical URL handling, hreflang, redirects and sitemap management.
Analytics and tracking: Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, event-based tracking and dataLayer implementation.
A/B testing and experimentation platforms (Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize) and statistical result interpretation.
Accessibility standards and remediation (WCAG 2.1 AA), ARIA, and assistive technology testing.
Version control (Git), CI/CD basics and deployment best practices for web projects.
Familiarity with REST/GraphQL APIs, JSON, and integrating front-end components with back-end services.
Basic understanding of HTTP, caching headers, SSL/TLS, and security best practices for web applications.
Experience with diagnostic and audit tools: Lighthouse, WebPageTest, Chrome DevTools, and monitoring tools.
Familiarity with server-side languages or templating engines (PHP, Node.js, Liquid) as used in CMS customization.
Experience with performance and user behavior tools (Hotjar, FullStory, New Relic, Sentry).

Soft Skills

Strong written and verbal communication for translating technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
Analytical mindset with the ability to interpret data and translate insights into actionable web improvements.
Detail-oriented and quality-driven, with a focus on maintainable, well-documented implementations.
Excellent collaboration skills to work across product, design, marketing and engineering teams.
Project and time management skills to prioritize tasks, manage multiple releases and meet deadlines.
Problem-solving and troubleshooting orientation, able to diagnose complex issues under time pressure.
Customer and conversion-focused, constantly looking to improve user journeys and KPIs.
Adaptability and continuous learning mindset to keep up with evolving web standards and tools.
Stakeholder management and the ability to influence decisions without direct authority.
Coaching and training skills to support content teams and junior web practitioners.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Web Development, Digital Design, Marketing, Communications, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in a technical or design discipline plus certifications in web technologies, SEO, analytics or accessibility (e.g., Google Analytics Individual Qualification, Accessibility certification).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Web Development / Front-End Engineering
Interaction Design / UX Design
Digital Marketing / Communications
Information Architecture

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years of hands-on web development and CMS experience in a professional environment.

Preferred: 3–7 years with demonstrated ownership of marketing or product web properties, experience with SEO strategy implementation, analytics governance, A/B testing programs, and a history of measurable improvements to site performance, traffic or conversion metrics.