Webmaster Job Description Templates for Small Business
Webmaster job description templates for small business: 6 role variants covering hosting, CMS, security, SEO, pay, and overtime classification. Free DOCX.
Webmaster Job Description Templates for Small Business Websites
6 free templates for the company whose website has no owner: full-time generalist, part-time, ecommerce, web administrator, SEO-leaning, and membership site. Download as DOCX.
Every webmaster job description I have found online describes a role at a company that also employs a developer, a designer, a sysadmin, and a content team. That is not why anyone searches for this template. People search for it because their website has no owner, something broke last week, and they finally admitted the arrangement where the founder's nephew has the hosting password is not a plan.
The word webmaster went out of fashion in large companies for a good reason: at scale the job really does split into four specialties. At small company scale it never split, because there was only ever one person. Which is why the title is still exactly right for a business with a website, no IT department, and a domain renewal nobody is tracking.
At FirstHR we write hiring templates for that reader. The six below cover a full-time in-house generalist, a part-time maintainer, an ecommerce store, a server-focused web administrator, a search-leaning hybrid, and a nonprofit or membership site, each with the classification and access notes the generic versions leave out.
TL;DR
A webmaster owns a website end to end: hosting, DNS, certificates, updates, backups, publishing, forms, analytics, and accessibility. Most small business webmasters are non-exempt, because maintenance work fails the computer employee duties test. No BLS occupation matches the title exactly. Six templates below, downloadable as DOCX.
What a Webmaster Actually Owns
A webmaster owns the continuity of a website rather than any one technical specialty. The defining feature of the job is that it never ends: the site has to be up tomorrow, patched next month, and recoverable the day the host has an incident. Projects finish. Maintenance does not.
That distinction matters when you write the posting, because it determines who applies. Candidates who want to build things read a maintenance posting and move on. Candidates who genuinely like keeping systems healthy read a rebuild posting and assume the maintenance work is somebody else's. Say which one you are hiring.
The plumbing
Hosting, DNS, SSL, backups
The domain registrar, the DNS records, the hosting plan, the certificate that expires quietly at 2 a.m., and the backup nobody has ever tested. None of it is visible until it fails, and all of it is the webmaster’s.
The patching
Platform, plugins, themes
Content platforms ship security updates constantly, and an unpatched plugin is the most common way a small business site gets defaced or used to send spam. Someone has to apply updates on a schedule and check nothing broke.
The publishing
Pages, forms, images, links
New service page, updated price list, a form that stopped emailing the sales inbox, a PDF someone needs live by Friday. This is the visible half of the job and the reason the rest of the company knows the role exists.
The measurement
Analytics, speed, search
Analytics and tag setup that actually records a conversion, page speed that does not lose mobile visitors, and search console errors that get resolved rather than ignored. Where the role starts paying for itself.
Decide Which Layers of the Stack Are in Scope
Before you write a word, answer one question: does this person own content only, content plus code, or content plus code plus servers. Content-only is a publishing role and pays like one. Content plus code is the classic small business webmaster. Adding servers turns it into a web administrator with on-call implications and a different pay band. Most bad webmaster postings are bad because they quietly assume all three and budget for one.
Webmaster vs Developer, Designer, and Editor
The webmaster is the generalist, and every neighboring title is a specialist carved out of the same territory. Hiring the wrong one is the most expensive mistake in this category, because the mismatch usually surfaces three months in, when the new hire realizes the job is not what they signed up for.
Where the bottleneck is publishing rather than uptime, the web editor templates describe that job properly. And where the site is self-hosted and the real work sits below the content layer, borrow structure from the network administrator templates.
What Belongs in the Posting
A webmaster posting does four jobs at once: it explains what the site is, it filters out specialists who will be unhappy in a maintenance role, it fixes your legal position on classification and access, and it closes the candidate. Most postings do only the first.
The parts candidates read first
What the site is and what it does for the business
The platform, named exactly, and its age
Traffic or order volume, even roughly
Whether they own it alone or work with an agency
The parts that filter applicants
Which stack layers are in scope: content, code, or servers
On-call or after-hours expectations, stated honestly
Tools they will inherit rather than choose
Documentation and handover expectations
The parts that protect you
FLSA classification decided on duties, not on the title
Essential functions written plainly
Access, confidentiality, and credential handling terms
Equal opportunity statement
The parts that win the hire
Pay or a good-faith range
Autonomy: what they can change without asking
Budget for hosting, tools, and training
A named person and a real deadline to apply
The single most common omission is on-call. Websites break outside business hours, and a candidate who discovers that expectation after starting will leave. Write down what after-hours means at your company, how often it has actually happened, and how it is compensated. Our guide to writing a job description covers the general structure, and the rest of the hiring templates library covers adjacent roles.
6 Webmaster Job Description Templates to Download
Download all six as one file or copy them individually. Each follows the same structure: company overview, position summary, key responsibilities, required qualifications, a classification note, an equal opportunity statement, and how to apply. The bracketed fields are the only parts you need to change.
Download All 6 Webmaster Job Description Templates
Small business generalist, part-time, ecommerce, web administrator, SEO duties, and nonprofit or membership site. All in one download.
Small Business Webmaster
Full-time generalist
The core in-house role: hosting, updates, publishing, forms, analytics, and vendor coordination in one job description.
Part-Time Webmaster
Fixed weekly hours
For the business that needs eight hours a week, not forty, with the scope, response window, and escalation path written down.
Ecommerce Webmaster
Storefront and checkout
For an online store: catalog, checkout testing, payment and shipping integrations, and peak season expectations.
Web Administrator
Servers and security
The technical half: server configuration, certificates, access control, monitoring, backups, and incident response.
Webmaster with SEO Duties
Maintenance plus search
For the site that has to produce leads: technical SEO, publishing, internal linking, and monthly reporting added to maintenance.
Nonprofit / Membership Site
Members, events, donations
For an association or nonprofit: membership modules, event registration, member data protection, and the volunteer question answered.
Template 1: Small Business Webmaster
The core in-house generalist role, covering hosting, updates, publishing, forms, analytics, and vendor coordination in a single job description.
•Keep a written runbook of accounts, renewals, and recovery steps
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years managing a live business website end to end
•Working command of [CMS name] and its plugin or app ecosystem
•Comfortable with HTML and CSS; [JavaScript / PHP / Liquid] a plus
•Understands DNS, hosting, SSL, redirects, and basic site security
•Familiar with analytics and search console tooling
•Writes clearly enough to document what only they currently know
•[Degree / certificate / demonstrated portfolio: set your bar honestly]
CLASSIFICATION NOTE (read before you post)
Do not assume this role is exempt. The FLSA computer employee exemption applies
to systems analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled
workers whose primary duty is systems analysis, program design, or software
development, paid at least the standard salary level on a salary basis or at
least $27.63 per hour. Job titles never determine exemption status. A webmaster
whose day is content updates, plugin patching, ticket triage, and vendor
coordination is generally NOT primarily engaged in systems analysis or
programming, and is therefore non-exempt: hourly, overtime-eligible past forty
hours in a week, with hours tracked. Classify on the actual duties. This is
general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per [year / hour], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and two live sites you
currently maintain.
Template 2: Part-Time / Fractional Webmaster
For the business that needs eight hours a week rather than forty, with the scope, response window, and escalation path written down before the first day.
Part-Time / Fractional Webmaster Job Description
PART-TIME WEBMASTER JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Owner / Office Manager]
Employment type: Part-time, [number] hours per week, [remote / hybrid]
BigCommerce / custom], with [number] SKUs and [revenue or order volume] a month.
When the store is down or checkout is broken, we are not selling. This role
exists to make sure that does not happen.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Ecommerce Webmaster maintains the storefront, the catalog, and the checkout
path, keeps the store fast and secure, and coordinates the apps, payment
processor, and shipping integrations that sit behind an order.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Maintain product listings, categories, pricing, and inventory sync
•Test the full checkout path after every platform, app, or theme update
•Monitor payment processing, tax, and shipping integrations for errors
•Manage promotions, discount codes, and seasonal landing pages
•Track site speed and Core Web Vitals on product and category pages
•Manage app subscriptions and remove what the store no longer uses
•Keep PCI-relevant practices in place with the payment provider
•Handle backups, SSL, DNS, and hosting or platform plan management
•Investigate abandoned checkout spikes and report on conversion issues
•Support customer service on order, refund, and account tickets
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years running a live store on [platform]
•Understands the difference between a theme problem and an app conflict
•Comfortable with [Liquid / PHP / HTML / CSS] edits and version control
•Experience with product feeds, structured data, and canonical URLs
•Analytical: can read ecommerce analytics and act on what it shows
•Calm during an outage on a high-volume day
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
Revenue exposure does not make a role exempt. The FLSA computer employee
exemption turns on primary duty (systems analysis, program design, or software
development) plus the pay test of the standard salary level on a salary basis or
at least $27.63 per hour. A store maintainer whose day is catalog work, app
configuration, testing, and troubleshooting is usually non-exempt regardless of
how much revenue passes through the site. If peak season means long weeks, that
is precisely when the classification decision has consequences. This is general
information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [bonus structure], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and a store you have
maintained through a peak season.
Template 4: Web Administrator (Server and Security)
The technical half of the job: server configuration, certificate lifecycle, access control, monitoring, backups, and incident response. Pair it with the IT support specialist templates if you also need desk-side coverage.
Web Administrator Job Description (Server and Security)
WEB ADMINISTRATOR JOB DESCRIPTION (SERVER AND SECURITY FOCUS)
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [IT Manager / CTO / Owner]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: [Assess against the computer employee exemption: see note]
Compensation: $_ per year
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] runs [number] web properties on [cloud provider / VPS / managed
hosting]. This role is the technical half of the webmaster job: the servers, the
certificates, the deployments, and the security posture, rather than the content
calendar.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Web Administrator configures and maintains web servers and hosting
environments, manages DNS and certificates, controls access, monitors uptime and
security, and runs the backup and recovery process.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Configure, patch, and monitor web and application servers
•Manage DNS zones, records, domain renewals, and certificate lifecycle
•Administer access control: accounts, roles, keys, and least privilege
•Maintain backup schedules and run documented restore tests [frequency]
•Monitor uptime, error rates, logs, and resource usage; set alert thresholds
•Harden the stack: firewall rules, rate limiting, malware scanning, WAF
•Run staging and production deployments and maintain rollback procedures
•Maintain the incident runbook and lead response when the site goes down
•Coordinate with [developers, hosting vendor, security auditor]
•Keep an asset register of domains, certificates, licenses, and renewals
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years administering production web servers
•Linux server administration and command line fluency
•DNS, TLS, HTTP caching, CDN, and reverse proxy configuration
•Scripting for automation: [Bash / Python / PowerShell]
•Backup, disaster recovery, and incident response experience
•[Relevant certification: optional, name it or leave it out]
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
This is the variant most likely to be genuinely exempt, and it still has to be
assessed rather than assumed. The computer employee exemption covers systems
analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled workers whose
primary duty involves systems analysis, design, development, or testing of
systems, paid at least the standard salary level on a salary basis or at least
$27.63 per hour. Routine maintenance, monitoring, and help desk work do not
qualify on their own. Document the duty analysis you relied on. This is general
information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [on-call arrangement and pay], [benefits]
To apply, email __ with your resume and a description of an
outage you resolved.
Template 5: Webmaster with SEO and Content Duties
For the site that has to produce leads: technical SEO, publishing, internal linking, and monthly reporting layered on top of maintenance. Where search is the whole job, use the SEO manager templates instead.
Webmaster with SEO and Content Duties Job Description
WEBMASTER (SEO AND CONTENT) JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Marketing Manager / Owner]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: Non-exempt unless a duties analysis says otherwise (see note)
Compensation: $_ per year
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] gets [number] percent of its leads from organic search. We need
one person who both keeps the website running and improves how it performs in
search, rather than a maintenance contractor and a separate agency who blame
each other.
POSITION SUMMARY
This Webmaster maintains the site technically and owns its search performance:
technical SEO, on-page optimization, publishing, internal linking, and
reporting on the traffic and conversions the site produces.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Run routine site maintenance: updates, backups, uptime, security
canonical tags, structured data, and redirect management
•Fix Core Web Vitals and mobile usability issues flagged in search tooling
•Publish and optimize pages: titles, meta descriptions, headings, images
•Build and maintain the internal linking structure across the site
•Track rankings, organic traffic, and conversions; report monthly
•Run keyword research and brief writers or agencies on what to produce
•Manage analytics, tag management, and conversion tracking accuracy
•Audit for broken links, duplicate content, and orphaned pages
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years combining site maintenance with organic search work
•Fluent in [CMS] and comfortable editing HTML, CSS, and template files
•Command of search console and analytics tooling; can read a crawl report
•Understands redirects, canonicalization, and site migrations
•Writes clean, specific copy for titles, descriptions, and briefs
•Can show real before-and-after traffic results, with context
CLASSIFICATION NOTE
Adding marketing duties makes exemption less likely, not more. The computer
employee exemption requires a primary duty of systems analysis, program design,
or software development, and the administrative exemption requires the exercise
of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance, which
executing a content calendar and applying updates generally is not. Most roles
built this way are non-exempt: hourly, overtime-eligible, hours tracked.
Classify on the day the person actually works. This is general information, not
legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per year, [bonus tied to organic performance]
To apply, email __ with your resume and one site whose
organic traffic you moved.
Template 6: Nonprofit / Membership Site Webmaster
For an association or nonprofit: membership modules, event registration, donation handling, member data protection, and the volunteer question answered directly.
Nonprofit / Membership Site Webmaster Job Description
WEBMASTER JOB DESCRIPTION (NONPROFIT OR MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATION)
Organization: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Executive Director / Communications Director]
Employment type: [Full-time / Part-time], [number] hours per week
FLSA status: Non-exempt unless a duties analysis says otherwise (see note)
Compensation: $_ per [year / hour]
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Organization Name] serves [number] members and [mission description]. Our
website carries [membership signup, event registration, donations, a member
directory, a resource library], and it is currently maintained by [a volunteer /
a departing staff member / nobody in particular]. We are formalizing the role.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Webmaster maintains the organization website and the member-facing systems
attached to it, keeps content and event information current, protects member
data, and supports staff who publish through the site.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Maintain the website: updates, backups, uptime, security, accessibility
•Manage the membership, event registration, and donation modules
•Keep the events calendar, program pages, and staff directory current
•Support the [member portal / directory] and troubleshoot member login issues
•Protect member and donor data: access control, retention, and privacy notices
•Train and support staff and volunteers who publish content
•Maintain email signup integration and required unsubscribe handling
•Produce a simple monthly report for the board or leadership team
•Document every account, renewal date, and recovery procedure
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Experience maintaining a website on [CMS or association platform]
•Comfortable with membership, registration, or donation tooling
•Careful with personal data and access permissions
•Patient with non-technical colleagues and volunteers
•[Background check, if the organization serves minors or vulnerable adults]
CLASSIFICATION AND VOLUNTEER NOTE
Two issues come up constantly in nonprofit web work. First, classification: this
role is usually non-exempt, so track hours and pay overtime past forty in a
week. Second, volunteers: individuals may volunteer time to a nonprofit for
civic or humanitarian reasons without expectation of pay, but an employee of the
organization generally cannot volunteer to do the same work they are paid to do,
and a person doing scheduled, directed, ongoing work under the organization's
control looks like an employee regardless of the word used. If the site needs
regular hours, hire for it. Access to member and donor data also belongs to a
role you control, not to an informal arrangement. This is general information,
not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Organization Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per [year / hour], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and a site you maintain.
Overtime and the Computer Employee Exemption
Most small business webmasters are non-exempt, and the title is what misleads employers into assuming otherwise. The computer employee exemption is narrow: it turns on a primary duty of systems analysis, program design, development, or testing, and maintenance work does not qualify no matter how technical it feels.
The rule sits in the federal regulation on computer employees as exempt professionals, and the Department of Labor spells out the limits in its fact sheet on computer-related occupations: job titles never determine exemption status, and workers whose jobs merely depend on computers are not covered. Two tests apply, a duties test and a pay test, and both have to be met.
The computer exemption has a duties test, and most webmasters fail it
The exemption for computer employees covers systems analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled workers whose primary duty is systems analysis, program design, development, or testing. The Department of Labor is explicit that job titles do not determine exemption status, and that employees whose work merely depends on or is facilitated by computers, without being primarily engaged in systems analysis and programming, are not exempt. A webmaster whose week is plugin updates, page publishing, form fixes, ticket triage, and vendor emails is doing skilled maintenance work, not systems design. That points to non-exempt: hourly pay, tracked hours, and overtime past forty in a week. Write the classification into the posting so the candidate knows before the offer. This is general information, not legal advice.
There are two ways to satisfy the pay test
Computer employees can be paid either on a salary basis at the standard salary level or on an hourly basis at a rate of at least $27.63 an hour. That hourly route is unusual in the exemption rules and it exists specifically for this occupational group, which is why it is worth knowing. It does not, however, rescue a role that fails the duties test: clearing $27.63 an hour buys you nothing if the primary duty is maintenance rather than systems analysis or programming. The standard salary level for the salary route is $684 per week, which works out to $35,568 a year. Both tests have to be satisfied, not one of them. This is general information, not legal advice.
Contractor is not a shortcut around either test
The single most common small business arrangement is a webmaster paid as a 1099 contractor, and it is often the wrong call. The label on the invoice does not decide the question: what decides it is the economic reality of the relationship, including who controls the schedule, the method, and the priorities, whose tools and accounts are used, whether the work is a permanent part of running the business, and whether the worker has a real independent business serving other clients. A person who logs in on your schedule, works your ticket queue, uses your hosting account, and has no other clients is very likely an employee. Misclassification correction arrives with back wages, unpaid overtime, and payroll tax exposure attached. This is general information, not legal advice.
Accessibility belongs in the job description
The Department of Justice has stated that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to the goods, services, and programs businesses offer through their websites, and that businesses open to the public have a longstanding obligation to make what they offer accessible to people with disabilities. Web accessibility lawsuits and demand letters land disproportionately on small businesses because their sites are the ones nobody audits. The practical answer is not a one-time remediation project, it is an ongoing duty someone owns: alt text on images, working keyboard navigation, sufficient contrast, labeled form fields, and captions on video. Put it in the job description as a standing responsibility rather than treating it as a project you will fund after the first complaint. This is general information, not legal advice.
If the analysis lands on non-exempt, that is a normal outcome and not a downgrade: track hours and pay overtime past forty in a week. Our breakdown of exempt versus non-exempt classification walks through the tests in order.
The contractor question deserves the same discipline. Before you route this role through a 1099, read what actually distinguishes an independent contractor from an employee, because a webmaster working your schedule on your accounts rarely passes.
What to Pay a Webmaster
There is no webmaster occupation in federal wage data, so every published number for this title is a proxy and should be treated as one. The nearest classification is a residual category that mixes small business site maintainers with specialized enterprise IT, which pushes its median far above what a small company will pay.
No Exact Match, So Read the Nearest Classifications
O*NET classifies Web Administrators under the residual category Computer Occupations, All Other, whose national median annual wage was $116,580 in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025). The same category's 10th and 25th percentiles, $55,940 and $79,370, are far closer to a small business webmaster. Published comparators from the same survey: Web Developers $92,650, Web and Digital Interface Designers $104,000, Network and Computer Systems Administrators $99,130, Computer Network Support Specialists $76,220, Computer User Support Specialists $61,860 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS national estimates).
Benchmark occupation
National median (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
How to use it
Computer User Support Specialists
$61,860 per year
Floor for a content-only maintainer on a hosted platform
Computer Network Support Specialists
$76,220 per year
Closest fit for a hands-on generalist webmaster
Computer Occupations, All Other (25th percentile)
$79,370 per year
Realistic band for a full-scope small business role
Web Developers
$92,650 per year
Use when real code work is part of the job
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
$99,130 per year
Use when servers and on-call are in scope
Web and Digital Interface Designers
$104,000 per year
Use when design output is expected too
Computer Occupations, All Other (median)
$116,580 per year
Enterprise-weighted; too high for most small businesses
Part-time and hourly arrangements follow the same logic. Take the annual benchmark that matches your scope, divide by 2,080, and adjust upward for the fact that a fractional maintainer carries the same knowledge burden across fewer paid hours. Then publish a good-faith range where pay transparency laws require one.
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The webmaster role concentrates more access than any other job in a small company, and almost nobody writes that into the job description. Domain registrar, DNS, hosting, content platform admin, analytics, payment gateway, and email sending service typically end up in one person's password manager with no company-side record.
Handle it at hiring rather than at exit. Make a written account register a named deliverable, require every account to be created under a company-owned email address rather than a personal one, and keep registrar and hosting billing in the company's name. Security guidance for small businesses from the Federal Trade Commission makes the same point about limiting and tracking administrative access.
The Domain Renewal Is the One That Actually Kills You
Of everything a webmaster holds, the domain registration is the item with no recovery path once it lapses and gets picked up. It renews once a year or once every few years, the notice goes to whatever address registered it, and the person who registered it is often long gone. Put the registrar account in the company name with billing on a company card, set the renewal to automatic, add the expiry date to a shared calendar with a ninety day warning, and verify the registrant contact email is one more than one person can open.
Hiring a Webmaster Without an HR Department
Small companies fail at this hire in three predictable places: access lives with one person and nowhere else, the owner cannot evaluate the candidate's technical claims, and onboarding is an improvised chain of account invites. Each has a fix that costs nothing but discipline.
One person holds every credential and there is no written record of it
The webmaster job concentrates access like almost no other role in a small company: domain registrar, DNS, hosting, content platform admin, analytics, payment gateway, email sending service, and whatever else got signed up for along the way. In most small businesses that access lives in one person’s password manager and nowhere else. The failure mode is not malice, it is ordinary life: the person leaves, gets sick, or takes a job elsewhere, and the domain renewal notice goes to an inbox nobody can open. Fix it at hiring, not at exit. Make a written account register a named deliverable in the job description, require every account to be created under a company-owned email address, keep the registrar and hosting billing in the owner’s name, and review the register on a schedule.
You are writing the posting for a job you cannot evaluate yourself
Most owners hiring a webmaster cannot personally judge whether a candidate is good, which is why these searches so often end with whoever sounded most confident. Replace the confidence test with an evidence test. Ask for two live sites the candidate currently maintains and go look at them on a phone. Ask them to describe the last outage they handled and what they changed so it would not recur. Ask what they would check first if the contact form stopped delivering. Ask how they document their work for the next person. The answers separate a maintainer from someone who once installed a theme, and none of the questions require you to be technical yourself.
The role starts with an access handover and nobody runs it as a process
A webmaster’s first week is almost entirely access provisioning, and their last week should be the exact reverse. In practice the first week is a scattered chain of invites and the last week is a scramble to remember what they had. FirstHR was built for that sequence. The onboarding wizard runs the same steps for every hire, e-signature handles the confidentiality and acceptable use acknowledgments before any credential is shared, document management stores the account register and renewal dates against the employee profile, task workflows assign each access grant to a named owner with a due date, and offboarding runs the same list backward so nothing stays live after the last day. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Once the offer is signed, the work becomes a repeatable onboarding checklist, and for this role specifically the exit matters as much as the entry: our IT offboarding checklist covers revoking access in the right order so nothing stays live after the last day.
Key Takeaways
A webmaster owns the continuity of a website: hosting, DNS, certificates, updates, backups, publishing, forms, analytics, and accessibility, rather than any single technical specialty.
Decide which layers are in scope before you write the posting, because content-only, content plus code, and content plus code plus servers are three different jobs at three different pay bands.
Most small business webmasters are non-exempt, because maintenance and publishing work fails the computer employee duties test even when the pay test is met.
The computer exemption uniquely allows an hourly pay route at $27.63 an hour, but clearing it buys nothing if the primary duty is maintenance rather than systems analysis or programming.
No BLS occupation matches the title, so benchmark against the nearest classifications: $61,860 for user support up to $99,130 for systems administrators (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
Make a written account register a hiring deliverable, create every account under a company-owned email address, and keep domain and hosting billing in the company name.
A webmaster hire is an access-provisioning project wearing a job title. FirstHR runs the same onboarding sequence every time, with e-signature for confidentiality and acceptable use acknowledgments before any credential changes hands, document storage for the account register and renewal dates, and task workflows that assign each grant to a named owner. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a webmaster do?
A webmaster keeps a company website online, current, secure, and fast, and owns everything behind it that nobody else in the company thinks about. That means hosting and the domain, DNS records, SSL certificate renewals, platform and plugin updates, backups and tested restores, published pages and images, contact and booking forms, analytics and tag setup, redirects, accessibility, and coordination with outside vendors. In a large company those duties are split across a developer, a designer, a sysadmin, and a content editor. In a small business they land on one person, which is exactly what the word webmaster still usefully describes. The role is defined by ownership and continuity rather than by any single technical specialty, so the job description has to name which layers of the stack are in scope: content only, content plus code, or content plus code plus servers.
What should a webmaster job description include?
Seven things. Name the platform exactly, because a WordPress site and a Shopify store attract different candidates. State what the site does for the business and its rough traffic or order volume. Define which layers are in scope: content, code, servers, or all three. List the recurring maintenance duties explicitly, including backups, updates, certificate renewals, and accessibility. State on-call or after-hours expectations honestly rather than discovering them after the offer. Decide and publish the FLSA classification based on the actual duties, not the title. Finally, make documentation a named deliverable: a written account register, renewal dates, and a recovery runbook. Add the pay or a good-faith range, an equal opportunity statement, and a real person to apply to. The six templates on this page follow that structure so you only rewrite the business-specific fields. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR, so until then the finished posting goes out through whichever job board you already use.
Is a webmaster exempt or non-exempt from overtime?
Usually non-exempt, and the title never decides it. The FLSA computer employee exemption covers systems analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled workers whose primary duty is systems analysis, program design, development, or testing, paid either at the standard salary level on a salary basis or at an hourly rate of at least $27.63. The Department of Labor states plainly that job titles do not determine exemption status and that employees whose work is merely dependent on computers, without being primarily engaged in systems analysis and programming, are not exempt. A webmaster doing plugin updates, content publishing, form fixes, and vendor coordination is doing skilled maintenance, not systems design, so the duties test generally fails. That means hourly pay, tracked hours, and overtime past forty in a week. A server-focused web administrator is the variant most likely to qualify, and it still needs a real duty analysis. This is general information, not legal advice.
How much does a webmaster make?
There is no separate webmaster occupation in federal wage data, so any single number you see is a proxy. O*NET classifies Web Administrators under the Bureau of Labor Statistics residual category Computer Occupations, All Other, whose national median annual wage was $116,580 in the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025). That bucket is full of specialized enterprise IT roles and overstates a small business webmaster badly. The 10th and 25th percentiles of the same category, $55,940 and $79,370, are closer to reality. Better comparisons come from adjacent published occupations: Web Developers at a $92,650 median, Web and Digital Interface Designers at $104,000, Network and Computer Systems Administrators at $99,130, Computer Network Support Specialists at $76,220, and Computer User Support Specialists at $61,860. For a generalist maintaining one small business site, benchmark to the support and network support end of that range, then adjust for the layers you are asking one person to cover.
What is the difference between a webmaster and a web developer?
A developer builds, a webmaster maintains. A web developer writes code to create new pages, features, and integrations, and the work is project-shaped: it has a scope, a launch, and an end. A webmaster owns the site after launch and forever, which is continuity work: updates, uptime, backups, publishing, certificates, forms, analytics, and whatever broke overnight. The two need different candidates and different postings. Hiring a developer for maintenance produces a bored employee who leaves. Hiring a maintainer for a rebuild produces a stalled project. If you need both, say so and rank them: many small businesses genuinely need eighty percent maintenance and twenty percent small builds, and a candidate can accept that when it is written down. Where the build is the actual job, use a developer posting instead.
Can I hire a webmaster as an independent contractor?
Sometimes, but the label on the invoice does not decide it. What decides it is the economic reality of the relationship: who controls the schedule, the methods, and the priorities, whose accounts and tools get used, whether the work is an ongoing part of running your business, whether the worker has a genuine independent business with other clients, and whether they can realize a profit or loss from their own decisions. A true contractor arrangement usually looks like an agency or freelancer serving several clients, working to a scope of work, using their own tooling, and invoicing per project or retainer. A person who logs in on your schedule, works your ticket queue, uses your hosting account, and has no other clients is very likely an employee. Getting it wrong brings back wages, unpaid overtime, and payroll tax exposure. If you need predictable weekly hours, use the part-time employee template on this page instead.
Does a small business need a full-time webmaster?
Most do not, and the honest version of that answer belongs in your posting. A brochure site on a hosted platform with occasional content changes is a few hours a week of real work, and advertising it as full-time attracts candidates who leave once they see the actual volume. An ecommerce store, a site that carries bookings or member data, or a site that is your primary lead source is a different story: those carry daily monitoring, checkout or form testing, security patching, and revenue exposure when something breaks. Scope it by counting what actually needs doing in a month, then choose between a part-time employee on fixed weekly hours, a full-time generalist who also covers adjacent marketing or IT duties, or an agency retainer with one named internal owner. The part-time template on this page is written for the first case, with the scope and response window stated up front.
