Most intranet projects launch with optimism and fade into irrelevance. The homepage that seemed so promising becomes a place employees visit only when forced. The document library that was supposed to end email chaos becomes another place files get lost. The news feed nobody reads. The search that never finds anything.
This pattern isn’t inevitable. Some intranets genuinely work—employees use them daily because they’re useful, not because they’re mandated. The difference isn’t technology or budget. It’s whether someone applied basic best practices that separate successful intranets from expensive failures.
This guide covers the intranet best practices that actually matter, drawn from patterns observed across successful implementations.
Planning and Strategy Best Practices
Success starts before any technology decisions.
Define clear objectives. What should the intranet accomplish? Vague goals like “improve communication” don’t guide decisions. Specific objectives like “reduce time spent finding HR policies by 50%” provide direction and enable measurement.
Research actual user needs. What do employees struggle to find? What tasks do they wish were easier? What information do they need to do their jobs? Research—surveys, interviews, observation—reveals needs that assumptions miss.
Identify stakeholders early. Who owns the intranet? Who provides content? Who has requirements? Whose approval matters? Engage stakeholders before design begins rather than discovering conflicts during implementation.
Start with a roadmap, not a wish list. You can’t implement everything at once. Prioritize based on user value and organizational readiness. Launch with genuinely useful functionality; add capabilities over time.
Define success metrics before launch. How will you know if the intranet works? Establish metrics—adoption rates, task completion, search success, user satisfaction—and baseline measurements before launch.
Information Architecture Best Practices
How information is organized determines whether users find what they need.
Organize around user mental models. Structure content based on how employees think about information, not how the organization is structured. Users don’t care which department owns a policy; they care what the policy covers.
Test navigation with real users. Card sorting and tree testing reveal whether your proposed structure makes sense to actual users. Don’t assume your logic matches theirs.
Keep navigation shallow and simple. Deep navigation hierarchies hide content. Users should reach most content within two or three clicks. If navigation requires more, reconsider the structure.
Use clear, descriptive labels. Navigation labels should communicate what users will find. Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and internal terminology that employees won’t recognize.
Create multiple paths to important content. Not everyone navigates the same way. Surface critical content through navigation, search, homepage features, and contextual links. Redundant paths improve findability.
Content Best Practices
Content quality determines whether the intranet earns user trust.
Assign content ownership. Every content area needs someone responsible for keeping it current. Unowned content becomes outdated content.
Establish editorial standards. Define what good intranet content looks like—tone, format, length, accessibility requirements. Standards create consistency across contributors.
Write for scanning, not reading. Employees don’t read intranet content thoroughly; they scan for relevant information. Use clear headings, short paragraphs, bullet points for lists, and front-loaded key information.
Keep content current. Nothing destroys intranet credibility faster than outdated information. Implement review cycles and enforce them. Archive or delete content that’s no longer relevant.
Curate rather than accumulate. More content isn’t better content. Remove outdated material, consolidate duplicates, and resist the urge to keep everything forever. A smaller, current content set beats a large, stale one.
Make important content findable. The most critical content—policies, procedures, frequently needed references—should be prominently accessible, not buried. Surface high-value content through homepage features, quick links, and targeted promotion.
Design Best Practices
Design affects both usability and perception.
Prioritize usability over aesthetics. A plain intranet that works beats a beautiful one that frustrates users. Focus first on clear navigation, readable content, and functional features.
Design for the homepage carefully. The homepage is the intranet’s most visited page. It should provide clear navigation, surface important news, offer quick links to frequent destinations, and establish what the intranet offers. See our homepage design best practices for detailed guidance.
Ensure mobile responsiveness. Employees access intranets from various devices. Responsive design ensures the intranet works on phones and tablets, not just desktop browsers.
Maintain consistent experience. Users shouldn’t feel lost moving between intranet sections. Consistent navigation, visual design, and interaction patterns create coherent experiences.
Make search prominent. Users who can’t find content through navigation turn to search. Make the search box obvious and ensure search actually works.
Follow accessibility standards. Intranet content should be accessible to employees with disabilities. This isn’t just ethical—it’s often legally required. Follow WCAG guidelines for color contrast, alt text, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility.
Search Best Practices
Search failures drive users away from intranets.
Invest in search configuration. Default search settings rarely optimize for your content. Configure search scope, relevance tuning, and result presentation for your specific environment.
Use metadata to improve results. Well-structured metadata helps search surface relevant results and provides useful filters. The metadata investment pays off in search quality.
Promote important content. Configure search to boost critical content for common queries. If everyone searching “expense policy” should find the same document, promote it.
Monitor search analytics. What are users searching for? What searches return no results? What searches lead to immediate bounces? Analytics reveal content gaps and search problems.
Provide search guidance. Help users search effectively with suggestions, filters, and search tips. Not everyone knows how to construct effective queries.
Governance Best Practices
Governance keeps intranets healthy over time.
Establish clear ownership. Someone must own the intranet overall—responsible for strategy, standards, and health. Content areas need owners too. Ownership prevents the drift that makes intranets irrelevant.
Define publishing workflows. Who can publish content? What review or approval applies? Clear workflows maintain quality while enabling timely content updates.
Implement content review cycles. All content should have review dates. Automate reminders. Hold owners accountable for reviews. Archive content that fails review or loses relevance.
Control sprawl. Intranets accumulate pages, sites, and content over time. Without active management, this accumulation becomes clutter. Regularly assess what’s being used and remove what isn’t.
Document standards and guidelines. Make governance expectations accessible. Contributors should know what’s expected without hunting for documentation.
Driving Adoption
Building an intranet is half the battle. Getting employees to use it is the other half.
Launch with genuine value. If the intranet doesn’t help employees on day one, they won’t come back. Launch with content and features people actually need—commonly requested policies, useful tools, relevant news.
Train users effectively. Don’t assume employees will figure out the intranet. Provide training focused on accomplishing real tasks, not platform features.
Communicate the value proposition. Why should employees use the intranet? What problems does it solve? Ongoing communication reinforces value and highlights new capabilities.
Make the intranet the path of least resistance. If finding a document on the intranet is harder than emailing someone, employees will email. Reduce friction wherever possible.
Integrate with daily workflows. Surface intranet content in Teams, Outlook, and other tools employees use constantly. Don’t make the intranet a separate destination.
Gather and act on feedback. Create channels for user feedback. More importantly, respond to feedback visibly. Users who see their input leading to improvements become advocates.
Measuring Success
Track metrics that indicate whether the intranet delivers value:
Adoption metrics. Unique visitors, visit frequency, page views. Is the intranet being used?
Search metrics. Search volume, success rates, zero-result queries. Can users find what they need?
Content metrics. Page views, document downloads, news readership. Is content being consumed?
Task completion. Self-service usage, form submissions, successful workflows. Are users accomplishing tasks?
User satisfaction. Survey results, feedback sentiment, Net Promoter Score. Do users find the intranet valuable?
Measure regularly and use data to prioritize improvements. Share results with stakeholders to demonstrate value and maintain investment.
Continuous Improvement
Successful intranets aren’t finished products—they’re continuously improving systems.
Review analytics regularly. Monthly or quarterly reviews reveal what’s working and what isn’t. Use data to guide improvement priorities.
Gather user feedback systematically. Beyond ad-hoc feedback, conduct periodic user research. Surveys, usability testing, and interviews reveal opportunities that analytics miss.
Iterate based on evidence. Make changes based on data and user feedback, not assumptions or executive whims. Test significant changes before broad rollout.
Stay current with platform capabilities. SharePoint and other platforms continuously add features. Evaluate new capabilities against user needs and incorporate valuable additions.
Refresh periodically. Even good intranets benefit from periodic refresh—updated design, reorganized content, new features. Prevent the intranet from feeling stale.
For organizations building on SharePoint, applying modern intranet best practices alongside these general principles creates particularly effective results.
Ready to build an intranet that employees actually use? Let’s talk about applying these best practices to your organization.