Website
Maintenance: What does it take to manage your website?
By
Donald Nelson, copyright 2003
Every action
has a beginning phase where you launch your activity, a middle
period in which you must sustain and develop it and a
conclusion. Many people set up a website enthusiastically but
then they find that they don’t have the skills or knowledge
to maintain and develop it. So, what are the challenges in
this middle phase of a website’s life and how can you meet
them?
Updating
the site: The
beauty of a website is that it is not static like a brochure
or printed document. You can change it to reflect new products
or new developments in your enterprise. You can launch new
campaigns, and at any time you can add more content.
The problem
for some companies and individuals is that after they have
paid a good amount of money to have their site built, they do
not have any personnel who can make changes to the website,
such as adding new text or photos etc. One solution to this is
to make sure you have a good maintenance plan included in the
contract or agreement you make your with your web designer, so
that minor changes can be made by your original designer
Another
solution, and one that gives you more flexibility, is to train
someone in your organization to be able to work with an html
editor (like Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or other similar
programs). While
not everyone has the skills to design a site from scratch,
someone who is able to use the normal word processing programs
can learn how to modify text and upload files to the server.
Promoting
the site: If you just sit on your hands you cannot expect
your website to live up to its promise. Many web designers do
not have a clue about things like search engine optimization
or submission, and the new website owner is left with a nice
looking site, but no traffic. Furthermore there are other
website related promotional tasks such as reciprocal linking,
newsletter editing and mailing list maintenance which do not
fall into the duties normally performed by the site’s
original designer.
Once again
check with your web designer or developer and see if they can
perform any of these tasks economically or give you some help.
If not, then some of these activities may have to be
outsourced. Search
engine optimization and submission, and even reciprocal
linking, the activity of finding link partners, can be
contracted from among the hundreds of companies offering such
services.
You or a
designated member of your staff can learn some of these tasks
by reading online tutorials, e-books and newsletters (like
this one!). Though this takes time, again it gives you
flexibility and an ability to work at your own pace and within
your budget.
Finally if
you can’t afford the outside services needed to maintain and
develop the site, and if you are not sure how to train
yourself or your staff, a third solution exists in the form of
Ken Evoy’s Site Build It (http://buildit.sitesell.com/webpromote2.html).
In which powerful hosting, design, maintenance and promotional
tools are provided along with step-by-step guidance enabling
complete beginners to build, develop and manage effective
websites.
Even before
you start your website you should be thinking one step ahead,
so that you can develop the site intelligently and vigorously,
and ultimately be successful in your web project.
Donald
Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. Hehas
been working on the Internet since 1995, and is currently the
director of A1-Optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com),
a firm providing low cost search engine optimization,
submission and web promotion services.
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