Blog

Part 3. How will you maintain your website

Attention: open in a new window.

Part 1. of a series named "Preparing for Your Website series", in which I discuss many of the maintenance issues to be taken into account. In particular, the who, when, how much and how questions are answered.

Because almost anything is possible on the web, many site owners want to have as much as they can squeeze into their websites without thinking about how they will maintain and upgrade the content. Remember that your website will represent you, and that you have only 5 seconds to influence a visitor's overall impression through your site. Cluttered, confusing or gimmicky sites will reflect poorly on you and what you are trying to accomplish.

Web users want useful, current content presented to them in a current manner. Depending on your business, that information may include a series of articles about your products/services, an ongoing series of useful tips, a user forum, an online chat support facility, links to a corporate Facebook or Twitter page, or an email newsletter. However, someone will have to spend the time to either create the content or moderate the input of others. To make use of social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc,), someone will have to constantly update those sites as well.

If you want to create and distribute email and/or online flyers, or offer specials from your website, someone will have to design the creative, write any text involved, and publish the content.

Websites are like fine wine. The more time you put into them in the proper manner, the more you will get out of them. But, if you don't have the time or internal resources to maintain this type of regimen, then you must either accept the reality of a relatively static web-presence, or hire someone outside like us to either help or do the extra work for you.

In both cases, a major decision in the website development process is determining what type of content you will post on your site, how often it will be revised or supplemented, and how (including how often) you will communicate those changes or additions to your online users.

Additionally, there are times when you will need system maintenance as well as content maintenance. Modern day websites are more closely related to software packages rather than the old static marked-up text of 10-15 years ago. In order to have any functionality whatsoever, a website generally has to interface with a database. Indeed, content is now served dynamically on most modern websites, requiring a program to perform functions on its own when requested by a user.

And, where there is functionality, there will always be the ongoing problem of hackers trying to break into that functionality to the detriment of the website. Therefore there are security updates. Who will install them and when? We also offer this service as part of our Maintenance Plan.

As well, every website eventually must be upgraded. As is the case with all software, the most up-to-date version of your site, including the look and feel, will become obsolete at some point. The base software that does all the work behind the scenes also has its own lifespan and will eventually have to be upgraded or replaced.

So what will you do when your website starts to become stale, or a new version of the underlying software used to produce your site is released, adding new functionality from which you could benefit?

With the right knowledge and time allotment, you can certainly do the work yourself. Or, you can hire us to do it for you. We have the experience having performed these functions for our own sites as well as those of others since 1994.

Either way, there will be a cost involved that must be part of your overall web strategic budget. As part of the design and development process, its best to identify and plan for these costs up front.

Bookmark

Email This

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry