Web site Development and maintenance: The pros, cons, and solutions.

The concept of web site development is that you can either (a) build your own site and maintain everything yourself, or (b) you hire a web professional to handle everything for you. The first option could face you with the ultimate realisation that you lack the required skill and experience to do it right, while the second option may make you feel powerless to manage your own site.

Many people today are choosing the middle-ground: hiring a web professional to set up their site so they can maintain parts or all of it themselves. This is known as "self maintenance."

What self maintenance can do?

The purpose of self maintenance is to make a user handle a task that would otherwise normally be beyond their skill level. Self maintenance can include even the simplest of functions, such as simple text changes, new web pages, and page templates for graphics placement and switching. On the more advanced level, it can include updating entry fields (such as prices on an e-commerce site), implementing current customer databases to work with search functions on a site, and setting up password-protected areas only the customer or key people can access.

Who does self maintenance?

Self maintenance is the most popular type of web site development today. It includes the majority of businesses, which meet several or all of the following criteria:

  • Small-to-medium in size
  • Those already with their own web sites
  • Those considering building web sites
  • Limited web budget
  • Have information or databases that regularly need updating, and
  • Little or no actual web professionals on their staff

Options with self maintenance

People who require self maintenance usually have limited or no HTML coding or programming experience. The web professional can either:

Train the client on the most basic functions of their job, such as how to make small edits HTML or teach them the essential parts of an HTML-editing software program (like Dreamweaver or FrontPage); or,

 

 

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Set up a database or editing program where the user can make changes, additions, or deletions with new or existing pages on a password-protected area of the web site, OR from the user's own current databases (such as Access, ACT!, Excel, or FilemakerPro) that are set up to be connected to those web pages.

Smaller jobs can usually best be handled by training somebody in-house on basic web development with an HTML/web editor, but larger jobs are typically best left to straight programming and teaching just how to use that particular program. (This is true from both a cost and time perspective.)

Limits of Self maintenance

No amount of self maintenance can replace a web professional in knowing how to best reach a site's target audience. If one of your goals is to place well in the search engines, creating self-maintained web pages could seriously affect your chances of placing well, or even placing at all. No computer program is a substitute for a web marketer who understands how to write, design, and reach your target audience. If your goal is usability (i.e., creating a site that most effectively meets the needs of your target audience and gives you expected returns), a computer program is not going to tell you what you are doing wrong.

Conclusion

Self maintenance can be a cost-effective and efficient way of maintaining your web site, but it should never run your web site in place of an actual person. Self maintenance should always be used to support your end goals: bringing traffic to your site, providing your audience with a quality experience, and generating conversions — instead of being a goal unto itself.

You may initially save some money and gain a little control in the short run, but you can end up paying more and losing a lot of control if you don't think things through. Better to find a web professional you can put your trust in, than to trust a computer program that doesn't care a bit whether your site succeeds or fails.