DesignWorks Studio | Graphic Design | Web Design | Eugene, Oregon

Compelling and innovative graphic design solutions

Web Site Maintenance

Keeping the information on your web site current is crucial.

The best way to get people to come back to your site again and again is by having content they need, and then updating this content on a regular basis.

Ask yourself: "What content do I have that would cause anybody in their right mind to visit my site a second, third, or fourth time?" This is extremely important. You might seduce someone to visit your site once, but why would they want to come back again. Make sure that all the effort you put into the design and marketing of your site does not go to waste.

During our initial consulation, we'll discuss maintenance issues and options. Planning how updates to a web site will be made is integral to the design process. If updates are few and far between, it will be more cost-effective for you to have us make the updates for you. Also, if you just don't want to dedicate staff time to doing updates, we'll be glad to work with you. However, if you want to take control of the site, we can train you in various methods of maintaining the site yourself.

Take Control

Would you like to make updates to your web site yourself?

Many people today are choosing to hire a web professional to set up their site so they can maintain parts or all of it themselves.

In fact, designing web sites to be maintained by a non-designer is the most popular type of web site development today. Two of the biggest reasons are money and control. You may be able to save money by doing the work yourself. You may also want to be able to make changes to your site when you want to, rather than working with a web developer's schedule.

People who want to maintain their sites themselves usually have limited or no HTML coding or programming experience. On smaller web sites, DesignWorks can train you to use an HTML-editing software program (that you will need to purchase). The kinds of editing you want to do will make a difference in the software you need to purchase. Larger web sites may require a database program where the user can make changes, additions, or deletions in a password-protected, form-based environment that then automatically updates the web page itself.

You may want to hire a designer to accomplish your initial goals if you don't have the necessary skill or experience to do it yourself. You should also understand that a certain amount of expertise may be required, depending on the level of maintenance you wish to do. We can help you make an informed decision.

Problems can surface if you are not up front in the beginning with your intentions to maintain the site yourself. If you don't tell us before work begins (or even worse, when the site is finished) that you intend to maintain the site on your own, you could end up undoing a lot of the work we've done, and incur additional repair costs just to get back to where you started.

It will also be worth the time to determine which parts of your web site will benefit from self-maintenance. It would be pointless to create a special self maintenance program for an area of your site that receives very little traffic, has little data, or does not require regular changes. In this case, most of the work could be done much less expensively by the designer. Don't let your zeal for self maintenance leave you with a bloated and ineffective web site!

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