Managing Your Website

A company can spend a lot of money, time and resources developing a new website. It is an exciting time filled with great expectations as the internet provides a constant supply of users searching for products and services and a great looking website can really help attract customers. It is easy to think that if you get everything right during this design and development phase you are going to be all set in upcoming years.

Unfortunately, that is not the case today as websites are far more complex than just an electronic marketing brochure that tells a company story or a marketing campaign at a specific point in time.  Most websites today are Content Management Systems which are a class of website that allows the content to be updated by both the owner and or their respective webmaster.  This means your website really needs to be built in mind of telling many stories and having many marketing campaigns that may come along during the websites existence… quite often 3-5 years.

The management of your website has become more complex simply by the nature of the internet and these intelligent content management systems. What are the best practices?

Maintenance & Hosting Support

The first and foremost form of website management is the boring stuff… upgrading your website when new editions that are released including core updates as well as extensions and components that make up your website. These upgrades are usually related to security, functionality and occasionally enhancement. Keep in mind that a host provider such as GoDaddy does NOT provide these services and the biggest issues you will encounter when you don’t upgrade your website is the potential of being hacked or something stops working.

Web Content Management

After overseeing around 350 website developments we have learnt that establishing a client’s ability to manage their website is critical.  So here are 3 great questions for an owner of a website?

• Do you have writing skills and or photography skills that can contribute to the website?
• Can you use Social Media and if so what is your favorite Social Media App?
• Can you or your staff dedicate time to learn how to use your website and update it?

The last question is not as important as the first two in my opinion. Mechanically updating the website is about learning how to use a CMS system… e.g. Joomla or WordPress. That takes time and is very dependent on usage. If you update your website once a year then you most likely will never master the CMS and most likely should have the help of a Website Management Company… (NOTE –  again this is not a web hosting company that simply provides a physical space for your website)

Blogging Is Still King Of Content

If you can tell a story and if you write well and can take great photos then you most likely possess a critical ingredient that your website will always need… FRESH CONTENT!

The absolute best content you can provide your website is Blog…. pure and simple. Google loves fresh & frequent content and it will reward you with new prospects and repeat client visits.

A relevant topic that is written by you or your staff that contanis knowledge, information and you or your company’s personality wrapped up in 3-4 great paragraphs is all you need. We have several clients that do a great job but there is none better than Russell Berry of The Travel Factory in Abilene Texas. Russell has been blogging on his website since its inception in 2012.  We are now at 256 blogs with a new blog coming each week… check out some of Russell’s great work below!

https://www.thetravelfactoryabilene.com/about/travel-blog-magazine

This work has basically established a website that increases it traffic by around 1000 visitors a year (every year) and when you combine Google My Business which has more than doubled the website traffic and throw in Facebook as the social media and you have a tremendously sustainable website with a great internet marketing game plan!  Using the blog as your primary post in Google Posts and Facebook creates great opportunity for prospect and customer conversation!

Updating the Website Is Easy – Producing Great Content is Hard!

We work with Russell each week to publish the blog which includes adding a Royalty Free Photo, Adding Tags to the Blog, sharing the blog with Google Posts and Facebook. All up our time is 15-30 minutes each week pending on the actual Blog that we are polishing up and publishing – basically a mechanical process.

But let’s be honest Russell’s ability to produce the content for his business is PRICELESS!

I often hear website owners say I can’t update my website as it is to hard to do but that should NEVER stop you having great content on your website. (producing content is hard to do!). Answering those three key questions above should help ensure successful website management with a sustainable plan.

SO keep in mind that working with a company that can provide Website Management Services for those that need it as well as Content Management Training Classes for those who can allocate the time to update their website is certainly worthwhile establishing!

Be sure to contact me if you would like to review or discuss your website management!