FireStarter: Manage your own website

Can you (the small business owner) manage your own website?

Why would you want to…

A few years back self-managed websites were the domain of big business. How things have changed. You now have the opportunity to manage your own website at a reasonable cost. But why would you want to?

In this article I explore the real benefits of self-managing your website content…and I’ll give you a clue: its not about saving costs its about saving time. I’ll also give you some ideas about how to weigh up if content management is right for your business. (ps: its not for everyone)

In the follow up article I’ll give you a set of questions you need to ask your web developer before you embark on the the web-as-a-business-tool adventure. And in the final article I’ll review some of the services and software available to help you manage your website.

In medium-big business the benefits of managing your own site are clear. First, it helps to keep their brand and message consistent. Second, and most importantly IT COST LESS. That’s because as a site grows the complexity of the site structure and costs of adding and managing pages grows exponentially. There’s a simple explanation of the financial benefits here>

But what about small business?

Look at it this way…. Why do your clients choose you over bigger competitors?
I’m sure there are lots or reasons but I bet two principle one’s are: your ability to deliver personal service, and your agility to create or change your products or services to meet your clients right here right now problems.

You are a fast turning speed boat: they are a cruise liner

Personal service – it cost money?

It costs money to deliver personal service, right? That’s because in small business time really IS money. The personal service you spend on existing clients, is preventing you finding and wooing new clients. Now take a step back and look at what personal service is. Its about your clients feeling they have a special place in your eyes. What you NEED to do is give every client that feeling, but spend less time doing it. A self-managed website can help you do that. Here’s just few ways that you can make your website make your clients feel important:

Provide new and fresh information that is directly relevant to the needs of your clients
Publish their success stories (and yours) in case studies
Pro-actively promote their businesses with links to their websites
Create secure areas where you share documents, projects, accounts information
Use tracking and statistics to know what products or services your clients are interested…and there’s lots more.

Now you can’t do any of this if your website is a brochure that gets updates once a year.

“We are flexible and agile”

Of course you are. Every small business has to be, just to survive.

You stay agile by continously refining your product and service offerings, by adopting new technology, by taking on new staff, by developing new partnerships. But is this reflected in your website?

Does your home page tell potential clients why they should use you? And does that reflect the pitch you are using in the “real world”?
Are your testimonials up-to-date and reflective of the products or services you are delivering right now?
Are your latest “packages” up there for new clients to see?
Is your “news” current for this month?

You are your website

And remember in big business, the web is just part of their whole branding strategy. But in small business, after your business cards, your website is the single most important way people find out about your business. Because where is the first place someone who might be interested in your services/products going to look, before they call you? And how relevant and up-to-date should that information be?

“Its Ok, I’ll get my developer to update my site”

OK so lets assume that you know you should be using your website as a more effective business tool, and keeping it up to date. So why not use your web developer to update it?

I’m sure all businesses who build static websites promises themselves that they will go back to their web developer and update it regularly. But do they?

The vast number of small business sites with out-of-date “news” items, old product offerings, or incorrect contact details tell the truth. Unless you have an exceptionally good relationship with your web developer – there are just too many barriers to you actually doing the updates. Lack of time is the biggest barrier. Because to update your “service description” you know you will have to …
.... work out what you want, get an estimate, pay a deposit, write out the new text, send the new images, wait…(maybe wait a little more), view the updates on a development server, print out the pages, hand-write comments, fax to the developer, wait… view the revised development page, call the developer with last minute changes, approve, and Phew Its Live! (except you haven’t added the latest new offering which you just brainstormed with your staff last week). So it just doesn’t happen.

So are there situations where you shouldn’t use content management?

Yes (maybe). Here are some reasons why it might be better to have a static website:

Your industry is highly visual. If you are in an industry where your graphic branding is everything. You pump out new graphics on a regular basis – then yes, it might be more effective for your graphic designer to manage your updates for you. Make sure you have a graphic designer who understand the web!
You want your site to have sophisticated animation. You want menus that slide out and pulsate. You want pages that slowly flip like a magazine. You want images that softly fade in and out. You want background music and mouse click noises. Welcome to the world of Flash. Have your wallet ready! (Of course you can still have Flash elements in your content managed website, you just can’t update them yourself)
You hate computers :) Seriously, if you just don’t want the hassle, then its better to get your web designer to do the updates for you. Alternatively, outsource the management of the site to an administrator using a content management system, and pay $35 an hour for updates instead of $100 an hour for a web designer.
You love computers. If you are comfortable using FTP and Dreamweaver, then it might make sense to have a static website that you update yourself. Just realize your limitations: editing page content is not too hard, but adding new pages or sections and keeping the site consistent will take some skill. (I’ll talk about self-editing static websites as one of the budget solutions in a later article in this series.)

The worst “reason” to not have content management is I can’t afford it. If you have a limited budget its even more important to ensure you have a content solution, because you won’t want to be going back to your web developer at $100 per hour for updates. Spend more of your budget on getting a content management system, and less on the graphic design of the website. I’ll talk more about the budget options for self-managed websites later in this series.

You should now have a clear idea of why most small businesses should update their web content regularly. You should also know if its practical for you to achieve this by closely managing your web developer or if you need a content management solution to help.

In my next article I’ll go through the questions you need to ask yourself (and your web developer) about content management before you head off to update your new website. By the end of the second article, you should have a clear idea of what you really need out of your website.

And, one more thing, I haven’t even mentioned the importance of up-to-date content in a well rounded e-marketing campaign: for search engine rankings, Pay Per Click, and email marketing. That’s a whole other story.

I’m happy to answer questions left in the comments boxes below.

Richard Quinn
richard@firestarter.com.au

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