In a previous article, I discussed Website Builders and Custom Websites. That article focused on choosing which kind of website is best for your business. However, I would be amiss if I didn’t spend some time on what is important to you after you have a website, which is website administration.
The unfortunate fact of owning a website is that, once you’ve set it up, you can’t just forget about it (a.k.a., ‘set and forget’). At a minimum, a website requires web-based administration on the backend. But also, as trends change and your business changes, your website will require changes.
A website as a living, breathing digital representative of your business.
Think about it this way: Sales is an ever-evolving part of any business. Sales representatives require continuous development as the market needs to change and your business changes. A website is no different because it too is a sales representative of your business. As the market needs to change, so does the development of the website. This is why the administration is important for a business.
Let’s get further into why website administration is necessary…
Website Awareness
How does your website get noticed in the first place? To be discovered online, a proper SEO strategy is crucial, but it’s also important to know that you won’t get it perfect the first time. There’s an 80% rule of marketing, where you can get to 80% of achievement, but the other 20% will be spent on reviewing, learning, and adjusting. So by using Google Analytics, you’ll start getting a visual understanding of what is working and what isn’t. From there, you will begin to adjust the copy or imagery on the website to lure more visitors.
Because of this, an administrator will need to stay current on updating the SEO plug-ins. Without the updates, you won’t know if the keywords, key phrases, or the general readability of the content on the website meet the SEO success criteria needed to gain awareness.
Website Engagement
A website is often the home base for your Content Marketing and Socal Media strategy. This means you’ll likely be using Social Media posts to direct people to the Content (i.e., blog posts) on your website.
Once a visitor arrives at your website, the ease of use and readability of the pages will keep them engaged. Your website’s theme, forms, and plugins will need to be updated consistently by an administrator to provide an optimal experience for your visitors.
Website Security
Security is probably the number one reason why website administration exists. Because a website is a digital medium, it can be an invitation for hackers to enter and attack your network. A very common way that websites get hacked is with “Bots” (a software application that is programmed to attack a website and/or network). In order to ward off these attacks, all security aspects of the website need to be up to date.
Let’s not forget about the biggest mistake I have ever seen – not backing up a website. If your website gets hacked, your server goes down, or your website crashes, you will absolutely need a backup of the website. Without it, you might find yourself either spending a lot of time and money fixing the website or having to rebuild it from scratch. The latter is usually the case.
Website Management
Beyond these reasons above, there is another good reason to have a website administrator, which is the level of experience in maintaining websites. I cannot tell you the number of times I have witnessed a company (or person) wanting to manage a website themselves in an attempt to save a buck. The effects of that sort of decision range from simple design flaws over time all the way to a non-recoverable website.
What makes this most bothersome is that website designers and developers take pride in their work. This is proven by how often web designers put their “Built By” names on websites. Having their company name visible to website visitors is how they promote their work. With that goal in mind, there is really nothing better than creating a presentable website. However, there’s nothing worse than witnessing that same website slowly turning to garbage because the customer decided to manage it themselves.
All of these points make website administration an important part of a marketing or technical team. Web-based administration for smaller websites comes as a rather low-cost service, while larger eCommerce sites might require a full-time administrator. A web administrator is a serious consideration because they are the ones who are going to make you look good and keep you safe.
We hope you found this article useful. If you are interested in finding a website administrator, please contact me and I will get you to the right person…
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