Can I Update & Manage My Own Website?
OR
How much do my website updates cost?

Mad River Consulting is available for software training and will gladly assist you in managing your own website. Our strong suggestion is that you establish your website first and save the subject of maintaining it yourself for phase two. Most people need to "get their feet wet" first—become familiar with their website and the process of making small updates. (See important note below right regarding firms selling on-line updating services.)

The reality is that a business not in this line of work normally doesn't have the personnel and software resources and expertise to manage a professional website. Our suggestion is not to plan on maintaining your site unless you have a capable staff member who will make the time for this task, or you are a very hands-on business owner or manager. This approach works well ONLY for information that changes repeatedly and that the business already updates on a regular basis for other display or advertising purposes.

The three core tasks of website maintenance (after development) are 1) image creation and enhancement, 2) page update or creation, and layout, and 3) file management (FTP).

Photo creation and management is the largest stumbling block in your hopes of maintaining your website yourself. This is the task requiring the most expertise and talent and the more complex software. You will likely want to add photos to your website, which involves sizing, cropping, color and lighting touch-up, and in some cases, drop shadowing or feathering edges, etc. Photoshop, Fireworks and Image Ready are tools that professionals use, costing $600 to $800 and requiring a substantial learning curve. In addition, the amateur does not always have the tools to minimize file size while maintaining photo quality.

Adobe Photo Deluxe and other software that come with digital cameras are those that businesses typically have. These are capable of most of the desired enhancements, sometimes including drop shadows, and would likely be adequate for your needs.

Considering Doing It Yourself?  There are two basic approaches.

• Obtaining the appropriate software for your computer, making file changes on your hard drive, and uploading them to the server.
• Using a web-based administrative interface that we create for you to update the desired pages or sections of your site.

The decision you need to make includes whether you want to:

• buy appropriate software to supplement what you don't have, spend several hours of your time and budget on training and set-up of the software in your computer(s), and allocate the time on an ongoing basis to make timely updates to your site, OR
• have us implement an on-line tool for updates to particular sections of your site

Business Services

Installation, set-up, training, and consulting on popular software such as the following:

Microsoft Word,
Excel,
Access,
FrontPage

Email, i.e.:
Eudora,
Outlook Express,
Mail (Mac)

Macromedia
Dreamweaver,
Contribute,
Cold Fusion

Adobe Photoshop,
Photoshop Elements,
Photo Deluxe;
Digital Camera Software

Hard drive-based software

Adding and updating pages is done easily with a page layout program such as Microsoft Front Page or Macromedia Dreamweaver (approx. $599.00)—the approach professionals use. I recommend Macromedia Dreamweaver for site layout. It is an easy, straightforward program to use, and very "clean" in its coding.

Macromedia has an inexpensive companion product called Contribute for approx. $149. Some new computers come with Front Page Express installed, thanks to Microsoft pushing their products. Netscape even offers a page layout feature called Composer.

Microsoft Front Page, around $150 or $200, is the other most popular tool. It is not as "clean" in its coding, and training is a bit more complicated for the setup and uploads, but layout is straightforward and it would do the job when update of an existing site is the primary task.

With any of these robust or mini programs, you will likely need several hours of training, and you will likely be in contact again in the future as your understanding of the program improves and you want to dive into a broader range of tasks.

The choice of program is not normally a problem, but some compatibility issues would likely want to be checked IF you venture into more than just updates. They handle forms and image maps differently. You may want our assistance in setting up page templates and our instruction on what sections of pages you may alter safely.

FTP is file transfer protocol—sending files to the internet. This is either available as a feature in one of the layout programs or as an independent program that costs about $49.00. The task is straightforward and easily taught. If more than one person, i.e. you and MRC, will be updating the site, a procedure to check for the latest files needs to be established and followed.

A third alternative, if updates are simply text changes within the body of a limited number of pages, is to train the business' site manager to make html changes in the source code document using a limited number of tags. This approach requires the inexpensive FTP program described above.
 

Web-based administrative console

An approach for adding and updating information to particular sections of a site is for the developer to create an on-line interface for the business to use. Although the price for this can vary considerably—several hundred to several thousand dollars, a good ball-park figure is that the interface will have a return on investment of approximately a year, i.e. you will pay as much for the tool as you might pay for updates throughout the course of a year. You will still need to prepare images separately, and you would use this tool instead of a page layout program and FTP.

An example of this can be found at www.MadRiverWeb.com/dynamic/admin/. Please call or email for a guest password.

Full Web-based Updating Services

Beware of the appeal of web-based or on-line updating services, i.e. create your own website. Although this CAN be a very good alternative, with "canned" images and backgrounds available for your use, there are layout flexibility limitations and your material is not easily extracted from their server if you should desire to move to a different service in the future.

This approach is basically on-line software. The pages of your site are created dynamically based on information you upload to their server. The difference between this and the approach above is that with a custom update console, your information stays self-contained and transportable.

The reality is that the more complex your site becomes, i.e. database-driven, or sales and inventory in a shopping cart, you are "married" to either the server or the software. There is no way to get around this, just like the major task of moving to a different building or storefront. The key is to discuss the topic with a competent consultant before venturing into your chosen approach.
 

We have seen businesses spend several hundred dollars to be ready to update their own website, and then continue to have us do the updates. Training is forgotten, practice is necessary to increase the likelihood that you will do it yourself, and you need to make the time to do all the steps. You already need to make time to take photos and write text—steps that delay many businesses from providing the materials for updates to us and steps that need to be performed whether you or we update your website. If you can accomplish these steps, don't let the website update become the bottleneck. This can be a joint effort. Most of the time it is far easier to send the updates in an email for us to do. Call on us if you need.

We have seen the do-it-yourself approach work successfully in a number of appropriate situations, generally with information that changes regularly, and that the business is already inputting into other computer programs or providing in print for marketing purposes:

• The Common Man Restaurant updates their menu frequently on their website, and they do this in print first to place in the actual menu
• David M Dion Real Estate updates their property listings on their site, and they input this information into the MLS first
• Mad River Internal Medicine posts articles on their website, generally after they are run in the local paper
• White Rocks Inn posts news on their home page and special packages and wedding congratulations on the Specials page

Use Our Services  Please see Mad River Consulting's current rates for design, development and website maintenance. We bill by the tenth-hour for clients that are on a regular maintenance program (smaller time increment than most companies will bill) and charge a minimum of a quarter-hour. This is not a bad price to pay to save the trouble of having to remember how when you finally make the time for the update yourself. We don't mind the detail work. We would much rather update your site for you. It is safe and speedy.

• Text changes can be done quickly. Several can be done at once typically in a quarter-hour.
• Photo updates are estimated at 1/4 hour each for digital and 1/2 hour for scanning, including image enhancement (as necessary and within reason), installation to the page and upload.
• Don't forget that consultation time may result in additional charges. Sometimes estimating and explaining how much something is going to cost drives up the cost. We are reasonable in our fees, and you can contribute to your own cost savings by providing clear, consolidated instructions and attachments in concise, organized emails.
• Adding pages normally take between one and six hours. If your site is set up to add newsletters, property listings or any other repetitive information, page addition is less costly because the structure and process is already there. If you wish to add a new section of content to your site which involves adding a new button in your header/sidebar and a new link in your footer, the cost may be on the higher end allowing for creation of the button and any necessary layout changes, but this is a less frequent occurrence which is likely to correspond to a new marketing effort. Economies of scale can be achieved when multiple new pages are completed at the same time.
• We promise 3 day turnaround to clients who request regular updates, and these are typically accomplished in a day. If you are mailing information, a quick email notification is appreciated in case we are out of town. Please consider other time factors such as holiday weekends. We will generally complete other small update projects such as seasonal changes within a week. Major site improvements and content additions should be planned.
• If MadRiverConsulting maintains listings on your website, please send updates, additions, deletions to updates. This will ensure that your listings are updated in a timely manner in the event "the regulars" are out of town.
• When we perform ongoing work for a client, we periodically test website functionality such as forms. Occasionally an ISP makes system changes that trigger other undesirable results such as a broken form script. We recommend that you test your forms once a month to make sure they are working properly, and let us know if you suddenly see a drop-off in form or email inquiries.

We look forward to serving your maintenance and training needs. Please do not hesitate to contact us via email or phone with questions or for clarification.