Any web developer knows that it takes a large amount of work to design and launch a new website. Once that website is up and running, however, you’ll need to continue working to manage it. If you’re handling website management for a company, understand that annual site management will need roughly the same amount of financial resources as designing and building the site in the first place. Which elicits this question: Should you maintain your business Web site yourself or pay someone to do it for you?

If you’re handling website management for a company, understand that annual site management will need roughly the same amount of financial resources as designing and building the site in the first place. Click To Tweet

Some of the worst advice I’ve seen asks this question: Could your time be better spent doing more important things like, oh I don’t know, running your business? If so, then you have no business building and maintaining a Web site. WHAT? Your website IS your business – it is your online presence and you absolutely NEED to maintain it yourself. Turning this task over to someone else is like turning over your business to a third party and expecting that it will succeed. Granted there are some tasks that can (and in many cases should) be outsourced, like server  requirements, software patches, and the like, but think about it this way: If you have a physical store and decide to hold a sale, do you hire an outside party to come in and create an end-cap display of the products you are promoting or do you make the decision and change your store yourself? Your website is no different – you need the skills to update your website yourself based on the needs of your business at any given point in time.

I have recently been sharing a series of videos about maintaining your own website in a free online course called “Take Charge of Your Website!” In the final video I show a slide of a Facebook news feed.

I then ask the question, “How often would you return to Facebook, if every time you visited, you were presented with the exact same information? If Facebook showed you the same posts, day after day, week after week, month after month, would you keep going back to their website?” Of course not! So, what makes you think that your website is any different? IT ISN’T!

How often would you return to Facebook, if every time you visited, you were presented with the exact same information? What makes you think your website is any different? Click To Tweet

Look, I don’t care what business you are in or how pretty you think your website is, if you are not providing updated, relevant content on a regular basis, there is no reason why anyone would return to your website over and over again. It’s that simple, and that is why you MUST have the skills to maintain your own website.

Of course, to do this requires that you create (or get your customers to create) a continuous stream of new content. This is not insignificant and one of the reasons why maintenance costs on your website will be equal to or even exceed, the cost of creating the website on an annual basis. In that final video of the free online course, I show you how yuo COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere.

I also describe the significance of telling stories instead of simply creating traditional product descriptions. I love the quote from Seth Godin that says “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” Stories are key to making your website content be great. Here is an example plot you can use for a story on your product description pages.

 

Does any of this resonate with you? Would you like to be able to make simple changes to your website without having to wait for days to have your webmaster get around to it? Are you ready to finally take charge of your own website?

While I strongly encourage you to watch the entire series of videos in the free online course, here is the final video that brings all this information together.