1. I want to be able to maintain my own site, but I don’t want to learn code, how can I do this?

There are different ways to maintain your site content.  One of the ways is to hire your current web developer to make the changes for you. Typically they have a discounted maintenance rate for ongoing clients, however, if you wish to maintain the site yourself, you can have a content management system (CMS) built into your overall development when you first build your site or later if you have an existing site.  Many of them now are very simple to use and are similar to that of MS Word.  Because of the nature of the CMS, more programming work up front is needed to incorporate into the site and therefore will be costly at first, but in the long run may tend to save you money and time, and not have to rely on your designer to get back to you.

2. To database or not? Pages created on the fly? What does this mean?

Databases are useful when you have a lot of information that needs to be collected, cross-referenced, written to multiple areas of your site, or for transactional purposes. Databases are used for features such as surveys, request for consultation forms, shopping carts, update content, or any use for a relational database. Database development is higher skill and not all designers can program. Therefore, look for designer/developers who can provide this skill set.

3. What is an FTP?

This acronym stands for file transfer protocol. It is the process needed to get your site files from your desktop up to the host server, for the rest of the world to see your website.  If you are switching host providers, your developer may ask you for this information, and you would need to give them your host name, typically ftp.yourdomain.com and a username and password.

4. How do I create a Site Map – why is this important?

You can develop a site map in different formats, HTML, XML and TXT.  Typically we develop sitemaps so that it makes the search engines life easier to find all your pages, especially if you have site sections three deep (section, subsection, sub-sub-section).  Site maps have been extremely useful in search engine optimization, and anytime you make major changes to your site architecture or add new content, it is worthwhile creating an updated version of the site map to re-submit to Google.

5. What can I do to prepare for the web developer, to reduce on time and be more efficient with the process?

Review a few of your competitor web sites to get a general idea on how they present themselves, this will give you an idea what you like and dislike.  Create a suggested site map based on your findings, with the different sections that you would like to elaborate on, remembering that there should always be minimum of the following pages, Home | About Us | Contact Us and Privacy Policy, the other sections should be related to your products and services and other value added pages for your audience.  Collect a list of 20 keyword phrases that you believe your audience will use to find you, share this information with your developer.  Write up your features or requirements that you feel you would need, and pay careful attention to the budget – review #2 in the planning stage. Work closely with your developer to keep communication lines open, and participate through total awareness, so you can be part of the project.