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Maintain Website |
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Maintenance of your website should never endMaintaining a website is just as important as building it in the first place! Unfortunately, most designers put much more effort into the initial design and launch of a site than they do in keeping the content fresh and keeping the site growing to best serve all visitors.
Keep your content freshIt is imperative that you maintain a commitment to posting accurate, timely information online. If people who visit your site find that the information never changes, they will stop accessing it. Maintaining a website is never done: new information will always be waiting to be uploaded, old information will need to be updated, users will provide suggestions that need to be incorporated, etc.Never take your website down when launching a site redesign. There are even for-profit organizations that will do this -- take their website down and put a "hold" page that says something ridiculous like, "Pardon our dust! Our new site will go up in a few days, so be sure to check back!" NEVER do this.Just as newspapers are committed to making sure they publish on time no matter what, just as theater companies are committed to the philosophy of the "show must go on" no matter what, you should be committed to always keeping your website operational. Taking your website down for several days during a transition, or ceasing to keep a website updated while you wait for a new site to be redesigned or launched, is unprofessional and will make you look very bad to many visitors and potential supporters. Visitor feedback keeps your content freshKeep in mind what your target audience wants out of the site. Give all web users ongoing opportunities to provide feedback and suggestions for the site. This can range from putting a feedback form on your site to asking your friends, "What do you think of my website?"The feedback given to you by your visitors will help to keep your content fresh and provide you with ideas for growing your website. All too often webmasters forget their audience. They get so absorbed by their own ideas that they turn their websites into a personal thing, and their target audience, the people they are trying to reach, is ignored. In time this can ruin a website. Keep looking for new content and design ideasIt is imperative that you keep your website content fresh and always growing. Check out sites for organizations similar to your own for content and design ideas. Find successful sites by way of referrals and the search engines. Look at how these sites are designed and use this research to develop your own website.Stories and newslettersAdd stories, RSS feeds and articles from newsletters and online article sites like ezinearticles.com that have been published since your site was launched, or information from publications that have come out since the website launch. This will keep your content up-to-date. |
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Track the results of your effortsTrack the responses that result from the visitors who visit your website. Particularly the feedback that they may offer. This is the best way to take the pulse of your visitors and to determine what they are thinking.Website traffic analysis will help you plan more strategically for future posts and online activities. Not to mention the insight it will provide for search engine optimization. And remember that responding to e-mail from the website is a vital part of how to maintain a website. This is how to develop trust with your website visitors. Don't ignore them and they won't ignore you! |
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