Do More With Less (Sort Of) and Manage Your Own Website
In days of yore, business owners employed technology experts as webmasters. Whether in-house or outsourced, these digital wizards worried about the Internet so no one else had to. They did it all: website set-up, troubleshooting and even marketing.
These days, no one really wants the title “webmaster” and the role has changed significantly. In fact, it has splintered into a variety of positions. Paying one person to fuss with the Internet used to seem sufficient, but content creation and website maintenance have diverged into their own areas of expertise. No one person can do it all for you anymore.
I’m not advocating a mad dash to hire a bunch of 20-somethings. In fact, you should hire no one, kick Mr. Wizard to the curb and learn to delegate. Assign web marketing tasks to someone in-house (maybe yourself). Allison says the best social media work is done in-house. Like social media, powerful tools and training are available to put you in control of your own website. Of course, getting assistance from marketing experts gives you a leg-up. But you can do it from your desktop if you want to.
Meanwhile, the technical aspects of running a website can be maintained with very little effort. Believe it or not, the customer service at reputable web hosting providers is friendly, or at least human. Though for businesses with many employees or locations, it’s still wise to find a professional IT company to coordinate your email and website hosting needs.
Regardless of your set-up, there are three things every website owner should do to take good care of their website investment.
- Identify your domain name registrar, and website and email host provider(s). Web designers, marketing consultants, IT experts and even your accountant might ask you for this information. Don’t trust anyone to just “take care of it”. Business owners should have this information on their desk.
- Make sure you alone have access and control over these domain and hosting accounts. It’s best to work with the providers directly, not through a third party. Some companies offer “complete website solutions” that promise easy results if you simply hand over the keys. Don’t do that. Reputable marketing experts don’t need to control your website hosting to get results. And if your website is hosted with a good provider, their customer service can quickly help you through the same troubleshooting that a third-party webmaster might do.
- Maintain. Pay your renewal bills. Log in to WordPress or your CMS and look for updates and software patches. If you don’t have a content management system, get one. Read more about the importance of using a CMS.
The webmasters aren’t dead, they just divided and grew into new roles.
Tell us what you think about this transformation. Is it better to delegate responsibilities to several people or a team, or do you prefer the old centralized webmaster idea?
Need help with your website? Ask us how you can be your own webmaster.
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