Maintenance Options

• Do-it-yourself maintenance
• Contract maintenance
• Automated maintenance

Develop a schedule first. Next, allocate a budget for web maintenance. According to Nielsen, you should allocate about the same amount as the initial cost of building the site, with 50 percent as an absolute minimum. If you don’t allow a budget for maintenance and spend it all on the site development, your entire effort will soon be wasted. Changes are the common denominator of the Web and a major redesign is recommended at least once a year along with additional work to reorganize and revise. Budget for graphics, navigation buttons, icons, etc. will also have to be prepared.

Continually record potential improvements to the site. This includes maintaining links. If you move your site to another URL, make sure to leave a forwarding address at the URL. Test links external to your site and clean up dead pages along with links no longer used. Be aware changes in technology may render pages inoperative for much of the target audience.

Keep a maintenance log for repairs and improvements and monitor server performance also. See Fig. 2 for an example.

Fig. 2

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