THE MANAGER'S GUIDE TO RUNNING A COMPANY WEBSITE

February 12, 2009 By Ronald Burgess, Consultant
Burgess Management Consulting Company

OVERVIEW
This white paper will review the short history of websites and will discuss how some companies have fallen into a “knowledge void” regarding how to continue managing their websites. Topics such as changes in software, Internet servers, and the required skill levels will reveal where the actual costs exist today. Finally, outsourcing
comparisons with internal costs will demonstrate how a manager needs to blend both elements to succeed at website management.

TOPICS
Content management, webmaster skill, website cost containment, in-house webmasters, outsourcing web content, web writers, database driven websites. The early days of the Internet spawned the term “Webmaster” and while this title seems to indicate a mastery of the web, in just ten short years since the term was developed, it is clearly a misnomer.

Requiring a technical programmer has become a thing of the past. In the early days, a webmaster spent most of his time writing HTML code. Today, almost no programming is required to create a polished website. In fact, the technology available today makes most early websites look like child’s play, as no coding was required. Today, the reality is that webmasters and content developers spend the vast majority of their time in design, layout and content development (including copy writing).