PAGE MAINTENANCE OPTIONS

OK. Now that I have pages on the WWW, how do I fix them, change them, and add to them? What are my options and what factors should I be considering? And, what is it going to COST me?

Maintaining pages on the WWW is not as easy as simply hosting them. The bottom line is that you are going to want to make your pages better. This includes fixing typos or grammar errors; changing format, organization, or presentation; adding links, updating links that don't work, and simply adding new stuff.

Basic Maintenance Options?

Employ host to maintain your pages. If you are employing someone to host your pages, they are a good candidate for maintaining them as well. But be careful, you don't want to be the proverbial "captive market" relying on one source for everything, that is, unless you are pleased with their service.

Employ someone to maintain your pages. For simple, basic maintenance, this is a fairly low cost option. However, the scope of changes and the timeliness of response might be limited. For more extensive maintenance, what you are really asking for is additional page development work. The mechanics of how this works are dependent on who has access to the web account where the pages are hosted. If you control this, then the maintainer can do the work and make it available to you over the net to download and transfer to your web account. If your maintainer controls this, the maintainer can do everything.

You maintain your pages. This requires learning HTML and some basics about how to move files between your local machine and your web account on the ISP machine. The later is NOT hard to do, even if you are not very technically inclined. WinFTP and Fetch are relatively simple programs to use for doing this. Basic HTML is rudimentary word processing with a few rules to learn. Editors such as the one I'm using now, HoTMetaL, really make it easy and relatively foolproof. It takes a little while to get used to, but that is to be expected.
You can always enlist the help of a consultant to clean up what you do and/or offer guidance and advice on organization, layout, file management, or any area in which you require assistance.

So, we have (1) let host agency maintain my pages, (2a) let someone else maintain my pages on a separate account for me, (2b) let someone else maintain pages I host on my own account with an ISP, (3) I maintain my pages on own account getting consulting support if/when I need it.

?????????? Considerations ??????????

Who needs access to the place where the pages are maintained? Typically the manager/maintainer of your pages is the one who needs the most access. Anything in your .public directories can be accessed over the web. What is important is to control who has authority to replace, delete, rename, etc ... files on your account. If you want this to be transparent to you, options (1) or (2a) might be best. If you want to control this, then option (2b) or (3) are best.

Who has the responsibility for ensuring that my pages are correct and working? The person or company with this responsibility will either need access to your account or will need to establish a means for getting their work to you for you to transfer to your account.
One simple means of doing this is via the internet itself. Pages that are changed can be posted. An e-mail can be sent to identify where they are. The new/changed pages can be accessed via a browser and saved to files. These files can then be moved via FTP to the appropriate subdirectories under .public in your account.

How much will it cost me?

For option (1), hosting is generally combined with some small amount of monthly maintenance. My charges for this are $9 per month for simple home pages up to 50k total size, and $18 per month for larger home pages up to 200k total size.

For option(2a) and (2b), this depends on how much maintenance work your pages require. Simple changes to files and addition of new HTML files that have been created by you or others is easy. Depending on the total size of your pages, this may amount to an hour or so per month to several hours per month. If extensive changes are made, or new material must be generated, you'll have to get an estimate of the time and cost involved since it is directly related to the specifics of what you need to have done.
Note: Anyone can hang up a shingle as a Web Page Consultant. Further, it is easy to provide examples of what you can do. It is not so easy to determine how much time went into creating a particular web page or site. Hourly wages range from $20 to $100 plus, but you can't necessarily determine what you are going to get by the rate alone. A simple three screen Home Page for a company can go for around $450-$600 according to a recent article in the local paper.

For option (3), you have much more flexibility. Much depends on your own talents and the kinds of support that would best serve you. Basic maintenance and making small changes is easy. You or someone in your employ can learn to handle these. For more extensive changes, you'll save yourself a lot of time and cost by getting help early to define what needs to be done and identify options to do it. This will allow you to choose an approach that best integrates with your own abilities and resources.
While the work is being done, a consultant can be on call to assist with any problems . In addition, there may be parts of the work that require special expertise for which it makes business sense to hire it out.
As the work is being completed, the consultant can assist with testing and final integration with the other pages already at your site.
Note: Remember, when you use a consultant you are paying for expertise. You'll get the most for your money if you employ the consultant not only to DO but to TEACH as well.

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