There seem to be two types of people in this world – those that want to accomplish as much as possible and those that want to do as many things as possible.
Web design clients that want to do as many things as possible do their own site updates. Clients that want to accomplish as much as possible let us do their updates so they can be more efficient doing what they are best at.
Now my heart lies with the ones that want to do it themselves – that is my natural instinct. I like to know everything about everything and control my own destiny (a false feeling, in this case). My head of course lies with the ones who maximize their effectiveness by doing what they do best and letting us do what we do best, for they are the more successful and are far more likely to put themselves in a position to control their own destiny.
If a client wants to do their own updates we have a number of alternatives:
- Learn Dreamweaver (and maybe Photoshop)
- Learn Adobe Contribute
- Select a CMS option (e.g. WordPress, Joomla)
- Hang out until they realize that they don’t really want to do it themselves
Usually a site will degrade when a client has put themselves in charge of site maintenance. The rub being that although the mechanical process of an update is not that hard to teach or to master, the skill and talent behind design, choosing colors, spacing, font size, alignment choice, etc., is often inherent in the individual.
That’s why it’s so easy to spot a site constructed with a downloaded template design – the perimeter of the web page looks decent (to varying degrees), but the interior looks horrible – a complete mismatch. It would be like a fashion consultant choosing your suit (or dress), and then your 8 year old picking out your shirts and ties (or purse, earrings, shoes and belt – as the case may be).
For final proof – just start taking a closer look at all of the eNewsletters you get. These are often template based with the sender doing their own content – usually not a really pretty picture.
So decide – where is your time best spent – working on your business or working on your website.
