Fire your Webmaster: How to Create a Professional Website with No Technical Knowledge
Written by Smartt Team on July 3, 2009
One problem that many self-employed or small business owners face is breaking into the world of the web. It’s a well known fact these days that the web is an integral part of any well run business. In fact, it’s so important that if you don’t have a website you’ll automatically lose credibility with your customers. Even if you primarily do business in the “real world” and not online, you still need a website. It’s a place for customers to go to familiarize themselves with your products and services and get to know you and your business. Without a professional website you’ll lose credibility among your customers.
The Web Master Myth
Unless you happen to own a web development business, chances are you don’t know much about building and maintaining a website. So you do what most people do and hire a webmaster to create, design and maintain your site for you. These webmasters become like gods. They seem to possess a magical technical knowledge that no one else seems to know. Realizing their power, they charge you an arm and a leg every time they change one or two words on your site. Changes get expensive and time consuming and eventually most people give up and stop updating their site.
This is the webmaster myth. Webmasters want you to believe that you need them in order to have an online presence. But this is simply not true. You don’t need a webmaster and you don’t need any technical knowledge to create and maintain a professionally designed website. You can do it yourself.
The Power of a CMS
A CMS (Content Management System) allows the average non-technical person to create, maintain and update their own website without having to rely on a web master for anything. A CMS works like a word processor; it allows you to add, remove and update content with a few clicks. All you have to do is log in to your site, which can be done from any computer, anywhere that has an internet connection. Once you’re in your site, you can add, edit or delete pages within your site.
The interface is similar to today’s popular word processing programs such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. If you can use a word processor you can update your site. But it doesn’t end with written content. A CMS allows you to add photos, music, video and other multi-media files. You can even upload attachments that visitors can download. Anything you want to do, you can easily do with a CMS.
Creating the Look
It’s important to have a good design for your website. With a CMS you can choose your color scheme, your logo and your banner. Don’t worry; a web designer can help you with this step. Together you’ll decide on the look and feel you want your site to have. Once you’ve told the designer what you want, he can create it for you. The design is embedded into the site code so it stays consistent throughout the entire site no matter what changes you make. If you add a page, the design will follow. If you edit a page, the design still stays the same. Once the site is set up, all you have to do is upload whatever content you want.
Navigation is also automatically taken care of with a CMS. There’s nothing worse than a website with awkward navigation. Using a CMS will automatically create easy to follow navigation. You don’t have to worry about missing or broken links or pages that don’t really fit into the site. This makes the site user-friendly and professional and will encourage your customers to come back again and again.
Fire your Webmaster
The time has come to tell your webmaster his services are no longer needed and that he’s free to go and find another employer. When you use a CMS, you can do everything he can do. It’s the magic key that lets you in on his powerful technical secrets- and the best part is you don’t even have to have any technical knowledge to create a website that both you and your customers will love.
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