"My experience working with Kathy Canfield Shepard and her design team was so successful that it has led me to give her the highest compliment - recommending her services to my colleagues. Kathy's approach to designing my website was systematic yet flexible. She learned about my company and asked the right questions to determine what I wanted my website to achieve. Once she understood my vision, she put her talents to work and designed my site with the look and feel that made it my own. Thanks Kathy, for your outstanding creativity and professionalism."
Joan Haberman
Menus to Venues LLC
www.menustovenues.com
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Tips
FOCUS ON: Maintenance
Many Websites become ineffective within a few months of their launch. Why? Because too little consideration was given to Website maintenance.
Without appropriate attention, Website content quickly becomes outdated. Poorly prepared graphics creep in. The unifying design theme disintegrates. Viewers become annoyed, confused, or bored, and don't return. Your audience is gone.
Many think that once a site is successfully launched, the work is done. In reality it has only begun.
To keep your Website well maintained:
1. Give one staff member responsibility for finalizing content updates. This content coordinator reviews all updates for consistency with the site's style, then delivers the updates to your Webmaster.
2. Give this staff person enough time to effectively accomplish this task each week. This should be part of their core job description and not an afterthought. You may also need to consider identifying additional staff resources.
3. Make sure your staff understands what information is "Web-worthy." Each person should know what pages he or she is responsible for maintaining. If needed, write and share these guidelines for content maintenance.
4. Remember that maintaining your Website is no less important (and perhaps more so) than maintaining your organization's other marketing materials. What you post on your site is potentially seen by the world.
These tips will help give your organization a better chance of keeping your website attractive and up to date, so visitors will keep coming back for new information.
