Who will be responsible for keeping the site updated? If you would like to maintain your own site and be able to make your own changes, are the time and technological resources available to support this?

One of the reasons WordPress sites have become popular is that the Administrative “back-end” to the website is a user-friendly dashboard. This means no more waiting for months until your designer/developer has the time—or you have the money—to make a few tweaks to that time sensitive announcement.

Also, if you have decided to include a blog have you allotted time for writing posts and maintaining it? For a blog to be effective it really needs to be updated at least monthly, better still every one to two weeks. This is what is referred to as “fresh content” and the search engines like Google are never happier than when they find fresh content to reward with improved search rankings. But if you hate to write, this might also be a good time to consider whether you’d like someone else to write it for you, be it an intern, paid staff or an outsider.

If you consider yourself to be a closet luddite, would paying someone to maintain your website be a better investment? Seriously, do-it-yourself-er or not, if you don’t understand techie things and would prefer to be out conducting business, these are all questions to be realistic about when providing the answers. Half of my clients are small business owners who have tried the “do it yourself” route and said “enough.” They came to me saying that they were spending so much time struggling to learn that they were neglecting the business it was intended to support. Your website should be the star of your web marketing team—not a time suck that you learn to dread!

To your business success!