INMA_A01.QXD

several facets. For the information on the site to be accurate it clearly needs to be up-to-date.

Trigger procedures should be developed such that when price changes or product specifica-

tions are updated in promotional leaflets or catalogues, these changes are also reflected on

the web site. Without procedures of this type, it is easy for there to be errors on the web site.

This may sound obvious, but the reality is that the people contributing the updates to the

site will have many other tasks to complete, and the web site could be a low priority.

A further reason for updating the site is to encourage repeat visits. For example, a cus-

tomer could be encouraged to return to a business-to-business site if there is some

industry news on the site. This type of content needs to be updated regularly according

to the type of business, from daily, weekly to monthly. Again, a person has to be in place

to collate such news and update the site frequently. Some companies such as RS

Components have monthly promotions, which may encourage repeat visits to the site.

It is useful to emphasise to the customer that the information is updated frequently. This

is possible through simple devices such as putting the date on the home page, or per-

haps just the month and year for a site that is updated less frequently.

As part of defining a web site update process, and standards, a company may want to

issue guidelines that suggest how often content is updated. This may specify that con-

tent is updated as follows:


 within two days of a factual error being identified;


 a new ‘news’ item is added at least once a month;


 when product information has been static for two months.

Maintenance is easy in a small company with a single person updating the web site. That

person is able to ensure that the style of the whole site remains consistent. For a slightly

larger site, with perhaps two people involved with updating, the problem more than dou-

bles since communication is required to keep things consistent. For a large organisation

with many different departments and offices in different countries, site maintenance

becomes very difficult, and production of a quality site is only possible when there is

strong control to establish a team who all follow the same standards. Sterne (2001) suggests

that the essence of successful maintenance is to have clearly identified responsibilities for

different aspects of updating the web site. The questions to ask are:


 Who owns the process?


 Who owns the content?


 Who owns the format?


 Who owns the technology?

We will now consider these in more detail, reviewing the standards required to pro-

duce a good-quality web site and the different types of responsibilities involved.

Who owns the process?

One of the first areas to be defined should be the overall process for updating the site.

But who agrees this process? For the large company it will be necessary to bring together

all the interested parties such as those within the marketing department and the site

developers – who may be an external agency or the IT department. Within these group-

ings there may be many people with an interest such as the marketing manager, the

Responsibilities in web site maintenance

Responsibilities in web site maintenance