Website Manager

[cutman1000]

The veterinary clinic where I work needs someone to update, host, manage, etc our website.  We had one created a few years ago, but I think the domain expired.  We never updated it like we originally planned on.
 
Before I attempt to find someone local (does this job require someone local? I don't think so...) I figured I would see if anyone at SoSH wanted the job.
 
Any interest or advice?  Thanks.

 

[Curll]

A few things to consider:
 
How do you envision the role?
 
An on-demand gig, where you aren't in contact for weeks/months, then e-mail a change request and expect it to be done within 2 hours?
 
A working relationship that has the webmaster contact you regularly, seeking updates, and creating content?
 
How are you paying? Volunteer? 1099? Part-time?
 
Who handles the billing for hosting/e-mails/domain renewal? CC on file? Reimbursement? 
 
Who creates the website? Who creates the content? Who decides what needs to be changed on the site? Is there a SEO or marketing component? Is there a newsletter, customer database, etc, etc.
 
I don't mean to be too intense or to grill you, but often folks have the expectation that you "just need to do this", but there's a lot more to it than executing requests in an e-mail.  

 

[Blacken]

If you can point and click, you can manage something yourself on SquareSpace. SquareSpace provides a number of decent bells and whistles that can build a reasonable website for a nontechnical business. If that doesn't work for you, consider hiring somebody, but go down that road first.

 

[cutman1000]

We (the other vet and I) want to be as un-involved as possible.  The website doesn't have to be anything fancy - staff profiles, contact information, what we do, maybe a pet of the week/month.  Stuff like that.  If it's possible for us to EASILY add a pet of the week, that would be fine.  Our old system was impossible, however, so we never ended up updating it.  Most of our interaction with clients comes via our facebook page and I don't forsee that changing.

 

[canderson]

I mean, I freelance building Wordpress sites. Find a template, wrote content, done.

I'd love to take your money but I really thnk you can do this yourself much faster/easier/cheaper.

Edit: PM me if you want to talk more. I don't charge much, especially if easy setup. I can happily send you site examples.

 

[bosockboy]

I own a media firm--we can handle that pretty easily and affordably and can offer organic SEO to build your site search standings also. PM me.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

I own a media firm--we can handle that pretty easily and affordably and can offer organic SEO to build your site search standings also. PM me.

I have a feeling this is going to cost more than what he's looking to spend, but good luck.

 

[Blacken]

If you spend more than ten bucks a month (plus whatever you kick a high-schooler to monkeytype at things for you), you are overpaying drastically.

 

[AlNipper49]

I second Blacken's Squarespace recommendation.

 

[Blacken]

Listen to him, he's a huge member.

 

[zenter]

If WordPress is too involved, then I third the SquareSpace suggestion. It's perfect for your needs. $96/year for no nonsense.

 

[Orange Julia]

I had a friend set up the basic bones of a wordpress site for my work, and create a bunch of pages and a template for each page, and now I just go in and edit the pages as needed. If you have a staff person, like a receptionist or a bookkeeper, that job of weekly updates can easily fall to them once the structure (are they still called style sheets) is set up. Probably want to try to get your domain name back though, if it expired, first.  Then take up canderson on his offer to create it in wordpress and hand it off to a staff person to update as part of their job.  If you don't already have a facebook page, though, I'd do that first. A lot of people look at facebook first, for information about hours etc.

 

[cutman1000]

Cool. Thanks, everyone. With our previous website everything was just too complicated. We tried to pawn it off on a staff member but that didn't last long. I will look into Wordpress.

 

[charlieoscar]

If there will be someone from the office adding content, there needs to be a backup person available to do the same, one who would be capable of training another to be backup if that need arose.
 
Also, if there will be pictures added to the content, the person adding them needs to know about aspect ratio and how Wordpress or SquareSpace handles image resizing. Putting a 3x2 image aspect ratio (from the camera) into a 1x1 aspect ratio template does not work.
 
I haven't webmastered since dial-up days and things have changed immensely since then but there still are some standards that need to be followed: Restrict the number of people who can make changes. Be certain those people know what they are doing. Have a solid structure underlying the site. I inherited a site as a volunteer for a fair-sized not-for-profit that had about 40 chapters and committee heads all generating web pages. It took me the better part of a year, working about 40 hours per week to standardize the hodge-podge (to be fair, I was also dealing with new input). To shorten a well-known acronym (and keep it polite: KIS.