I know this story all too
well....you had a neighbor, whose grandson had a friend, whose brother
made websites in computer class. So, you threw him a couple
hundred bucks and you got yourself, what you thought at the time,
was a pretty good deal....well except for the fact that it didn't
work...what with the broken images and the links that were sent to
the 'file 404 not found' graveyard. And to top it off, it turns out the kid
didn't really understand what looks good and what didn't.
So now you're thinking, "You've
got everything you need, Kat, I'll throw you a couple hundred bucks
and you can just give me a makeover and we'll call it even". Well,
um, no.
Lets look at this metaphor. There
is an old viaduct north of town here and the Dept. of Transportation
is looking to remake it. The only thing they have going for
them is that there is a hole through the mountain....and even the
hole needs to be widened. They basically are starting from scratch.
Usually, about the only thing that I can
use from your existing site is maybe some of the copy and that is
something you needed to supply anyway. So, in a way, your part is
easier. The photos have probably been cropped and optimized and
won't
work with your new look so I'll need those again, and the same goes
for your logo. I use different naming conventions for your
pages so everything will be re-linked. The good news is you
already have an established url and hopefully the kid put the key
words in so you're positioned pretty well with the search engines.
We won't change that.
Of course, there are always
exceptions...maybe the site isn't as bad as I think, maybe you tinkered with it and it just needs repaired. That's a
different story with a different quote, so send me the url, and we'll
go from there.
OK, so now you have your brand new (or improved) site and you want
to make sure it's updated....
Show me how to stay fresh,
Kat...
