Webmaster's Guild
by David Belson
"You Want It When?"
Has management finally decided to catch the coattails of the Web revolution, but now they've decided that you have to work through the weekend to have a Web site up by next Monday? Do you already have a Web site up, but management has decided that it needs to be completely revised and refocused for reasons that only they seem to know?
One of Murphy's Laws of Work eloquently states, "There's never enough time to do it right the first time, but there's always enough time to do it over." As a Webmaster, you know that Murphy is often right, and you may want to consider invoking this law when deciding how to deal with the sudden "need for speed."
As a Webmaster, you must think about issues that may delay a site launch in the short term, but that will ultimately save you time and grief in the long term. Rushing a site into production can have considerable negative impacts on your corporate identity and financial bottom line. Don't forget that as a Webmaster, you (and the rest of the team) are responsible for not only getting the Web server set up, but also:
- contributing to the architecture and design of the information and content that will reside on the site
- internal and external evangelism for the Web site
- selection and implementation of a robust, scaleable hardware and software solution
Content Is King
"Content is king" is repeated so often that it is something of a mantra among Webmasters. However, consider an extension of the analogy--if content is king, then the Web site must be its castle. Did loyal subjects rush to build a castle for their king, without putting thought into the architecture, building materials, and aesthetic design, or did they spend years, and even decades, making sure that everything was just perfect? How does a Webmaster best respond to such a need for new royal living quarters, so to speak?
Obviously, the easiest way to get information out to the public is via 'shovelware'--simply repurposing your print material to live on the Web. However, as the Webmasters' Guild notes in their presentation (www.webmaster.org/training/index.html), "Repurposing is a joke." They state that everything that you already have in print will probably need to be re-written.
Realize, too, that the term 'content' not only refers to the atoms of information on the Web site, but to the design of the site and its user interface as well. Brochures and pamphlets that have been ported to the Web often fail miserably in this respect. In addition, quickly posting 'shovelware' to a site often results in much of the site being "Under Construction," or worse, a morass of dreaded "404 - File not Found" errors.
A common retort from those not involved with the Web development process sounds something like, "Development is easy...anyone can write HTML." Karen Houldin, Technology Director for Terry Swack Design Associates, derails this concept, explaining, "Truly useful Web sites are more than just HTML. The better ones are hooked into databases, track users, create personal information spaces, contain complex user interfaces and solve system integration and software design issues. Not at all easy."
Not at all easy, indeed. In order to produce an effective Web site, the Webmaster must know who his audience is, and what the audience will be using the site for. The push for an "instant Web site" may not allow you enough time to gather and assess this information, and may force you to make a difficult decision between speed and quality. Speed will allow you to get a site up, most likely designed for a specific browser, with whatever information is on hand at the time. Quality will allow you to do a thorough audience analysis so that you can design and personalize the site for your audience, possibly using some of the dynamic methods mentioned above.
Choosing quality allows you to create an information infrastructure that lends itself to easy maintenance and smooth scalability, rather than adding links in a helter-skelter fashion. It also allows you the time for thorough testing, to make sure that the interface is consistent, easy to use, and the information clearly presented, so that users will want to return. And most importantly, it gives you the time to put some thought into just what information you want to turn into content. As the failures of shovelware have shown, not all of your available content is appropriate for the Web.
Delivering the Sermon
Based on the Guild's definition of Webmaster, the Webmaster is not necessarily a single person, but is more often a team of people recruited for their varied domain expertise. The need for instant Web sites may not always leave time for the luxury of assembling such a team, but their importance cannot be understated. Without them, a lone Webmaster will be left with the superhuman task of evangelizing the Web site, both internally and externally. Web sites should be evangelized on a variety of levels: internally to secure resource commitments and information ownership, and externally to advertise and promote the site.
If you are going to spend the time working on a Web site, rather than rushing it to production, then the appropriate resources have to be allocated to its development and ongoing maintenance. Members of the Webmaster team need to commit to making themselves available to work on the site.
Along with this, management must be willing to commit 'people resources', often to the extent that the job responsibilities of team members have to be redefined. Redefinition is necessary because building the Web site is a full-time job, not just another responsibility to add to the list. None of this labor comes cheap, either, and team members must work to secure the necessary funding from their respective departments or groups. And as with any project, no matter what the medium, the appropriate people must be convinced to contribute the appropriate hard resources, which in this case will generally include computers, peripherals, and development software.
Most importantly, the Webmaster must evangelize the importance of spending enough time on site planning and development, playing the straight man to the desire for immediate gratification.
The need for immediate gratification can force the use of whatever information is at hand, however inappropriate it may be. Information owners play an important role in the development of a Web site, and it is important that Webmasters take the time to identify owners that are willing to provide content appropriate for the site's goals. By impressing on the information owners the importance of their role, and by providing an easy to use framework for them, the Webmaster has taken the time to ensure that the Web site's content is appropriate, timely, and relevant to its audience.
Occasionally, the need for an instant Web site is due to an overzealous member of the Marketing staff that has started to advertise your site's URL. Never mind the fact that you haven't started to work on it, and that the domain name may not even be registered yet. If you are lucky enough not to be in this situation, then use your role as Webmaster to help your Marketing department understand the intricacies of marketing a Web site.
Advertising a Web site is different than advertising a car, though it may follow many of the same concepts. Make sure that you choose media outlets that will reach your target audience. It is possible to piggyback the advertisement of a Web site onto an automobile advertisement, as many manufacturers have found out. Featuring your URL on company stationery and product packaging is another subtle, yet effective, way of getting it into the public consciousness.
Your audience can be your greatest ally in making your site a success, but they can also be your greatest enemy. Karen Houldin points out, "Word of mouth on the Web is everything. If people like your site, they will tell two friends...it works the other way as well." As the Webmaster, you are seen as being responsible for the success (or failure) of the Web site, and as such, you are obliged to assist in making sure that the site is marketed correctly.
The Real Need for Speed
The need for speed to get a Web site up on short notice leads to another, less obvious need for speed. Will your current Internet connection be able support the additional bandwidth required by the new site? Web sites are funny beasts, and once word gets out about a good site, traffic can increase exponentially, clogging the bandwidth that is also used for your company's regular Internet requirements.
Another less obvious need for speed is that of your hosting platform. Is your tight deadline going to force you to host the site on a spare PC desktop-class system, or do you have the luxury of researching the hardware configuration that you will need?
Exponential growth in site traffic will trash a machine that is ill-equipped to deal with it, causing frustratingly long delays in retrieving information from the site. Such delays will inevitably lead to the ski-slope effect, where traffic to the site drops off exponentially as negative word-of-mouth advertising dooms your site to failure.
Server and system configuration is also another time consuming, but tremendously important task, and is not one that should be completed in haste. To ensure maximum responsiveness, select a commercial or freeware Web server package that includes the features your site will need, and has been load tested for performance.
Additionally, select a host O/S that will be able to keep up with the I/O traffic that a successful site generates--a flavor of Unix or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 are popular choices. Site availability should be a major concern for a Webmaster, which means added time to select (or develop) tools to monitor various parts of the server, including server health, load average and Internet connectivity.
Security should be of paramount importance too, as recent hacker attacks on high profile Web sites have shown. Webmasters absolutely must spend the time to secure their server software and operating system since, as many system administrators will tell you, one break-in can ruin your whole day.
How can a Webmaster accommodate the request for rapid site development without compromising their stand on these important technical issues? Consider outsourcing the site to a Web hosting service provider. High quality providers have high bandwidth Internet connections, generally consisting of redundant T3 connections onto their nationwide backbone. These providers also offer pre-configured, high-performance server platforms using hardware and software able to handle millions of hits a day.
Since monitoring is a strong feature that Web hosting service providers can offer, a comprehensive proactive monitoring infrastructure removes the worries about your site being constantly available. You can sleep well at night, too, knowing that your data is protected, since these providers should be closing security holes before they provision servers for their customers, and should be checking for new holes on a regular basis and closing those as well.
While time is often of the essence in making information available via the Web, it can also be a Webmaster's greatest ally. The Webmaster, whether a single person or a team of people, needs to strike a balance between speed and quality by setting reasonable schedules for the multi-faceted effort of site development, and by convincing those pushing for a Web presence that spending the extra time initially will be worthwhile. While on the surface, a Web site makes information available to a particular audience, the effort needed on content development, resource commitment, and technical issues has not yet reached the point where putting up a Web site truly involves "one button publishing." Karen Houldin notes, "In the long run, it pays to do the job right, because if your site is of poor quality/design/functionality, users will be more reluctant to come back or use it again. Treat every development effort as if it were an application, and you will produce quality products quicker than you would if you threw them together."
You must impress upon management that even if you are already late to the Web, it is worth the additional delay to be sure that the job is done right. Terry Swack, vice president of the Webmasters' Guild, emphasizes, "If the true meaning of identity for a company is everything they put out into the public space, then putting out an ill-conceived Web site can dramatically impair people's assessment of that company, and can impact their status in the marketplace." She notes that in certain markets, it is difficult to regain that confidence with subsequent releases of the site. It's also important to remember that each release of a Web site is going to cost real money. The expenditures for rushing to put up a site will likely be covered by one budget. However, you need to ask yourself how many iterations it is going to take to get the site to be useful. Ultimately, you'll wind up spending exponentially more money if you don't do it right the first time.
David Belson is an active member of the Webmasters' Guild. He is an Internet Sales Engineer for BBN Planet, and is pursuing a Master's Degree in Technical and Professional Writing at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
Reprinted from Web Developer® magazine, Vol. 3 No.1 Jan/Feb. 1997 (c) 1997 internet.com Corporation. All rights reserved.
Web Developer® Site Feedback
Web Developer®
Copyright © 2000 internet.com Corporation. All rights reserved.
