Updating
When creating a site, one of our key considerations is the best way to maintain the website.
Often the best solution for a client is to simply have an ongoing maintenance agreement, or organise for regular updates with our team. This can alleviate the pressure of content publishing deadlines, and makes the site more likely to stay up to date.
Whilst Vmedia are happy to do these updates and maintenance, many clients want to have direct control of their content. Vmedia recognise the importance of our clients having the ability and confidence to manage the site themselves.
There are a few options available – which path you take will depend very much on the complexity of your organisation, the size of your website, the amount of information you need to publish regularly, your available time, and skill levels. We can guide you through the process of developing your site, help you choose a suitable method of updating and train you in the use of the simple tools that you will need to maintain the site yourself.
Update using Dreamweaver – You can learn Dreamweaver yourself, and use the tools in this powerful software to manage your site like a professional. We can make this easier by creating templates and providing a user manual and style guide. This is suitable for individuals and small groups with technical needs and a desire for control.
Ask for our info sheet about Dreamweaver.
Update using Contribute – You can use Macromedia Contribute - “the easiest way to update, create and publish content”. Whilst being very easy to use, Contribute is still a professional tool. It provides quality, industry standard HTML code using style sheets and templates for design and even allows a “roll back” function to reduce errors. Contribute is great for individuals or groups to maintain small to medium sized sites, and offers an affordable and easy to implement alternative to Dreamweaver.
Ask for our info sheet about Contribute.
Update using SiteControl – If you have a large site, or more complex needs, you may like to consider SiteControl. SiteControl offers a great deal of flexibility on presentation of content, customisation for different users, a high degree of control over publishing procedures, advanced search facilities, built in metadata management, site management utilities and a publications management system.
The main advantage of this system is the capacity for a great number of people to author, approve and publish all sorts of content, from a variety of locations, without any special software and with a minimum of training.
Several of our clients have now put SiteControl to use on their sites, and have been very happy with the results.
As one client put it: “It has made such a difference. We’ve finally stopped treading water. Now we can move forward, now we can swim.”
Ask for our info sheet about SiteControl.
Update using Joomla! – Joomla! Is a database website solution which we can deploy as a content management system for you.
It has several built-in and add-on features which can make it a low cost and therefore attractive way of getting a database driven website up and running.
It is not as customisable as SiteControl, and has its own learning curve and limitations, but if you are after a solution which allows many people to publish and has the ability to add on modules, Joomla! may be worth considering.
Ask for our info sheet about Joomla!