You have a new partner at the firm. You are offering a new service or special. You have moved and need to change your address. These are all common scenarios which require immediate updates to the information on your website. If this information is not accurate, it could result in a significant loss of business and revenue. As a small business or non-profit, these changes are most likely made by putting in a call to the webmaster (or “web designer guy”), even for a simple change.

The days of calling your webmaster and having them charge you $100/hour to be at their mercy are coming to an end. Websites are still extremely complex in their structure and take a seasoned developer to create, but making regular updates is as easy as changing a word document.

An unscientific poll that we ran asked if how many small and medium sized companies still have a traditional coded website vs. content managed websites, and the responses were overwhelming in the favor of a traditional website.  Many respondents commented that they had heard that content management systems were very expensive and time consuming.

Converting to a Content Managed website will actually save most small to medium sized businesses both time and money. The turnaround time in which a webmaster returns your call, listens to your problem, and actually implements the change can often take several weeks. Most web designers are more interested in taking on profitable new projects rather than spending their time updating your text.  Billing often starts at an hourly threshold, so many organizations find themselves “saving up” their web changes until they can justify paying the designer to make bulk changes.

Companies such as www.squarespace.com (of which SmartROI Consulting is an exclusive user), make things extremely easy for companies to manage their own site without CSS or HTML knowledge. WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) Editors allow graphics based text, font, and image changes, all with a few familiar buttons and the ability to see your updates as they happen. Major advancements with content managed websites are also including simple plug-ins such as ecommerce, social media, “contact us” forms, blogs, flash elements, photo galleries, and so on. This means is that when your company is ready to add new features and technological advances to your site, a total redesign is not necessary.

So next time you pick up the phone to call your webmaster when you need that simple change on your website, remember that you could be making these changes yourself in a matter of minutes with a content managed site.