The simple answer is a webmaster. A webmaster updates the site by adding new content, dealing with broken links, and fixing any HTML or CSS problems. They keep track of what’s on the website every day and make sure that nothing has changed in terms of both look and content.
Webmasters are an integral part of everything to do with a website. Some people think this is a very simple job, but it’s not, and many different types of webmasters perform different tasks on the site.
Why should you hire a webmaster?
If you are a business owner, then your website should be one of the most important things on your To-Do List. Think about it: How much money is being spent online? Online sales have doubled in the last ten years and companies are pumping out over $2 trillion globally every single year.
If that doesn’t impress you, what about this statistic may: according to stats from Marketing Industry News, 29% of people will use their smartphones or tablets for researching purchases. They are also twice as likely to shop at an online store after using mobile devices than before using a mobile device — that’s 60%!
The fact is that there has been a massive shift in how we do business and interact with others. If you want to be a part of this new wave in business, then your website must reflect the latest technology. But who has time for all those updates?
Christina Rath of Bel Air Branding says, “the most important tip I would give to a local business owner right now is to find a responsible/tech savvy individual who can easily update your website to make sure all of the information is current.”
For online stores on Shopify, one solution would be to get a custom store built from scratch by a webmaster or into a fully optimized and updated e-commerce site. A custom store will not only look beautiful but also have unbelievable functionality like SEO-friendly content, navigation features, and an intuitive shopping cart system.
If you don’t know how to code or are too busy with other tasks, hiring someone who can do it for you makes sense.
What Does the Webmaster Job entail?
A webmaster is a highly specialized job. There are a variety of different tasks that may be performed by the person in this position, but there are some basic responsibilities that are at the core of any good webmaster’s job description. The first duty of most webmasters is to make sure that all new information on the company’s website is original and free from spelling or grammatical errors when posted onto the site.
Some companies assign their webmaster with other duties in addition to proofreading current articles for content and grammar mistakes. This could include creating new text for various pages on the site, posting photos or videos to help illustrate certain points being made within an article, or creating graphics to use as part of a page layout design.
As an example, Rath added, “Businesses will drastically reduce the amount of customer confusion and increase sales if their website clearly displays operating hours, parking, location, menu, online ordering info, etc.!”
This is a frequent task for any webmaster, fixing, updating, and ensuring everything is current.
How Do I Find a Webmaster?
Many business owners think of hiring a webmaster just when they need some quick and easy upgrades done to their website. This is not the best way of doing things because this can put a lot of pressure on them as well as you, especially if your site is a large one with multiple pages or needs major work.
You can hire someone who will make your site look amazing but it might leave empty pockets if you underpay them or get someone without enough experience in the field. If this happens, then you might have to spend even more money getting someone else to fix whatever was messed up by the former webmaster.
One way to deal with this is to find someone you can call. This would make it easier for you to communicate and ask more specific questions which can really tell if they’re worth hiring. You could interview them by asking questions related to their previous work. If you’re lucky, they might even be willing to provide some samples of websites they’ve made before.
For those who live in areas where there aren’t many professionals within the webmaster field, it’s best to ask people around you if any of them know someone good at designing a website because this would make things easier and faster on choosing the right one.
If your business has its own company website or blog then you should already know how much attention is needed when running these kinds of sites so hiring an expert will greatly help you update and maintain your site more easily. They should be able to handle all changes and upgrades.
What are the benefits of hiring a professional webmaster rather than doing it yourself or outsourcing work to an overseas company?
Although doing it yourself saves money, many business owners hire professionals because they need:
- To update their website frequently.
- To add or change pages as changes occur in their own company or industry sector.
- To use HTML coding (writing code that makes text appear one way to search engines but customized for the reader).
- To connect with social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
- To learn new website development skills for future use.
- To keep their business, product, and service information on the Internet up-to-date.
Webmasters charge per hour or per project (such as adding a site map to help search engines find a business’ pages). An hourly rate is easier to track than a percent of sales because it’s based solely on time worked rather than dollars earned by the company. You can also negotiate fixed rates for projects such as building a website from scratch. It may save money in the long run if you don’t have to pay someone additional fees later when changes take place. If you are paying an hourly rate, ask your webmaster what constitutes overtime (when they will bill you) and
What is the cost of hiring a webmaster and how much money they can save you in the long run?
Hiring a webmaster helps a business owner keep their website updated. This saves money, time, and energy that would otherwise be spent going to an outside source each time the need for updating arises.
A professional webmaster will instill order in your chaotic website and improve its functionality. As a result, traffic will increase and revenue will grow, saving you money from having to hire extra employees or making costly alterations to your company’s marketing campaign.
When it comes to the cost of hiring a webmaster, there are many variables involved. The size of the business is one factor; if you own a small business with only one employee working on marketing materials then hiring a freelance webmaster might be inexpensive enough not to break the bank. However, if you are a large corporation with 500 employees and multiple departments managing the company’s marketing campaign, you will need to hire a full-time employee.
Before drafting up a contract, webmasters typically charge around $75 per hour but this can vary from region to region. This is because the cost of living is not the same in every country or area of the world. For example, if you hire someone in New York City they might be charging you more than if you were hiring them in Atlanta, Georgia.
Hiring on a freelance basis or as an independent contractor is generally cheaper than hiring part-time or full-time employees for your business; however, hiring Webmasters that work directly for your company comes with some advantages…
When you hire someone to manage your web content on an ongoing basis, they have a vested interest in keeping it current; if their work isn’t up-to-date, they won’t be getting any more work from you!
If hiring a general worker is not cost-effective for your company, then consider outsourcing some of its other duties…
If you are interested in outsourcing but don’t want to pay costly fees every month then look into marketing firms that outsource smaller tasks like social management.
Tips for working with your new webmaster
Chances are that, if you’re reading this article, you have just hired a webmaster to update or create your website. When it comes to working with people from different backgrounds and at different levels of experience, there are some things that business owners can do to make sure the process goes smoothly.
Inform the webmaster about your business goals – When hiring a webmaster for any reason, always give them information on why you’re starting the project and what they need to accomplish. The webmaster needs to know how the site will bring in customers, increase sales, or otherwise change your business. Otherwise, they won’t be able to help you reach those goals.
If you’ve already chosen a particular design concept for your new site, be sure to share that information with the webmaster as well. Your new site, while it should reflect your business’ personality, should also have a professional design and layout that reinforces its brand image.
You’ve hired a webmaster not only because your website needs attention but because you want to improve the image of your company. However, many business owners get so focused on working out every last detail of their website or on how much effort it will take them within their company to update content or manage e-mail lists that they forget about having fun. Yes, this is a difficult project–but it shouldn’t be too hard for a professional.
What are the top three qualities you need in a webmaster for your company’s website?
People skills, creativity, and technical knowledge.
- People Skills aren’t as important, yet they are the most valuable. Webmasters are often treated poorly by the other ‘higher ranking’ employees, so having somebody who is not only technically talented but also nice and pleasant to work with goes a long way in creating a well-functioning team.
- Creativity is something that not many webmasters have much of, hard-core coders who can debug Perl scripts all day but when it comes to mixing a color scheme or designing a banner don’t have much of an imagination.
- Technical knowledge really isn’t all that important anymore, unless you’re dealing with programmers who haven’t worked since the late eighties.
How important is it for you to have a webmaster dedicated just to your website?
If cost isn’t an issue then it’s definitely worth the investment. If I had my way there would be someone assigned to every client in our organization so they could make the most of their Internet presence, but we’re not Google — which makes me consider whether or not this is a luxury I can afford.
Is it better to hire a full-time webmaster or use an outside company’s services?
There are advantages and disadvantages with both options, but if you want to learn about using new online technologies as they come out, sign up with an outside vendor who likely specializes in that market segment
Tips on how to train your new webmaster once they start working with your team.
- Send a welcome email to new members of your team.
- Connect them with the rest of your virtual workforce.
- Make it clear you appreciate their contribution.
- Ask what they need and how you can help them succeed in their role.
As the hiring manager, this is your responsibility. You’ll quickly gain respect by reciprocating that gesture of respect to your webmaster before giving them work assignments or asking for updates on tasks previously assigned. Giving people value first builds trust and makes working together much simpler in the long run — as well as helping prevent potential problems due to miscommunications or misunderstandings down the road because you want an answer “yesterday.”
A webmaster who can understand what needs to be done for SEO purposes is important.
SEO is a term that has become more and more familiar to webmasters and business owners alike. While SEO may seem like an impossible venture for the uninitiated, it can be learned by anyone with time, patience, and commitment to their website.
A professional SEO will have extensive knowledge of coding practices and programming languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP. It is beneficial to hire someone who understands SEO and how it works, rather than trying to learn from the first source they come across.
A professional webmaster will help establish a website’s ranking in the search engine results page (SERP) for pertinent keywords and phrases that refer people to the website (referred to as “search terms” by search engines and other online sources). While there are multiple factors involved in a keyword’s placement within SERPs, such as competition, Google’s algorithms, anchor text, the relevance of content to search term, etc., an expert can take advantage of these factors when gathering data through research for their client. This involves looking at what similar websites do to better themselves. Through this process, a professional should be able to determine how effective the website is, and areas that can be improved upon.
A professional webmaster will also need to know what content should be placed on a website for it to affect the search results. He or she has to create unique, relevant content for each page of a website, especially if they are targeting certain keywords. They use their knowledge of SEO practices and algorithm updates to work wisely with coding language so that when site visitors see the URL where the content is posted from (known as anchor text), they’re directed towards your business rather than competitors’. When working with other coding languages, such as JavaScript or CSS, a professional webmaster knows which ones to include within a page’s header tags to help with SEO.
A professional webmaster will know the importance of making sure a website is mobile-friendly so it can be accessed by all devices and browsers. This helps with traffic, conversions, and rankings in SERPs. Therefore, it’s important to find an expert who has experience working with an array of different coding languages as well as responsive design implementation within their portfolio and past work for clients. The reason why this is such a big issue now that you might ask? Mobile internet usage has surged recently: By 2017, there will be more than 3 billion people around the world using tablets or smartphones (source). Of those people using mobile devices for internet searches on Google – via any app or browser – 50% use the search engine at least once a day. Over 80% of all mobile searches lead to taking action on a device within one hour (source). To sum up, online users are using their phones and tablets to search for information about products or services they need, so your website must be responsive to keep pace with the potential customers visiting it from their handheld devices. Even if you don’t have any immediate plans for advertising or marketing via social media, an expert webmaster will know how these sites work and how people use them daily — which can be beneficial to anyone who uses the internet regularly. Ultimately hiring someone to do SEO for your website can drive a lot of traffic to your site.
