Repeat visitors are important for web sites.

Visitors return to a site to see what's new.  A "fresh" web site, one that regularly updates pages, will generate more traffic than a site which has become old and staid.  That's why very large sites and web portals put regularly updated news headlines on their sites.  They hope people will get in the habit of checking their site for national, local, or international news.

Publicly held companies should have sections dedicated to press releases, quarterly reports and other stakeholder information.  It is always disappointing to see a graphically exciting site without current information.  It is kind of like, why did they publish the site?  And, it is a waste of money.

Certainly, sites with product information must be current.

Not all pages within a site need to change.  Pick two or three and then make changes regularly to those pages.  An "announcement" page is an excellent tool for freshening a site.

Remember, return visitors are a major goal.

High Cost and Low Cost Sites

Maintenance costs are determined by the time necessary to maintain a site.  A well designed web will be easy to maintain.  

The design should use "include" pages for common information appearing on more than one or two pages.  For example, the copyright notice at the bottom of this page is an "include" item.  The notice appears on all pages within this sub-web.  To change something in the El Valle copyright notice is a one-page change.  Once the change is made to that single page, the change is programatically (automatically) rolled through all pages.  It is easy to do and a very inexpensive maintenance item.  Telephone numbers and addresses are additional examples.

Lists of items, such as a product price list, should be maintained in a database.  New products, changed prices, dropped products and updated descriptions can be made to database records.  Related web pages are then dynamically updated.  You pay more upfront for a database driven design.  But, you'll pay significantly less for web page maintenance.

The design of a site should include a plan for certain pages, but only a few,  to change regularly.  These pages are the draw for return visitors.

Most Important Tip

Very important....proof read and spell check your web pages before they are posted.  Changes to pages for grammitacl and speling errors can cost you real money.

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