The Best Balance

Some web developers don't give you enough control over your site; you have to track them down for even the smallest of changes.

Others—including the big boys—give you too many options, resulting in corrupted design and badly-laid-out pages.

Our approach is to achieve an optimum balance of talent and expertise between the design experts (that would be us) and the content experts (that would be you). To do this, we define the types of pages we use, and who should maintain which ones.

Maintained by your staff

1. Stories: Your staff can update content at will; content consists of multiple postings ("stories"). The staff specifies how many stories appear on the page, or what date range is included; older stories are moved into a searchable archive. Content changes do not affect design. EXAMPLES: News, Sports, Community Calendar, Obituaries.
2. Free-form pages: The staff can create entire pages, much like a word processor document. The page is dropped into the design without harm to either. EXAMPLES: promotions and contests, jock and salesperson personal pages, client microsites.
3. Banner ads: Online advertising is part of the design of your site. Number and placement of ads is very much a part of the overall strategy. Once we set up the ad placement, you'll be able to insert and maintain ads, start them and stop them, in house.
4. Third party: Specialized pages and sections are set up by us but generally are maintain by you—and, in some cases, by your listeners or advertisers. EXAMPLES: Weather, Regional News, Business Directory, Classifieds May entail additional licensing fees.

Maintained by us

1. Front page: Because the first page your visitor sees is so important, and there are so many factors that determine whether the visitor goes deeper into your site—or even returns to your site at all—we carefully design it according to your specifications and lock it in. Depending on what you choose to display, staff updates to other pages will be reflected on the front page, but the staff does not have direct access.
2. Navigation (menu) structure: How your site is organized is the very core of usability. Changes to the menu structure can have far-reaching consequences.
3. Static pages: These are pages with built-in elements that can contribute to or impact the design of the site. The content requires only occasional updating. EXAMPLES: Contact Us, About Us, Staff, Advertise With Us.

This division of responsibility—exclusive to us—gives you the best balance between staff flexibility and design integrity.