Handing over to a client??

Hi,

I recently designed a website for a very small business and no they want more updates and have asked that I train them how to update the site themselves and they will pay me a fee for "training them"... firstly is this something you would recommend i do? afterall if they don't know what they're doing and my portfolio points to the site it could be bad news for me. Also how would I advise they update the site themselves without investing in software such as dreamweaver?? Word perhaps? any advice would be appreciated

 

Looks like you should work around a CMS in the future.

I wouldnt advise teaching someone to change the html code themselves unless it is an IT specialist or something.

They are basically asking you to teach them to become a web designer...I would either just say no, sorry, I am not a teacher or ask them for a monthly fee to update it - after all - there probably wasnt anything like this in your contract with them was there?

Phil

 

I personally would charge a set fee (either per month as mentioned above) or per hour. It brings in more business for you. Definitely agree with above - do NOT teach them to edit it themselves - asking for big trouble unless they already have someone inhouse who is a budding programmer who has at the very least HTML skills. It will cost them more in the long run if it all goes wrong and the whole site needs re-designing down the road. I'm assuming it would not be huge updates - probably not even to the design, just text and photo updates - a bespoke content management system would be the way to go but this normally requires a backend database (which would hold the page attribute data). I would stick with the charge per hour for updates/maintenance.

 

Ive had a second think and I will email you...I may have something that you might want to consider/look into...

 

Hi, thanks for your advice... in terms of creating cms can you point me the right direction for learning how to start developing these systems? Would it be php/asp? I have a lot of experience working with CMS but just from the content editing side, no programmer experience. Can you recommend any books/websites? I pick things up relatively easily... so would like to give it a try.

With regards to my original query I did quote an hourly rate and we have been working together on it. Moving forward the hourly/monthly rate is definitely where i want to go. Think it would add another string to my bow tho to be able to offer cms design. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you tried Adobe Contribute? Its basically a stripped down version of Dreamweaver designed for the end user?

An integrated CMS would be the optimal solution, but if you've already built the site then it could end up being a lot of extra work for you.