How would you feel if this newsletter covered Windows NT 3.51 or Windows for Workgroups? What's your opinion? I know what you're thinking -- boring. Someone in your office is probably running Windows NT 5.0 beta and your IT department has had Windows 98 (release candidate) installed for over a month. Well, if a newsletter's content is valuable only in proportion to its relevancy, then how much more appropriate is that analogy to web content?

If that's true, then stop and ask yourself another question. Might your website be stale?

If you're current, then forgive me. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy the scolding that your colleagues are going to get. Besides, you know just as well as your clients, that it doesn't take anyone more than a few visits to determine whether your website is current. Has it been updated this year, month, or week? If there is anything new here, how do I find it? A current site says all kinds of positive things. But first, it doesn't just happen. In fact, it's unlikely to happen without a dedicated effort. Why is that? Most organizations spend so much time, money and energy creating their Websites that they leave maintenance as an afterthought. After all, what glory is there in fighting for a maintenance budget? It was much more gratifying to have the marketing companies and the Webmasters make proposals and talk about the latest plug-in or dynamic HTML scripts. Who wants to update the company's E-mail directory or take down last quarter's calendar?

As frustrating or challenging as the development stage is, that really is the easy and creative part. Creating can be beautiful, but doing a good job at web maintenance will keep your corporate website healthy. Maintenance, is not glamorous, but if you don't keep it up, you will lose your clients. So how often do you need to update your site? That depends on the product or service you are selling and what demographics comprise your client base. If you are a newspaper, then two days old is stale. If you manufacture boat engines, then monthly updates could suffice. Think about the halo effect of your website. Once you lose that current website mind share, how many visitors will come back two weeks later? It is much harder to get a new visitor than a repeat client. Static sites cause clients to delete bookmarks and erase favorite places.

Once you've determined that it's in your own interest to keep your site current, then comes the cost question. It is important to balance the costs against the benefits of updating a site. Will you retain the same consultant who designed your Web site to handle updates? That route is often the most expensive, but it may make sense for an organization without enough staff to handle ongoing Web duties. The other option is to dedicate employees to site maintenance. Either way, budget at least a quarter of the website's original development cost for regular maintenance.

Once you've allocated the funds, make sure you dedicate at least one person as a web coordinator. Even if the updates are done by a third party, you'll want to focus your organization's web efforts through one person. Nothing wastes consulting dollars faster than six internal stakeholders sending conflicting changes and priority lists to the Webmaster. The web coordinator should also be responsible for the timeliness of information on the site. After all, how can the Webmaster know that May 5 is the annual company picnic and your site better have the park directions and map online by May 3? Without someone internally managing the information publishing deadlines, it is easy to have problems.

One method to stay ahead of the power curve is to create new pages that aren't uploaded until a go-live date. To make sure updates don't fall behind, web coordinators should set up calendars that remind them which areas need to be updated. Web assistants in other departments are given ownership of certain pages or forums on the site to prevent those areas from being neglected. Once a process is in place, it's important to tell the user that your site is being updated regularly, along with which parts are changing. Some sites choose to print an "updated on" tag line, but I prefer to have a "What's New" button. "What's New" gives a client results. You respect their time, and allow them to see what was updated without doing a hunt and peck throughout the site to find the single page that changed.

Remember, staying current isn't about being a techie ditto-head. Disregard what your friend's Webmaster is doing with J++ and VRML. Who are your clients? Are they the 100,000 executives with T3 Internet access and 21" monitors, or the 50 million home users with 28-56 kbps modems? If it's the latter, do you really want to force your customers to have all the latest plug-ins? Nothing makes a modem user hit the stop button quicker than a 20 second Java death load. Perl isn't sexy, but CGI scripts keep 486 clients in the mix. Or what's worse, do we need a wallpaper that's so loud that we can't read a 36 point font? Finally, Webmasters should pretend for just a minute that the world still has a few 15" monitors left in it (not to mention 14" VGA antiques) before they try to go for the Guinness Book of World Records on the number of frames that can be squeezed into a 6" x 8" display.

Your website doesn't need to have 3D Modeling, virtual reality site maps, or chat rooms with flying avatars. It should be clean, quick, and have navigation menus front and center, with less frequently used pages subordinated down the tree. And think of pertinence. Just because your boss likes the new Dilbert Tower office center doesn't mean that Joe or Jane client will give one hoot about the new place where you put human resources and accounting. Keep it current. Keep it pertinent. And your website will keep your clients and new prospects coming back for more.

Dean S. Tripodes teaches the Webmaster class at the University of California at Irvine. He also teaches Computer Science at Marymount College in Palos Verdes and Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. He can be reached at webmaster@baywalk.com.