But there are cost-effective ways to accomplish this, and make your life easier, besides. Outsourcing the maintenance of your Web site can provide a cost-effective and high-quality solution.

Here are the Top Ten Reasons to outsource the maintenance of your Web site:

10. You need a variety of skill sets, which many professional organizations cannot afford to keep on staff.

Maintaining professional Web sites are like working on a continuing television series -- created through interdisciplinary staff, all who are very good at what they do, but don't necessarily have the capabilities to do it alone. In highly sophisticated sites, there are interactive features that require technical personnel to make them work and keep them working. You need skilled writers and editors to make sure the words are the right ones, and that they are optimized for online readers (who like to skim, not read). You need capable graphic artists to make sure the carefully achieved look of the initial site is maintained. You need usability experts to make sure that content is added in a way that does not violate the navigational principles put into place early on. And, perhaps most important of all, you need access to business stakeholders throughout the organization to make sure the site content is current and accurate.

9. You need to coordinate schedules to get things done.

Web efforts often require one person completing a task before another person can begin one. In a large organization, with many different calls on an individual's time from many parts of the organization, it's often impossible to maintain a project management schedule. Projects that should take days take weeks, and those that should take weeks spread out over years.

8. The Web is a moving target.

New technologies are introduced every day, and you can bet that there's someone in your large organization that somehow finds the time to discover them and point them out to you -- wondering why your own site doesn't take advantage of them. But you barely have the time to keep up with the demands on your time now, so time to keep up with what's going on out there is increasingly difficult. So...

7. Ongoing training is essential.

An outside vendor, such as IMA, makes a continual investment in their people by sending them to ongoing training courses, and having them specialize in the variety of options out there. By using the right outside vendor to maintain your site, you are certain to be availing yourself of up-to-the-minute skills.

6. Not all technical skills are equal -- or helpful.

Hiring a single technical person to do "everything" on your Web site is like hiring a skilled plumber to hang windows in your house. There is a wide variety of technical skills required, including everything from Flash to database programming to content management. Your Flash programmer isn't going to have the first clue as to how to tie your site in to your legacy systems -- or how to maintain it if it was done by someone else. An outside vendor will usually have all the necessary skills in-house, and be able to make them available to you when you need them. Which brings us to...

5. Better bang for the buck.

Believe it or not, it is cheaper to outsource with the right firm than to try and do the work inhouse. As noted above, proper site maintance takes a dedicated, multidisciplinary team. Can your organization truly invest in all the skills needed -- particularly when they are not all needed full-time? For the price of a single, entry-level Web developer, you can have a full team at your disposal whenever you need it -- and not worry about keeping them busy when you don't.

4. Instant turn-around of changes can be achieved.

IMA's clients are often astounded by the speed with which we turn around their changes. What might take an in-house team days can be done here in minutes. Because we are so adept at what we do -- and because, in many cases, we know your sites better than you might -- we know precisely how to accomplish your changes instantly.

3. Avail yourself of someone else's learning curve.

If you're doing it all by yourself, there's no one to learn from. Even user groups can only help so much. But if you are one of several clients of an outside vendor -- who is facing daily development and maintenance issues raised by that wide variety of clients -- you'll be availing yourself of experiences that you haven't even had yet.

2. Know the costs ahead of time.

Working regularly with an outside organization gives you the opportunity to set a retainer agreement in place that gives you both flexibility and the ability to budget your maintenance costs a year at a time. IMA has several different maintenance cost structure agreements. One of them, based on your own needs, will be right for you.

1. Ongoing consultation is key.

It's not just the day-to-day changes that are important -- it's also the critical changes of message that need to permeate your entire Web site at times. Working with a outside company such as IMA -- that has not only the development and maintenance abilities to keep your site clean and up to the minute, but also the professional consulting acumen to be able to come in at least once a month and meet with senior management regarding your site -- will lift the entire Web effort to an entirely new sphere. Suddenly, you will not be alone in viewing the Web site as a critical part of your corporation's communication plan. And the most important changes -- of company direction, business objectives, and new initiatives -- will be properly highlighted on your site, leveraging your initial investment in it.