subject: What Should You Look For In A UK Webmaster? [print this page] What Should You Look For In A UK Webmaster?
Your website is in on the fritz and you're in a bit of a tizz. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters? The fire brigade? Dr. Phil?
Of course not!
You need a webmaster. A pro. Someone who can just fix that sucker with a minimum of fuss. No excuses, no procrastination, no screwups.
So what would someone like that look like?
1. Experience.
When you mention the problem to him, he should be able to recall past experiences of it. "Oh yeah, that's very common, I can fix that easily. I remember one time ...". A webmaster who is a webMASTER should have years of experience in putting out fires in websites.
This means uploading, updating, configuring and moving websites. You'd be surprised at how many little things have to go right for your website to go online and stay online.
2. Technical Expertise.
A webmaster should be proficient in things like PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Cpanel, Linux, Photoshop and Apache web server. These are standard technologies used to tart up a website, get it online and keep in there. Commonly, a website can be plain HTML or they can be PHP based or a mix of the two.
Some websites are totally script-based. These are called CMS (Content Management Systems). A popular one is Wordpress. It enables someone who is not a webmaster to add content to a website, easily. The downside is that it needs a database called MySQL to store the data. This, plus the scripts, makes it more complicated. More complication means it's more likely something will break down.
This is when a webmaster steps in and fixes the problem. He should also explain what the problem was and what he's done.
3. Explains Things Simply.
There's a lot of technical stuff that goes into running a website. Not everyone understands this. Some people don't even know how their PC works. This is not a failing. Most people don't know how their motorcar works but millions of people drive to work and back happily every day.
Web technical matters can be explained in simple terms. As long as your webmaster does what you want, that's the main thing. However, it helps if you know what he's doing. A bad webmaster obfuscates what he does so you don't realise how incompetent he is.
4. Works To Schedule.
A good webmaster, if he says it'll be done by Tuesday, it'll be done by Tuesday. Properly.
A bad webmaster underquotes for the work involved and then delivers it late or badly or not at all. It's very common for a bad webmaster not to return your calls when he realises that he's effectively being paid 3 bucks an hour, even though it's his own fault.
