In the not too distant future (if not already) any small business that depends on their website to generate income will need an in-house Website Manager.

When you consider the number of tasks that are required to keep a website operating at its highest level, it is no wonder that one person should be orchestrating the operations of the site. Let’s break the tasks down into categories.

1. Maintenance
2. Content
3. Marketing/Promotion

1. Maintenance Tasks that every website should undergo:
DAILY
Confirm that your site is up and running.
WEEKLY
Use a Link Bot program to check that all the links on your pages are working.
Test to confirm all forms on the website are working.
Check SERPs in major engines and adjust site accordingly.
MONTHLY
Once a month review all information on your web site to make sure it is up to date. i.e. Contact Info, photos, etc.
ALWAYS
Be prepared to quickly troubleshoot any problems with website being down, email problems, hosting issues, etc.
Answer all emails from visitors to your website about issues they may be having viewing or using it.

Management vs Maintenance
I have had several clients who use the terms “Website Management” and “Website Maintenance” interchangeably. They are different. Website Management is the ‘big picture’ responsibility of how your website is performing, producing, and progressing. There are perhaps a dozen tasks required to ensure that your website is humming along like a finely tuned engine. Maintenance is just one of them.

2. Content is king:
Update content on your pages weekly at least.
Create new SEO friendly pages with new content at least weekly.
Proof read all pages before publishing.
Validate all files before uploading.
Update the sitemap when pages are added or deleted.

3. Marketing/Promotion
Advertise your website in the print media.
Continually add your website to relevent Internet Directories.
Continually obtain quality, contextual inbound links.
Continually embed quality outbound links.
Maintain a blog related to your website’s subject.
Join a forum related to your website’s subject and contribute.
Create, maintain, and use an e-mailing list.
Send out a weekly or monthly newsletter and manage its distribution.
Make sure your website’s URL is on all outgoing printed material, business cards, and letterhead.
If appropriate to your business:
Start and maintain a Pay Per Click advertising campaign.
Add your products/services to Google Base, CraigsList.org, Ebay.

What do you know? You’ve done a good job. You’ve completed all these tasks and it’s Friday already.

Of course your small business can hire a web site development company to do all these tasks, but some of these jobs are accomplished much more effectively in-house if you have the knowledgeable and talented personnel. Writing content for the site, blogs, and forums for example. The more technical chores could be jobbed out to a web pro.