Website Content Management Made EASY !
by Marc Lee, CFRE

An impressive new software product makes it possible to manage website content in-house for only $99.

This commercially available software is every bit as effective and easy to use as systems that cost $5,000 or more to install and hundreds of dollars every year to "rent."

It will be a welcome change for any nonprofit professional with website responsibilities.

Software giant Macromedia (www.Macromedia.com) released Macromedia Contribute in November 2002. This software allows non-technical computer users to update their web content themselves, without assistance from or intervention by consulting programmers or in-house IT staff.

Learning Contribute software is no harder than learning to use word processing software.

The benefit is that in-house staff in small and medium-sized nonprofits can now keep their website information current without additional expense.

Macromedia Contribute software gives even web novices the ability to quickly and easily update the content of their websites, without compromising either the integrity of the design or the security of the site.

Contribute has a simple Four-Step process:

1 - Connect. From your website administrator you will receive the connection information for your site. A connection wizard guides you quickly through the setup process that applies this information.

2 - Browse. The Contribute browser borrows Internet Explorer functionality to help you find the page you wish to edit as easily as could surf to it.

3 - Edit. Once you've got the page you want to edit, clicking the "Edit" button downloads a copy of the page into Contribute. You can create new pages, add graphics, links and tables, spell-check and new copy, add columns or rows, change colors of backgrounds, fonts, and links, as well as create various lists and control indenting.

To receive an alert whenever a new article is released, click here.

Convert Your Site Inexpensively!

4 - Publish. Once you've made your changes a simple Publish button completes the process and loads your changes to the web.

Contribute will work best with a website that has been constructed using a combination of Style Sheets and Macromedia Dreamweaver templates. Conversion to templates is easy.

While Contribute will work with any website, there can be challenges for the Web Novices and Intermediates working with sites that were not professionally designed using Macromedia Dreamweaver software (the industry standard and first choice for most web professionals).

If your site was not designed using Style Sheets and Macromedia Dreamweaver templates, any web professional who is adept at using Dreamweaver should be able to make the necessary adjustments to convert an average-sized site for between $700 to $2,000. The exact price your developer will give you will depend on the number of pages in the site, the sophistication of the source-code, and competition.

Contact Affinity Resources if your developer is unable or unwilling to help you through this easy, inexpensive conversion. Because we believe that neither websites nor their maintenance should ever cost an arm and a leg, Affinity Resources stands ready and willing to estimate and complete the work of converting your website without further obligation.