When you webmaster tells you to move from pageBuzz? What should you do?

As our company, pageBuzz.com grows so does our interaction with higher end clients (meaning more money to spend than average) and their professional webmasters and sometimes it can be quite a rub.

Webmasters think they know everything and want to do what they think is best. They hate our simplistic approach that works 100% of the time and they want to embrace the newest fads and web standards. They want to build with php and add in all the tricks they have learned because it makes them feel superior over their clients.

Unfortunately, the customer is caught somewhere in the middle of all this bickering.

Business owners come to pageBuzz for one reason, not the cost, because they can afford almost anything. They come because it makes sense. Because they want a website that works and that they can manage without depending on a webmaster every minute of every day.

They want tools they can use, edit and manage themselves.

Webmasters hate to have to learn new things, so they rant and rave that this will never work, that they can't build designs on pageBuzz and in some cases cry like children that have just been slapped.

Look webmasters, here is the deal.

Nobody wants to buy a car that needs to be serviced every week, or that they need a mechanic to start every morning because there is no simple solution like a key start.

When it comes to websites you are just behind the curve.

Now some 20 years into the Internet, people understand computers and technology, at least the basic premise of using a web browser to go online. They update facebook pages, use apps to do everything from sharing music to finding directions. So when it comes to their business being online, they want some level of control.

Creating pages in PHP and requiring site owners to learn how to edit PHP is like asking them to go out and crank start their car in the morning. Sure, it was acceptable at one point but not today.

More and more business owners are transitioning to online site builders because it makes sense and pageBuzz.com makes more sense than any other online system. It is more flexible, more configurable and more user friendly.

With the growth of the Internet webmasters have so many options, so many choices and if you ask 100 different webmasters what should be used they will give you 100 different answers, so who is right?

NONE OF THEM. The business owner, the people paying the bill, they are the ones that are right and they are often misguided by webmasters with enlarged egos.

The fact is, no mater how much a webmaster knows about design, they just don't know the impact of a website on a business, because they don't run one. They don't have to live with their mistakes, or deal with users that can't access pages due to failed SQL connections or badly writen PHP files.

Business owners are looking for simplicity not complexity.

Now don't take my word for it, do some research about how webmasters are over building websites, too much for browsers to manage, too much for the bandwidth, to heavy on the back end. They throw everything including the kitchen sink on the pages which prevents any average person from understanding how to change it.

Just like these business owners are reaching out to use to use simple tools to manage their website, their customers want simplicity as well. What good is the fanciest website if it just does not work on every computer?

And what good is it if the website owner can't manage it without the webmaster?

It is only a matter of time before webmasters have to grow up and start developing on sitebuilders because eventually they will run out of customers.

One of the biggest complaints we get about independant webmasters is that our customers hire them, they convince the customer to move and then after they are paid, they are no place to be found. The customer cannot manage the website and they call us and ask us to help them get back to what they had previously at pageBuzz.com.

So what is our solution to the problem?

Well, we would like to say, get a better webmaster. If they truly know what they are doing, building a page on any system should be a snap. Certainly creating a template for something like pageBuzz or any other sitebuilder should be webmaster 101 since every single dynamic site runs from templated content.

But since we can't fire your webmaster we have a few basic rules for you to remind your webmaster when they build your website.

1. Don't use technology just for the sake of using it. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should.

2. Don't assume users have the latest and greatest computer, browser or plug ins. Build for older browsers, older people and non tech savvy individuals.

3. Don't assume that everyone has a super high speed connection. Most rural areas do not and even those in metropolitan areas people often opt for slower plans to save money. Also consider that more than half of Internet traffic is from mobile devices and that speed is often painfully slow if not directly under a 4G tower.

4. Simple is better in every case. Having visible links rather than hidden divs on the page makes navigation for the average user much easier.

5. Remember the UX, (user experience), this is not about what you can do but what the user needs from the website they are on.

6. STOP using small text. Sure it looks cool at a glance, but it sucks to read especially when you have it almost the same color as the background.

7. Remember, design is secondary to function. The best design in the world will not make any more money for the site owner than a basic design, it is the content that really matters.

8. Don't forget about the search engines. If you are using javascript to deliver content it is usually invisible to the search indexes, so avoid all the external files and take a step backwards toward HTML in the actual page.

9. Webmasters need referrals, so having a customer with a site that makes them happy is 10 times better than having a customer with a great looking site that they can't do anything with.

10. Last and most importantly, it is not your website, it is your customers website. So rather giving them what you want them to have, give them what they want, even if that means building the pages on pageBuzz.com

Form our standpoint, you only need to tell your webmaster one thing.

"It is my website and this is what I want, if you don't want to do it, there are hundreds of other webmasters that will"