Technical maintenance

Technical maintenance of a website refers to any changes to the site that require alterations to its programming code - eg for the site's graphics and navigation, metadata, database, e-commerce solution. Technical maintenance also refers to adjustments that improve the website's speed and reliability, and monitor usage of the site.

Maintaining the technical aspects of the website requires specialist knowledge and skills in website programming, so technical maintenance generally falls to one person or, for larger websites, a small group of technical experts. The webmaster, as the technician is usually known, would normally receive instructions from the e-business management team and a website manager regarding desired changes to the site.

As with content maintenance and enhancements to the website, this section is concerned with maintenance only, not with large scale changes that would spark a return to the planning phase.

What to do

Appoint a webmaster - a person to manage the technical aspects of the website or to liaise with outside experts.

The webmaster should determine a schedule for technical maintenance that indicates what is to be done daily, weekly, and monthly and what tasks are undertaken only when the need arises. The schedule should include all maintenance items and indicate for each, what associated tasks are to be performed daily, weekly etc.

A technical maintenance list might include some or all of:

• the speed of the site
• hotlinks to other sites - eg validity of the hotlinks
• the reliability of the web server - includes dealing with error reports from the web server
• the speed and reliability of information derived from the database
• email lists - includes removing faulty email addresses
• user sessions, hits and traffic through the site
• the exporting of data collected from online forms to the appropriate personnel
• the integrity and performance of the e-commerce system, if applicable
• interactive elements of the site - eg play-back feature for audio/video
• the use of metadata in the website.
• 
  

Managing the maintenance system

The e-business management committee is responsible for every aspect of the website and email technologies. Depending on the nature of the organisation and the website, it may meet weekly, fortnightly, monthly or even less frequently.

What to do

In terms of its responsibility for overseeing the effective day-to-day maintenance of the e-business, the management team should address at each meeting:

• a report on maintenance activities undertaken since last meeting:
  • updating - eg a report on sections that have been updated other than the normal regime
  • enhancements - eg what new text, images, audio have been added to existing sections of the site and what other improvements have been made
  • technical maintenance - eg day-today reliability of the web server, speed of the site
• resourcing issues - time, people, equipment
• the efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance solution provided by the developers or of editing software solutions - eg DreamWeaver
• the maintenance budget
• quality control - effectiveness, what is not working, where errors were made and lessons learnt
• risks and challenges targets for the next period.

Exporting

Simply having a website that is up-to-date and looks professional is a great help in any attempt to export products, services or for getting a message out to the rest of the world. But there are a number of things that can be done to a website to maximise its potential as an aid to exporting.
For example, ensure that most people in the countries you'd like to export to, no matter what their ethnic background and language, can understand the words and terms you use. Make sure they can readily recognise the buttons or icons you have used for navigation. Ensure your site and e-commerce solution comply with Australian laws and those of the countries to which you are exporting. These and many other do's and dont's need to be addressed if you are to get the full benefit from exporting via the Internet.
What to do
Access the Austrade website and find out how to use the Internet as an aid to exporting. Their website has a great deal of information in it, so you might like to visit the following links to specific sections of the website:
• Undertake one of Austrade's e-business online courses - The free online courses explain how to use email, electronic marketplaces, portals and online collaboration tools effectively in order to maximise export potential. They are designed for businesses that already export or who are planning to do so. Click here to read more about the courses and to register.
• Online export capability tool - Are you thinking about doing international business for the first time, but are unsure whether your organisation has the "capability" to do so? Try the survey: http://www.austrade.gov.au/australia/layout/0,,0_S2-1_2zh-2_-3_PWB17549390-4_-5_-6_-7_,00.html
• What are the steps to begin exporting - checklist, preparing your business, benefits and risks: http://www.austrade.gov.au/steps_to_exporting
• Are you ready to export checklist - this is a readiness checklist: http://www.austrade.gov.au/exportchecklist
• Making your website export-friendly - tips and potential pitfalls, building trust online, pricing and shipping charges, taxation or customs duties: http://www.austrade.gov.au/exportingonline
• Different ways to take your business offshore - exporting a product or service, investment, global supply-chains: http://www.austrade.gov.au/take_business_offshore
• Market entry strategies - choosing a country, how Austrade can help: http://www.austrade.gov.au/market_entry_strategies
• Promoting your business overseas - web promotion, useful websites: http://www.austrade.gov.au/promoting_business
• Australian suppliers database - this currently lists 8,500 Australian companies to which you can add your business: http://www.austrade.gov.au/asd
• Read the latest research - conducted by Austrade and the University of New South Wales looking at the impact of e-commerce on export business. The report provides a wealth of information on the latest developments in e-commerce for export business based on the experiences of the 340 Australian exporters surveyed. http://www.austrade.gov.au/ecommercereport
Austrade has developed a package of services to assist companies make their first export sale and they have export market development grants.

Making improvements

Day-to-day enhancements to a website can be made that don't require major decision-making or a review of the e-business strategy.

Ideas for enhancements may emerge from monthly website management team meetings or while updating content in the site. Unlike updating, however, you have a little more flexibility in deciding if and when you make enhancements because, by definition, they are embellishments rather than a necessity.

What to do

When maintaining your website always consider what small enhancements can be made, such as:

• adding further text to what is already there (not just updating) - eg providing a better explanation of how to download a document, expanding on image captions, adding to the number of frequently asked questions
• adding new images, video, audio - eg adding images to the e-postcard facility, providing a video demonstration of a product or artefact
• providing new content by hotlinking to free streaming content - eg news, time and weather feeds
• adding new links - eg adding to the hotlinks to other sites and providing expanded explanations about the hotlinks
• promoting more aggressively - eg registering the site with search engines that you have never registered with before, increasing the number of reciprocal links with other sites.

Quality assurance

Updating the content of a website, e-newsletter or an online catalogue held on a third-party's website should not be conducted without some checks and balances in place.

The person who reviews and edits the content should verify the quality and accuracy of new content and ensure that it is uploaded to the right place and in a timely manner. Here is a sample checklist that you might like to adopt when verifying the quality of your website's content. Click on the link to download this document into your word processor.

What to do

The content editor of a website can make the job more efficient and effective by establishing and administering a quality assurance procedure.

• Establish a pro-forma that all contributors to the website use to submit new content or changes to existing content or functions. It should identify such things as:
  • the format for the content
  • how to indicate requested links
  • where in the site the new or revised content is to be placed
  • sign-off procedures.
• Ensure everyone in the organisation knows about the proforma and how to complete it.
• Confirm that the content supplied for updating does not infringe anyone's copyright, intellectual property rights or is illegal in any way - eg privacy laws.
• Proof-read the new content and seek approval from the author for changes prior to uploading.
• Determine whether new content should be signed-off by the management team.
• Develop a method of reporting problems.

Website content maintenance

Once launched, a website assumes a life of its own. It becomes a dynamic entity, providing different experiences and information to different people who will respond in many ways.

One thing all users will have in common is the expectation of accurate, timely information. That expectation will need to be satisfied not merely the first time they visit the site, but every single time. One bad experience with inaccurate or out-of-date information and users will think twice about using your site again. At worst, they may seek compensation for receiving the wrong information.

What to do

Identify what content requires updating in your website and determine how often it needs updating or reviewing. Do this by:

• itemising the various sections of your website
• identifying what types of information can be found in each section - for example, text, images, video, audio
• identifying for each section and each type of information, exactly what information is likely to require updating or reviewing
• determining for each piece of information how often it requires updating or reviewing: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.

Advertising your website

Advertising the organisation's website address in traditional media can be a very effective method of promoting the site. A website can be advertised as part of an advertising campaign or simply on its own, using:

• magazines
• newsletters
• posters
• billboards
• newspapers
• television
• radio programs
• books.

What to do

Ensure that the website's domain name appears, or is mentioned, whenever you have interaction with clients or customers. This means making sure the website address - eg www.freshfruitmart.com.au - appears on:

• letterheads, invoices, receipts and envelopes
• emails
• business cards
• packaging, wrappers
• uniforms
• signage on buildings, windows, vehicles
• recorded messages on staff mobiles and the office switchboard number.

Other promotional methods you might consider include:

• issuing press releases about virtual events, additional features on the website or reaching milestones
• entering Internet awards
• inviting reviewers to review the site and write it up in magazines and newspapers.

Ensure that you have established performance measures for the advertising dollar you spend. Establish from the beginning whether it is increased traffic through the site (not just to the home page), increased downloading of documents and/or greater online sales you want to achieve. As with any form of advertising, the expense needs to be justified. Simply increasing traffic to your website may not, in itself, reap sufficient benefits to justify the cost.

Helping search engines find your website

There are two types of search engines, those that use humans to add websites to their directory (eg LookSmart) and those that use computers to index them (eg Google).

You cannot register your website with the search engines that use computers to do the indexing. These search engines will find your website and index its pages according to the contents they find there and according to their own rules. So make certain your website has a title and description on your homepage that the search engines can easily pick up and index.

What to do

You can make the indexing of your site by computer-indexing search engines more effective by providing them with information about the contents of your site in a structured manner and in a form that they will readily recognise. This is done by inserting, in the HTML code that creates the pages of your website, information about the site. This information is called metadata because it is data about the data in your site. Simply using metadata will not ensure that your site will be at the top of the listings in all search engines, but it will certainly help. Metadata is not seen by users of your site, only by the crawlers sent out by some search engines. There are a number of internationally recognised categories of metadata, called meta-tags. The most common ones that your site should contain are:

• title tag - providing a title for your website, up to 6 words
• description tag - a 25 word sentence describing the contents of your site
• keyword tag - a list of the key words that are representative of your site's content and are words you anticipate users may enter into search engines.

How do you know what keywords to use? Ask yourself what words your target audience would enter into a search engine when looking for the very things your site offers. How might they mis-spell them and what terms do your clients use to describe your products and services? You do not have to draw up an exhaustive list but certainly capture the key words! Brainstorm these keywords with colleagues but also check out the keyword metadata used in sites similar to yours. This is easy to do. Anyone can see the metadata of any website simply by accessing the site then, if using Internet Explorer, click on VIEW in the top menu bar and then Source. If you use Netscape, click on VIEW and then Page Source.

Check your own metadata by the method described above and if your site does not have title, keywords and description meta-tags then compose what you want and contact your webmaster and get it added to the HTML of your home page. Some sophisticated websites store the metadata in a database or repository which is interrogated by the search engines. It can be created automatically by web publishing software or custom-designed metadata generating tools. See your web developer about the best solution for you.

Registering with search engines

A search engine is a piece of software that enables users to search through an index or database of websites that has been created either by people or automatically by software that crawls through the World Wide Web looking for new websites and indexing them. A search engine is actually the tool that a website such as Yahoo or Google employs to enable people to search its index for websites, images, words or phrases.

Registering your website with search engines such as Yahoo is relatively easy. It is often free and is the first thing you should do once a new website has been launched or an existing one has been re-developed. Registering with search engines is one of the most effective ways of making it easy for people to find your website.

What to do

Option 1: You can register your website yourself with search engines. Here is what to do.

• Compose a descriptive sentence (usually up to 25 words) that summarises your site's content. This sentence should be simple, in plain English, and state the main contents of the website. For example, if you owned a cardboard box factory that sold standard sized boxes and also made them to clients' specifications, you might compose a sentence like this: "XYZ Box Company makes quality cardboard boxes of every standard size and we can produce boxes to your specifications and your budget." (23 words)
• Identify the most popular search engines that allow you to register your site with them.
• Log on to their sites, locate the online registration form or area and complete the instructions - and you will probably be asked to use the sentence you composed in step 1 above.

Many search engine directories, like Yahoo, are organised into categories, and allow you to register your site in multiple categories. It takes time to register your website with the most popular search engines and may be a day's work, but usually it is free.

The search engine owners will check your application and choice of categories and index the site. This usually takes 2 to 6 weeks.

Option 2: You can pay an organisation to register your website with search engines. Many companies offer this service. Locate them using a search engine and select one that offers the best value for money and will register your site with search engines that are popular with your target audience.

Refer to www.searchenginewatch.com for further information about search engines and registering with them. This is a very good reference website, full of well-written information about search engines.

Developing a promotional strategy

The person or people in an organisation who have the responsibility for marketing should develop and help implement a website promotional strategy.

For businesses employing a few people, the person responsible for marketing and promoting the business often does numerous other tasks in the business. Therefore, many small businesses do not have the time to develop comprehensive promotional strategies, but it is suggested that they look at the points below under What to do and try to map out what promotional techniques they will use and address the points under those headings.

What to do

Develop a promotional strategy that addresses:

• who is managing the strategy and the decision-making paths
• promotional techniques (see the next topics in this section of the website for promotional ideas) - for each ask:
  • why deploy this technique?
  • how will it be deployed?
  • who will do it?
  • what is the implementation schedule?
  • what resources are required - people, money and equipment?
  • what are expected benefits - and how will they be measured?
• risk management strategies - what could go wrong and how you will deal with it
• the internal communication plan - how the strategy will be explained and sold to everyone in the organisation, its sponsors and supporters
• its strategic fit with your organisation's marketing plan
• the evaluation plan - what processes and criteria will be used to assess the success of the strategy and how any necessary changes will be made.

Digital signatures

Digital signatures are electronic codes specific to individual users, which can be used to identify the originator of a message or file, and to indicate approval of information transmitted. There are different types of digital signatures available (ie public key infrastructure, asymmetric cryptography, account numbers and passwords), and the level of security you require will dictate which method you use.

The Electronic Transaction Act 1999 gives legal recognition to the use of electronic signatures and you may find them useful in executing electronic contracts on your website.

Even if your Internet contracts use digital signatures they may still be unenforceable, for example, if the person whose digital signature is on the contract is not the same individual who is agreeing to be bound by the terms of that contract. However, the risk of e-businesses dealing with parties who misuse digital signatures is similar to the commercial risk of fraud that arises through forgery of signature on a paper contract.

For more information on security issues, you might like to look at this fact sheet developed by DCITA as part of their publication, Trusting the Internet:

Copyright

Copyright owners enjoy certain exclusive rights in relation to their creations. Your website will have copyright content on it and you should take measures to protect your rights by:

• obtaining an assignment or licence of the copyright in the material created by your website designers so you can control future website designs and amendments
• obtaining assignments of copyright or licences from third party consultants to use copyright material that they have created
• displaying the copyright symbol (c), the name of the author, year of publication and terms of use, particularly on pages where users are able to download or copy material from your website
• setting out in your general terms and conditions a statement that users of the website must obtain permission before copying, downloading or altering material from your website
• ensuring that access to material that is not for general public use, is only available to password holders or only after payment of a fee and acceptance of specific terms and conditions.

Your website might also contain or use third party copyright material which you do not own. You should take measures to protect yourself from infringing third party copyright rights by:

• making sure you obtain licences to use and reproduce the copyright material before you place the material on your website
• complying with any terms of use attached to the material
• ensuring that if you link your website to third party websites, you only do so in accordance with their terms and conditions.

You should also protect yourself from liability if those using your website infringe someone else's copyright (ie when posting material to your website) by:

• stating in your terms and conditions that you maintain authority to use and remove any material as you see fit without obtaining permission, that you are not responsible for the content of any posted material, and that under no circumstances are you authorising an infringement of copyright
• requiring parties posting to your website to indemnify you for any loss arising from copyright infringement
• ensuring that any infringing material is removed as soon as it is identified
• providing statements limiting your liability, where applicable.

Trade practices

The Trade Practices Act ('the Act') prohibits conduct in Australia which is misleading or deceptive or which is likely to mislead or deceive. The Act also specifically prohibits other conduct, including certain types of false representations, pyramid and referral selling, offering prizes or free items without the intention of providing them as advertised and asserting the right to payment for unsolicited goods or services. If you're entering into online transactions with consumers or if you're just putting information about your business or your products up on the Internet, you need to make sure the material complies with the Trade Practices Act.

There are a number of general rules which should apply to any business engaged in advertising and selling. The Commission's publication, Advertising and Selling, can assist business in relation to these principles. This guide focuses on the things that make the online medium different from other forms of publication and assist businesses in coming to grips with these differences.

In particular, misleading or deceptive conduct is illegal under the consumer protection provisions of the Australian Trade Practices Act 1974. Specific warranties and conditions may be implied into your electronic contracts for goods and services, depending on the type of goods and services being purchased and the value of the contract, while certain conduct is simply prohibited.

You cannot exclude the specific warranties outlined in the Trade Practices Act from your contract. If you do, they may be implied into your contract by a Court. These include a warranty of good title, compliance with description (fitness for purpose), due care and skill in providing services.

You should ensure that a consumer using your website is not actually, or likely to be, misled or deceived by any material on your website. You should also ensure that when linking between websites there is no confusion as to the ownership of each website.

If you make statements or implications about goods or services on your website they must be accurate.

You cannot falsely offer discount prices for goods and services and you cannot offer goods and services to customers on the condition that they purchase from specific sources or are obligated to other providers of goods or services nominated by you.

Your contracts may not be enforceable if they are entered into by forceful or exploitative means.

Taxation and GST

E-business is not exempt from taxation. You will need to comply with tax obligations which are relevant to your e-business. Issues which may affect your tax obligations include the type of organisation you have, whether you have tax agreements negotiated between Australia and other countries, the source of income, whether the organisation is a permanent establishment, and how various tax and corporations provisions apply to your business. This is a complicated legal area and you should obtain qualified legal tax advice for your e-business.

Generally, GST will apply to Internet sales for goods and services (which are not supplied in electronic form) if the supplier and the recipient are both resident in Australia, unless the goods or services are specifically listed as exempt under the GST Act.

GST will generally not apply if a supplier resident in Australia sells goods or services to a recipient outside Australia. However, the Australian supplier must be able to determine the location of the recipient for the transaction to be GST-free.

GST will apply in certain circumstances for goods and services received by a recipient resident in Australia from an off-shore supplier. The rules are complex and you should seek advice.

If GST applies to your e-business sales, the prices that you display on your website must include the GST component in the total price. You must also provide the recipient with a tax invoice if it is requested.

GST may also apply to other incidental transactions relating to your e-business. It is therefore important to obtain qualified legal tax advice on all matters concerning your e-business and taxation.

Setting up an e-catalogue

The major challenge that small to medium enterprises (SMEs) need to be aware of is that developing and maintaining an e-catalogue is different from updating and publishing a print catalogue. Buyers use different technologies to read e-catalogues, many of which are not compatible, so suppliers - if they decide to sell to multiple buyers electronically - must learn how to adapt their catalogue information to this type of operating environment.

The first step is to develop the business case. Typical questions to answer in developing a business case are:

* Will having an e-catalogue improve my relationships with current buyers and give me access to the wider market?
* If so, what is the cost of creating and managing an e-catalogue?
* What is the Return On Investment?
* What was the time, effort and cost before and after, in terms of maintaining and distributing the catalogues to customers?
* What was the cost of processing orders and correcting errors before and after the use of an e-catalogue?

The answers to the above questions depend, in part, on knowing the options for creating and managing an e-catalogue. The two options are:

1. Contract an intermediary. This could be a supplier hub or procurement service provider or e-marketplace, who can build and host the e-catalogue that potential buyer(s) can then access.
2. Do it yourself and deal directly with the buyer(s) As mentioned above, if this is the case the supplier needs to be prepared for dealing with multiple (and perhaps incompatible) technologies used by buyers.

Is an e-catalogue right for you?

Regardless of which option is chosen, the SME needs to do research to assess the cost-benefit. Typical questions to be asked in this research include:

* What are the technical and operational requirements for engaging an intermediary or buyer(s)?
* What are the costs associated with complying with those technical and operational requirements and the integration tasks needed to make an e-catalogue compatible with the buyer(s)?
* What standards should be used for converting pictures, classifying products and services, describing specifications, defining units of measure, identifying customers, and others?
* What are entry, transaction, service and exit fees for contracting an intermediary?
* If an e-marketplace is chosen -- what is the volume of sales? Who are the buyers (and other sellers)?
* What are the legal and management arrangements of an intermediary?
* Are there any exclusion clauses or practices that prevent participation?

The real efficiencies and productivity gains from e-catalogues are made by linking the relevant parts of the business's database or financial management information system (e.g. MYOB, Quicken, Attache) to the buyer's systems.
The challenges

One of the key questions small to medium businesses need to ask is: with all the technical and operating requirements imposed on me by either buyers or intermediaries, how do I customise my data to comply with their systems, how can I reduce the necessity to re-key infortmation and orders and how do I keep my e-catalogue updated?

To this end, SMEs need to have a well-structured product/service database that uses recognised national and international standards (eg. ABN for business identification, ANZIC codes for industry classification, UNSPC for units of measure, EAN/UCC numbers for product identification). Using such standards means the catalogue information can be mapped, transformed and searched more effectively by potential buyers. This approach reduces effort in recreating and updating catalogue content, can adapt quickly to changing technologies and applications, and provide a basis for establishing a scalable e-catalogue infrastructure.

SMEs need to understand cataloguing as a publishing process separate from marketing and fulfilment operations. This can be difficult because naturally you want to differentiate your products from those of your competitors through a mixture of price, quality and service delivery -- but catalogue information also needs to be structured so that potential buyers can easily access it and be presented with comparable information.

This tension can be resolved by recognising that e-cataloguing is only one component of the wider commercial relationship with potential buyers.

Terms and conditions

It is essential for your e-business to outline terms and conditions on your website which govern the manner in which the website is to be used and the specific obligations that the user must accept prior to using the website.

These general usage terms and conditions should be separate from the terms and conditions for on-line purchasing. Online purchasing terms and conditions should outline the various terms of the purchase agreement that must be agreed to before the transaction can proceed. You should state that the terms and conditions (whether for general use or purchasing) cannot be varied by any person unless there has been a prior written agreement.

Terms and conditions should be present on the website in the form of an agreement known as a "clickwrap" agreement. This means that the person using your website needs to view and then agree to the terms and conditions via an "I agree" button at the bottom of the terms and conditions, before being able to proceed.

Terms and conditions outlining general use

Terms and conditions for general site use should specify the general conditions a user must abide by when using the website. For example, they should include:

• a statement outlining the terms of use of the website, such as what the user is allowed to do
• a warning stating that if the user does not agree with any of the terms and conditions they should immediately exit the website
• a statement that users posting information on the site will indemnify you for any loss suffered as a result of using that information
• a statement setting out the terms for linking to other sites
• a privacy statement
• a statement asserting ownership of copyright and all intellectual property rights
• a disclaimer for all liability (in accordance with law).

Terms and conditions outlining online purchasing

Terms and conditions for on-line purchasing should contain as a minimum:

• the applicable price and other associated costs
• a statement detailing payment options and information on currency, defaults, cancellation, refund and delivery of goods/services
• a statement outlining which law applies to the agreement
• a warranty that the purchaser is over 18 and has authority to enter into the contract
• where possible, a statement specifying the countries in which the goods or services are available for purchase
• a disclaimer for liability (as permitted by law, Trade Practices Act etc).

The above lists are not exhaustive and will depend on your specific e-business. In order to minimise your legal risks it is essential to obtain commercial and legal advice for effective online contracting and implementation of appropriate terms and conditions.