Consider this: You could lose your webmistress/master. It could happen any number of ways. The two of you could have a falling out. Or your webmistress could out of the blue announce that she’s pursuing a different career path and doesn’t have time to maintain your site anymore. Or she could simply disappear off the face of the earth.

What do you do when this happens? Clearly, you need to find someone to take over the job. This is where I make a confession that’s not a big secret, but you still might not be aware of it. Taking over maintenance of a site created by someone else is not in the least bit appealing to a Web site designer.

Why? Well, it has to do with the technical aspects of how your site is put together. If it’s created in a way that makes it unwieldy to update, especially for someone who didn’t create that site, you might have a very hard time finding anyone to take over management of it. Design no-nos include:

- A site created entirely in Flash. These may look fancier, but trust me, you don’t need it! Visitors want information when they go to your Web site. They don’t go there to oooh and aaah at how neat it looks. As a designer, I’d never agree to take over a site built in Flash. It would be way too much of a headache.

- A site that consists entirely of images. This could also look nicer than the average Web site, but it would be a major pain to update. Instead of just entering text onto the page, I’d have to turn it into images with my graphics program. Again, a job I’d never agree to do.

- A site that is hand coded. This doesn’t have to be a disaster, but be wary of it. Most professional designers use professional software to create web sites, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver. Please note that we don’t do this because we don’t know how to write code manually. For years, I created all my sites with a plain text editor. Knowing HTML (the primary programming language used to create Web sites) is a must. If you don’t, you won’t know how to troubleshoot (and you always have to troubleshoot). But when I switched over to using Dreamweaver, I found that it had tons of shortcuts, and the time it has saved me is immeasurable. The problem that can arise with hand coded sites is pages with sloppy HTML that a professional grade program doesn’t understand, which makes updating such a site a huge pain for those who use those tools to edit sites (and trust me, most professionals do use them). I’d be very, very hesitant to agree if asked to manage a hand coded site, and I’d make sure to let the client know the possible extra cost due to the extra time and work involved.

- Messy organization. Do you have looong pages with tons of information? Vaguely titled links? Lots of content without logical placement? If the organization of your site is a mess, it makes updating it a lot of work, especially for someone who didn’t create it in the first place. If I can’t at first glance make sense of how your site is organized, I’d say “no, thanks” to taking over maintenance of it. And need I mention how visitors respond to such sites?

If you don’t think any of this applies to you because you’re perfectly happy with your current designer and don’t think you’ll ever switch to someone else, think again. It could happen, and if you’re not prepared, you could be in for some serious headaches. So, make sure your site is user friendly not only for your visitors but also for possible future webmistresses.