The internet is a thriving market in itself and to keep pace with the growing demands and new developments that keep taking place, it is important that the websites which are the face of the online businesses are up to the mark and offer the latest information. In addition, the websites have to be up-to-date on any security issues and have secured transactions if they are ecommerce websites. All these tasks come under the purview of one individual and that is the webmaster.
From the information obtained from various webmaster forums, the webmasters have the basic responsibility of maintaining a website. While this seems an easy task theoretically, it is not so, practically. This means that a webmaster has umpteen tasks while maintaining a website and his role varies with the organization, with which he works. In some organizations, the webmaster is a part of a web development team where there are web engineers, graphic artists, web producers and interns for his help. In other organizations, he might be handling several tasks by himself. Therefore his job generally depends upon the organization where he works.
Where the webmaster is a part of a team and has several other people for his assistance, his job is not confined to one area but involves supervision of all the departments related to website development and maintenance. In this regard, he has to supervise the job of programming where new and better applications are being developed to provide a great online experience for the web surfer. A webmaster also manages the graphic artists who solely have the responsibility of creating better graphics for enhanced internet experience. In addition, his job entails the maintenance of the existing site with always giving a thought to how the site can be improved.
Project development is the key area where webmasters have to concentrate as this helps them develop new content for the website. This includes new page development, which could be an application such as the payment gateway or the FAQ section of the website. As mentioned, a webmaster must also have the knowledge of the graphics software such as Adobe Photoshop, the Illustrator and various graphic tools to help the graphic section.
Webmaster forums illustrate the job of the webmasters which include performing server maintenance and acting as the release engineer. It is the duty of the webmaster to keep the servers running and check any hardware issues so that there is no downtime. Lastly, as a release engine, it is the duty of the webmaster to supervise the scripts that ensure the movement of the web pages from the developmental stage to the production stage.
