Who Needs It?

Many of you reading this article may undertsand the primary function of a database-driven website, which is to store data. But another key advantage is that it is easy to manage and gives your site visitors interactive tools to find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently.

Does your company really require a database-driven website?
For smaller companies that don't have a lot of information to manage on their website, the answer may be no. But for most companies today, the answer is a resounding yes. When presenting your corporate material to the world, it's wise to consider what types of features your site will require to assist with the management of the content. The options include content management systems, contact management, custom tools and advanced search capabilities. All of these technologies require a database.

1. Content Management System:
If you want to publish areas of your own site or have other employees in your company manage specific areas of the site, a database will be required. A content management system will give you and your company the ability to update text or images on your web pages without HTML knowledge through a password-protected area of your website.

A CMS enables you to simply update text or to add entirely new pages or blogs to increase site traffic and keep your content fresh. Although you can ask the company that built your site to manage these changes, it may be faster and more convenient to handle them internally.

One potential challenge with a CMS is determining the level of control you need. Your web design firm can help you decide which content management system is best for you. Ideally, you should be able to easily add and delete content without compromising the integrity of the design. For instance, if you have a several different product images that are various sizes and shapes, the design may call for each image to be sized a certain way so that they all display identically on the web site. This can be tricky which is why I recommend that photo changes be handled by someone who possesses some basic image manipulation experience.

At Praxis, our goal is to provide content management systems that are compatible with clients' needs and internal capabilities. We begin each web project by setting up a style sheet for the site to define fonts and other design elements. Then we supply a CMS with a basic WYSIWYG editor to give clients the ability to make the changes they need to make without changing the style or compromising the site's structure.

Example of a full-featured WYSIWYG editor in a Content Management System

2. Contact Management Systems:
At one point or another, you will probaly need a form on your site to encourage customers to request quotes or get them to sign up for a newsletter. Too often, companies get around this by sending visitor form information to your companies email inbox. THis may be nice but this alone may make it difficult to manage contact information. Very often you may want an email notification but also have this information published and viewable in a database to manage in your Contact Management system. A Contact Management System will usually be tied in with a 'Content' Management System and contain specific methods to control and manage the contact information of your customers via your web site.

For instance, if someone subscribes to a newsletter, the list can be organized into groups of people who will recieve different information based upon specific requests. The list can be auto-sorted or you may want your company to have the ability to manage lists and groups of contacts. All of this is put into a contact management system which can be used for anything from newsletters to product requests. A Contact Management System will allow you to manage the contact material and in many cases give you the ability to download it in Excel for off-line management. It will also let you manage contacts safely and easily online through a secure log-in system.

3. Special Web Tools:
Sometimes a database is useful in creating interactive web tools that allow a user to request specific product details or conduct a high-level product search. A product comparison tool is a good example of this. With a database of specific criteria in place, users can select an application, usage requirements and other relevant information until their search is narrowed down to the most suitable product or products.

Another example of a special web tool may be a Sales Representative Locator. With a database of representatives searchable by state, county or zip code, this tool allows customers to find and contact the closest representative.

4. Dynamic Material
Dynamic content is material generated each time a request or query is made on the fly. That means the page content doesn't even exist until the query is made. Then it's put together and loaded in answer to the user's request.

Very often, LIVE or time-sensitive material is required to be dynamic. For example, a bank will generate information on your account request each time you access the system. In this case, a template is pulled in and the content is pulled from a live database that will change depending on how much you have spent that day. A news site is another instance where live material must be pulled each time an update is made by a journalist. Database content is often dynamic and all dynamic content is up-to-date material generated per a request. The same thing applies to commerce-driven sites and product information. For example, you may have an inventory that will be depleted at a certain point. Each time a purchse is made, the database will re-calculate the quantity minus the number of purchases. That's the beauty of databases, they instantly track and perform calculations without human intervention.

In closing, databases make data management a whole lot easier, faster and more accurate. And who wouldn't want that, both for their website and their customers?

Contact Leif at lfifer@praxisagency.com.