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ABOLISHING BORING WEBSITES ARTICLE 4 ARTICLE 1 ARTICLE 2 ARTICLE 3
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How your website can save you time, effort and resources. By Julia D. StegeThis fourth article in the series is designed to introduce you to time and money saving Internet tools.Most of us realize that a website is a great marketing tool, but did you know that your website can actually save you time, effort, and resources in your business processes? Basic web-based tools are available to help make your work day easier, whether you want your website to gather information on visitors, to save you time in data entry and information sharing, or to simplify financial transactions. As Internet technology advances, new tools have become available that help people run their businesses more smoothly and effectively, and many of them are simple and affordable to implement and use. Let's take a look at a few commonly used tools that can greatly enhance your business functions online. Information GatheringOne of the most useful Internet tools is the interactive form. A form can be as short as a simple request for email addresses, to a lengthy and detailed application. Interactive forms can generate, gather, store and send data virtually anywhere accessible by the web, i.e. any web-ready computer, internet device, or fax. I've included two short examples here to give you a sense of possible practical uses of the interactive form. Personal History Form: One of my clients is a tri-athlete coach and physical therapist. Before she got a website, she had all her new clients fill out a lengthy personal history form by hand. She used this information to become more familiar with her clients special needs. The form was stored in the client folder and she could pull it out and look at it, but unless she re-entered the information on her computer, none of the information was available to her for other uses. Now she has an interactive form that sends her client data to her in an email, giving her a flexible collection of data that she can use in a variety of electronic mediums, including spreadsheets, databases, and word processing. In addition, the form benefits her clients who can easily fill it out in the comfort of their own homes. Later on when her client base expands, we will integrate the form with her database so all the info can go automatically into her office computer. E-mail List Sign-up: A client of mine created a political humor site during the election last year, and wanted a way to keep in touch with people coming to the site. In his past efforts, he had collected emails generated by the site in a folder, but he expected a big response to the site, and wanted to automate the contact info collection. He only needed email addresses to contact people, so we set up a simple one-field form to collect them. Within a few months, he was able to gather a list of over 800 subscribers. Automating this simple task made the gathering of subscriptions fast and easy, and sending a letter to all of his subscribers is available with one click. You can set up an interactive form and email sign up form on your site with the help of your Web Designer or Internet Service Provider (ISP). Or if you're adept at creating your own web pages, you can use website building software such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, or an online services that charge a monthly fee such as bcentral.com. You may also find free code to create these forms yourself. Information Sharing If you have a company or organization that shares information among a group of people, you may consider using your website to store that information rather than making hard copies and distributing them to the team. You can store information as HTML files, or as Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf files), and upload them to a non-public area of your server instead of sending out hard copies to many people. The individual team members can access the files online, and print them out themselves, or store them on their computers. If you want only certain people to access certain files, you can password protect them. Your storage system can be as simple as a file stored in a folder, or you can create a page with links to multiple files. Storing your team documents online can save you hours in administration time, and also prevent errors. You can date files that are constantly being revised so that team members can access the most recent ones. I have a client who was sending out hundreds of printed forms to over a dozen branches on a monthly basis. In their business, using the most recent version of the form is vital, and the forms change regularly. By storing the forms online and having the branches access them directly, my client is assured that her branches have the correct files, and she is able to save thousands of dollars in printing, and hours in time spent packing and sending the forms out in the mail. Financial TransactionsConducting business online is becoming easier with the advent of services like PayPal.com, and other simple shopping cart programs most web hosts are offering. PayPal gives new users a $5 bonus for signing up with their service, and they make receiving and paying money online as simple as sending an email. I have used this service to conduct business with people from out of state. I get my money instantly without having to wait for the snail mail to arrive. The service is as safe as my local bank and I don't have to leave my office to use it. If you conduct a lot of business online or if you have a lot of products you'd like to sell from your website, setting up a secure server and a shopping cart on your website is a good idea. Your web developer can create a custom system for you that can save you hours of labor time. Rather than filling in item numbers, quantity, descriptions, etc by hand, your customers make selections that are transmitted electronically. Totals can be added up automatically in the background, and then data can be sent directly to your database, avoiding hours of time of data re-entry. No more looking at bad handwriting on a faxed order. The Next StepThe number and uses of Internet tools is expanding daily. This brief summary of some of the most commonly used tools is just an introduction to the myriad of tools that are available to save you time, effort, and money with the help of your online presence. To determine what tools will be most useful for you, make a list of the tasks you perform regularly in your work, and use the examples above to help you brainstorm. That list will help you prioritize the important tasks you can automate, and give you a head start when you approach your Web Designer or ISP for their recommendations.
Julia Stege is owner and principal designer of Graphic Girlz Design Solutions, a Bay Area based marketing, graphic design and website development firm. She specializes in market strategy, project management, product development, logos and branding, design, content development, and production of Internet and print marketing campaigns. Subscribe to the Graphic Girlz newsletter |