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Home::Online Promotion
Strengthen Your Website Content with Online Database Access
Author : Leokadia Angela
Website content, as articles, has taken center stage as web
publishers scramble to differentiate their online offers. As
both the quantity and quality of articles have accelerated, so
too have online directories. These directories often resemble
mere lists, but they can be powerful content additions that
serve to deepen the value of the overall selling proposition by
helping users in locating critical, related resources that for
the visitor is otherwise much too time consuming.
On today's websites, it is not uncommon to find online databases
designed to provide the data-hungry website visitor with more
comprehensive database management functions which are far
superior to list-style directories. At a minimum, we find
web-driven data pages that include search and display functions
which facilitate quick and easy manipulation of back-end SQL
databases. Many sites also include options to add, edit, delete,
print, and even download data directly from the database to the
desktop, all enabled with multiple levels of login/password
security. While this is not revolutionary, the technical
expertise required to build database-driven web pages has been
the domain of more sophisticated online publishers who not only
owned the back end database outright, but possessed the required
expertise to build and maintain such access for their loyal
constituents.
But that has all changed. A flurry of new, low-cost desktop
tools have entered the scene, leveling the playing field for the
budget-strapped internet marketer who, until recently, was
limited to throwing in a basic "telephone book" style directory
in an attempt to bolster his value proposition.
Three such tool categories warrant a closer look:
Web data extraction tools costing less than $400 enable web
content, as "repeating data", to be easily extracted to MS
Excel, MS Access, or virtually any SQL database in high volume.
This data serves to build, or at least augment the publisher's's
new online database. (Ideally, one should first obtain
permission from the website owner before scraping large volumes
of data).
The next challenge is to manipulate the collected data now
resident in multiple files, and often in disparate data formats.
Though list processing applications have long been available,
lower cost tools now offer powerful merge/purge capabilities
without the need to import and export files in the process. Some
simple routines and the data is ready to upload to the database
on the host web server.
Finally, the publisher builds the web pages which access the
database. Perhaps most exciting is the arrival of a wide variety
of desktop code generators, many which are open source, that
allow a non-programmer to build customized web pages that rival
the database search, display, add, edit,delete and download
capabilities previously reserved for the more technical
publisher. No longer is the web publisher required to know a
single SQL command to accomplish this feat. Amazingly, most of
these tools generate pure PHP or PERL code. All that remains is
to upload the generated code to the host database and the
project is complete. The website now houses a "living,
breathing" database, to the extent that the publisher desires to
maintain fresh data.
One of the more common, and simple applications of
database-driven web pages is to build versatile Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ) pages. Questions and answers can be queried by
category (e.g. pricing, product) or keyword (e.g. sporting
goods), while enriching the users support experience.
How can such newfound capabilities be monetized? The
possibilities are plenty. Limited datasets can be made freely
searchable and viewable for casual visitors, though it's usually
wise to request that the user register even if membership is
free. The idea is to prime the pump, getting casual users to
thirst for more comprehensive database access. Extended and full
database access can be reserved only for paid members.
Never has a publisher had such power to build data-rich content
that can serve to immediately strengthen his unique selling
sales proposition. In the old paradigm, he who owned the data
held all the power. Today, data is everywhere for the internet
entrepreneur. By applying the latest database tools, any website
publisher can now cement the most loyal of customer
relationships by ensuring that his customer has a reason to keep
coming back.
Web visitors have a difficult enough time sorting out the
perceived sameness of online offerings. For the content builder,
there are few better methods to establish and lock in immediate
credibility with customers than to implement an easily
accessible database that underscores the site's overall content
theme.
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