By WorkZ Staff

Databases of customer information can be powerful tools to help target and personalize your Web site.

You can gather and organize data from your customers in several ways. Most frequently, customer information is entered into a form on the Web site. The information from this form must then be transferred, stored and sorted.

The first way to accomplish these tasks is to build or write a program. This is how we do it here at WorkZ.com. We use various applications to create the HTML code the user sees. We then include code or script that creates the form. The data entered into the form is sent via code or script to our sequel server database. For this process you must be fluent with the programming language you are using.

Or Hire It Out

You can also outsource the database programming. Many people have the expertise, skill, and tools to help you. Sometimes the hardest part of a project is simply finding the right person to do it. Besides, outsourcing will shift the responsibility out of your hands and free you to devote your time to the rest of your business.

Building your own online form and database can get tricky, and outsourcing doesn't solve one of the fundamental problems with a program directly connecting a form to a database: the accessibility visitors have to the database.

Three things to consider when introducing online accessibility to your site include:

Ask yourself what results you want. Depending on the answers you give, you can format your input fields to limit the amount of accessibility users have to your data. If you need only a simple reply or a slice of information, perhaps an online form isn't necessary. You might want to keep the data in the form format but allowing anyone to alter it is risky. The extra work involved in transferring data from a form to the database manually might save the integrity of the overall data.

Decide where you want to locate the files. If you are going to make this document available for editing, you'll have to decide where you are going to keep it. Probably, you'll want to keep it somewhere secure, such as on your Web server. Keeping outside traffic off your network drives is important to security, and whenever you allow more accessibility to your files, you involve more risk. Set up a "public" file on your Web server to confine traffic to one area. Don't forget to back up and archive the data in another secure place.

Decide how the files will be accessed. Now that you've selected a form to use and a place for it, you'll have to choose how to let your visitors access it. The easiest way is to provide a hyperlink to the form on your visitors' Web browsers. But slower machines with older systems and applications will be cumbersome running all the applications it takes for this process. There will also be more technical requirements on your end if you provide a hyperlink to the database.

Other Ways

An easier solution to gathering data without the hassle of creating a form or a database system is to put a page on your Web site that asks specifically for the information you want and has a hyperlink for visitors to mail you a response. Simple and safe, visitors don't have to worry about downloading anything, and you keep them out of your files.

You can also use an icon and have the visitor right click and "save target as" to download an Excel file. Give them explicit instructions to mail you the response and attach the file they just downloaded. Include a "mail-to" hyperlink on the bottom of your spreadsheet. Ideally, they'll download the file, fill it out, and mail it back to you.

These two simple solutions involve e-mail. This is the safest form of data transfer at low cost with low technical knowledge. Using a form or database system involves more risk and a higher level of technical knowledge.

Sophisticated, But Not Easy

Even more sophisticated than the form or database systems is CGI or Common Gateway Interface, the most common protocol for transferring data via the Internet. This involves software, programming, and security. Not the easiest way to go. Hiring a consultant or outsourcing to a knowledgeable company would be a good idea if you are interested in CGI. Quick and inexpensive consulting can be found at guru.com, and most Web development companies will build this technology for you.

You have several means with which to gather customer data, ranging from simple e-mail questionnaires to complex data transfer systems. Be sure to examine your specific needs and capabilities closely to help you choose a method to collect and organize your visitors.

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About the Author:
The WorkZ staff is made up of gurus in many areas of expertise including Sales, Marketing, all aspects of the Internet, Technology, even starting and running businesses.

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