| Site Visitor Interaction
How does this fit into "data management" you ask? It
is really the data that results from site visitor interaction
that needs to be managed. But first, it needs to be generated
and the two practices together form a most important and often
neglected requirement of an effective web presence.
I loosely define "site visitor interaction" and any
function or feature on a web site that permits and encourages
the visitor to interact with the site owner, another individual
that may not know about the site (yet), or information on the
site that changes depending upon the visitors input or preferences.
The E-mail link vs. a contact form
In the most simplistic form, this would be an e-mail link. Most
site have at least an e-mail link but here is a problem with the
standard way in which this is done:
This Code: Contact <A HREF ="mailto:me@mysite.com">
Me </A>
Yields This: Contact Me
So what's wrong with that? It works doesn't it?
Yes it does, but it leaves you open to having every spamm robot
grabbing your e-mail address. This is just a general nuisance
assuming you protect your computer against viruses but a real
pain if you don't. The rate of virus infected mail is also likely
to increase. Most important though, it does not allow you to keep
track of the visitors inquiry in a structured manner or ask them
any questions that they might be happy to answer while submitting
a simple form instead. If you run a Bread & Breakfast, you
might want to ask them if they are new visitors to your site (with
yes and no radio buttons) along with how they found your site
(with a pop-up list that has appropriate options). As long as
you do not ask questions that make the user feel like you are
getting too personal (like "what is your income"), people
will not object to answering a few quick questions while they
submit their inquiry. Over time, this information can the be "managed"
to yield important clues about how to better promote and enhance
your web site!
If you have access to installing Perl scripts (a
CGI directory) on your site, a very simple but most capable and
free form mail script is "FormMail"
by Matt Wright, A variation of that script is also available
that keeps a simple text file on the server with all of the submissions
received using the script (the fields to keep are up to you).
That text file can be grabbed from the server every so often and
the data imported to a database or spreadsheet program for tabulating
relevant statistics.
When setting up a contact form where you want to
be able to keep track of various statistics, be sure to make the
default answer separate from a real answer! Say you ask if this
is the visitor's first time on the site; make it such that the
form would submit something besides Yes or No if the person does
not answer the question. This is very important! Otherwise, you
will get skewed information if the default answer is "yes"
but it appears in submission even if the user did not select it.
Of course you can require a field to be filled out for the form
to allow submission but some questions are best answered voluntarily.
To link or Not to link
In the youthful days of the World Wide Web providing
links to other sites was simply accepted as a "reason for
being". As the web has evolved to a business medium there
is a reasonable concern for losing ones visitors to "off-site"
links. But, a link exchange remains a viable grass-roots marketing
tool and is still appropriate for many sites.
I will state up front that I do not support the
practice of putting other sites within a frameset belonging to
your site. Not only does it infer a degree of ownership of someone
else's property but the reverse may also be true. You may not
want to appear responsible for the content on any other particular
site. It is more straight forward to simply open an off-site link
in a new window and know that your site will still be there if
the visitor wants to return.
Regarding links pages, here is a major problem.
They can require a lot of time to build and maintain. And, since
you are hoping that other sites will link back to you in a positive
manner, how do you make it advantageous for them to do so without
tending towards an affiliate program? You can join a "service"
that rotate banners and/or links among its members but you then
have no real control over who is essentially advertising on your
site and pulsating banners in garish colors are likely to appear
that link to sites having no relationship to your visitor's interests.
For the positive aspects of a working link exchange,
your site's search performance can definitely be enhanced by having
other sites (who are listed in search engines) link to your site.
And, there should be a perceived value to your visitors in the
links that are available on your site. If there is, your site
will likely be bookmarked and revisited for that reason.
It is a difficult balance that is swayed to the
positive by the use of a CGI script that can both automate the
linking process and that rewards the sites that do link to you
and sends visitors. A script produced by Smart
CGIs called Intellilink has features making it worthy of serious
consideration if you want to establish your own link exchange
program. There are many features and they are best reviewed on
the developers own web site but a few important items are:
-
Link exchange members can sign up and add/modify their own
links.
-
Admin capabilities allow the listings to be controlled and
supervised.
-
Sites in the listing can be categorized
-
Sites that send the most visitors can be rewarded by providing
them a more prominent display in return
Overall the "site interactivity" here is very simple;
your visitors can be exposed to other sites they may have interest
in and look to your site as a resource in addition to whatever
you offer as primary content. The ability to provide a "data
source" to your visitors that can be largely self maintaining
offers tremendous possibilities.
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