(Published in Brainstorm! December 2005)

With the New Year right around the corner, people make a bunch of resolutions but never really stick to them. Here is one idea that if you start the resolution, there is no way to turn back. Plan to make your web site more dynamic.

A dynamic web site is where certain parts of your web site are place holders where information from a database will populate those spaces with data. It can also refer to the web site changing its look or information based on reactions to user input.

Dynamic web sites could have any or all of the following characteristics:

1. Being able to change items of your web site on the fly.
2. Changing the look and feel of your web site without needing to change every page on your site. One page controls how the entire site will "look."
3. Allow updated information to be retrieved from a data source without the need to come up with all possible scenarios and create individual pages for each.

Dynamic web sites can help everyone involved with your web site:

For you, the Site Owner
SAVE TIME AND MONEY
If you are one that likes to make little changes to the look of your site, you can save time and money by putting the design information in one file. Having it in one file would only require changing one page of your site, but it will show up throughout. That can add up to BIG SAVINGS if you have a large site with many pages. No longer do you need to open each page, make the quick change, save it and repeat the process for each page.

One example is the copyright notice that everyone has at the bottom of your web site. If you have a dynamic web site, it can be programmed to automatically change the year once January 1 comes around. It keeps your web site always looking fresh as if you stayed up to midnight changing the date at the bottom of your web site on New Year's Eve.

Save lag time by being able to change the information yourself rather than waiting for designers to make the changes.

You have an immediate press release that you want to get out on your web site in a hurry. Your designer is out the office and you do not know HTML. You are stuck. If your web site was designed with you in mind, you would be able to add that press release the moment you needed it done. With dynamic web sites you can access that portion of your web site, add the press release and voila, it is automatically shows up where it is expected. You can see the news headlines integrated in a number of web sites we have created such as www.cyberconflict.org, www.coloradocai.org and our own site www.wholebraintech.com.

For those who have event registration on their web site, the site owner can save a bunch of time by getting the customer to enter their information directly into a database. Why waste valuable employee's time with data entry when a customer filling out forms online will do it for you. This information will be in electronic form and can easily be manipulated into reports or mailing labels.

For your customers
SAVE FRUSTRATION AND HASSLES, INCREASE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
If your web site allows users to personalize what they see on your web site, you can feed them only information they want to see. Customers are happier when they can filter out unimportant data or highlight more important information. An example might be a shopping cart that lists the most popular items purchased by others or suggests other items that might be of interest like the one we incorporated into the site for Powers Resource Center.

A shopping cart developed for the customer in mind can recognize a recurring user and save their information so it does not have to be re-entered. Although security about how this is done should be considered, it can take away the hassles of time lost when the system can remember the customer's information.

Whole Brain Technologies takes pride in developing user-friendly dynamic components for Web sites that can make life easier for both you and your visitors. Please contact us to discuss how we can help make your site more dynamic.

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