| Consider moving your
directories on-line for both reader access and advertiser/listee
data input. Unlike printed directories, web-site based
directories can
be updated at any time. The old adage is that a directory is
out of date as soon as it's published. It might have taken
you two to six months to research the information for your
directory, but since you've started gathering data, changes
have taken place. People move, companies close or change
location, and what was an accurate document becomes outdated
quickly. The way around the issue of change is to allow listees to update their own listings anytime they want.
Creating a password protected spot on your site for listees
to access with an auto e-mail feature to send out forgotten
passwords, can reduce your work and increase the accuracy of
the directory. 
Whether it's just corporate information, as above, or
cross-reference indexes, gathering information on-line can
be very quick and painless. An example of a data gathering
technique is to send out personalized e-mails with a
specific URL that contains both the login and password for
an individual so they can quickly log into the system. The
unique URL can be part of the e-mail message, so when your
listee receives their e-mail, all they need do is click the link
to be taken to their own update-page of your site. The use
of cookies to save their password and login on their
computer also means that when they come back to the listee
edit site, they don't even need to re-login as long as they
haven't cleared the cookies through their browser.
Generally, when developing a directory web-site there are
three faces to the site.
- The end-user portion which allows them to retrieve
data based on selecting pre-existing prompts or building
conditions through an interactive matrix of options.
- The second is a listee interface which allows the
listee to update their own listing directly.
- The last face is an administrative back-end that the
publisher controls to allow adding of new listees,
collection of update data and editing of individual
listings directly.
You can also generate revenue from this on-line listing
by including options, such as linking the listing directly
to the listee's web-site, or charging for the inclusion of
corporate logos. The listing edit page can be hooked
directly to an on-line credit card processing site to allow
for revenue to be deposited directly to your account without
operator intervention.
If you're interested in this option, call us to discuss
what can be done to automate your directory production.
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