Behind the scenes of your website – save time and money!

There are a lot of tools you can use behind-the-scenes of your website to streamline your internal processes, simplify communication with staff and add value for your clients. These are all tools that can plug-in to your Content Management System so you can use them in conjunction with the front end of your website to get more customers, make more money and save more time.

Knowledge base

A knowledge base is simply a collection of pages on a website that is divided into categories and answers. We use this tool on the Bloomtools website to give you support and information about all our products and systems – check out how it works here. The knowledge base is a great tool if you have a large amount of information to get across and want to make it searchable and easy to navigate. A knowledge base can be public for everyone to view, or it can be password protected so it can contain information specifically for certain groups, such as employees or shareholders.

Example – a large law firm has dozens of documents covering processes and procedures for staff, but the logistics of getting this information to 50 staff across several offices were far too complex and expensive, so they put it all into a knowledge base. Staff can access it through a secure section on their website, quickly search for the information they need and print it out if they need to, saving everyone time and money.

Online shopping cart

An online shopping cart is a great strategy for businesses to get more customers and make more money from their website. But a shopping cart doesn’t have to be just for your customers – businesses can use an online system to streamline their ordering process for their sales agents. Agents can use a secure login and password to access the shopping cart with their wholesale prices and order what they need. The system cuts administration time because it automatically sends an invoice to the agent and even monitors stock levels for the business.

Example – a manufacturer of office furniture is sick of trying to manage the phone and fax orders that come through from his 80 sales agents, so he uses a wholesale shopping cart system on his website. The general public can browse and purchase from the cart, but is agents have their own login details to view wholesale pricing and order their stock.

Client filing system

Many businesses constantly have clients calling to ask for another copy of some document or form, and the time spent on these calls and then on finding and sending what they need can be very costly. A client filing system or client repository is the answer to this problem. Using a system like this, you can store all your client’s private documents in a secure section of you website and issue them all with individual login details to access their own information. This is also a great added-value service for clients because it saves them time too and shows them you care about them.

Example – an accountant was getting a couple of calls each week from clients seeking copies of their financial documents and it was taking away from his time for appointments. So he gathered up copies of all his client’s documents and stored them all in an online repository. His clients can now login via his website any time and print copies of what they need.

Automated emails

Email marketing is a valuable communication strategy for any business because it is so simple and cost-effective. It also has the ability to save your business a lot of time because you can set up emails to automatically send at a certain date or time or based on a particular action. You can automate everything from appointment reminders, to invoices, to newsletters, to birthday ecards – it really just depends on your particular business and how you communicate with all your stakeholders.

Example – a physiotherapist could use email marketing to cut his phone and printing costs. After a client books their first appointment, they get an automated (but personalised) email welcoming them and giving them some exercise tips. They get emailed an appointment reminder the day before their appointment and a survey for the physiotherapist to find out about their health, nutrition and fitness before they come in. They also receive a birthday ecard and an email every six months to check their progress.

Advertising manager

If your website has a high amount of traffic, you could sell advertising space on it to bring you some extra revenue. To minimise the administration time you spend on organising the ads, you could use an advertising manager system. This tool would link to your content management system and allow you to upload ads for your site, control the amount of time they appear on the site and automatically captures statistics to give to the advertiser.

Example – A real estate agent often had other businesses contacting him about advertising on his site because of the number of locals that used the site. He was keen to arrange some advertising but didn’t have the time or knowledge to set it up himself. He began using an advertising management system so he only had to upload the ads and then could forget about them.

Bloomtools - About Author:
This article was provided to you by Bloomtools, Australasia's leading website developer. With Offices in Melbourne, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Wellington New Zealand. Online business solutions provider – SEO, Websites (with simple to use Content Management System),

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