Ever wonder when or if you need to include database driven content areas on your website?  Here are the top 10 reasons for using a database driven website:

1. You are storing or distributing large amounts of information (ex: library/information distribution centers, news articles etc.).
2. Your website content changes … a lot.
3. You need to add, update, maintain and display historical data (ex: transactional data entry systems, surveys, polls, customer information).
4. You have an online store, which includes multiple product & service offerings. If you sell multiple products, it is efficient to maintain and organize the information about those products in a database.
5. You need to offer customized content areas on your website  (ex: membership areas, customer order history, related product recommendations). For example, the data stored in your database regarding your products and customer orders can be used to create highly customized customer areas, such as recommended or related product areas (based on a customer’s past order history).
6. You’re maintaining a large volume of static web pages. If you have 355 products, why manage 355 static (.html) product pages when you can have one database driven product page?   This also makes it easier to display the product information in a consistent manner.
7. You want to centralize your data (ex: you’re managing your product information, orders, customer leads in Excel, Word or on email).
8. For more effective website maintenance and content management, you want to separate your content from your design (presentation layer).  
9. You need to share the same content across several different pages. Storing that information in a database ensures that you will only need to update one source (the database table). If the information changes, the most recent information will automatically be displayed on all relevant web pages (ex: product pricing).
10. You manage a membership-based website or organization. Storing information about your members, such as their bios and profiles, will allow you to easily create membership directories and implement the appropriate security requirements in your members-only content areas.

If you are interested in developing database driven areas on your website, feel free to contact us if you’d like to obtain a copy of our Intro Guide for Planning Your Database Driven Website Project.