Create a Database-Driven Website Without Programming

People generate more than 2.5 quintillion bytes or 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of data every day, according to IBM. Whether a Fortune 500 enterprise or a startup with one employee, businesses feel the effect of these zeros.

In particular, business professionals who manage websites constantly deal with increasing data from prospects, customers, partners, and the list goes on.

While programs like Excel can easily store such information, doing so can quickly become unmanageable.

Create a database-driven website instead! Here’s how you can do it using Caspio’s low-code platform.

Sign up for a free trial now and start exploring Caspio as your online database solution.

What Is a Database-Driven Website?

A database-driven website is one that uses a database like MySQL or MS SQL Server to store and manage information.

Previously, it required a great deal of technical programming to make a website database-driven. Today, however, you can use platforms like Caspio to synchronize your website with a cloud database.

A database-driven website is also dynamic, so visitors can interact with it. For businesses, this means your prospective customers can take specific actions on your dynamic site, such as send inquiries or filter your products based on their preferences.

Why Create a Database-Driven Website

Business professionals deal with Excel spreadsheets and other files that contain data on product inventory, customer information and financial reports, among others. And then there’s phone calls, emails and paper forms.

How can you better manage all this data? Build a database-driven website!

Here are some of the benefits of creating one:

Eradicate redundant data entry and management.

As a website manager or a business professional, you want to focus on running your team — not on manually and painstakingly editing web pages that contain information you’ve already updated in spreadsheets or in other locations.

All-America Selections (AAS), the most established plant-trialing organization in the country, solved this with Caspio. The integration eliminated the need to update information twice — on the AAS site and in their local database — allowing the nonprofit to operate faster and with lower expenses from extra staff and service providers.

Ensure website information is always updated.

Nothing is more frustrating for a customer than to reach out to a business regarding an enticing offer on the website, only to find that the offer has changed, or is already expired. Stop doing this to your customers. Sync your database-driven website to your cloud database so it reflects only updated information.

Make data accessible anywhere via the cloud.

Database-driven websites rely on cloud-based databases like Caspio instead of databases hosted on a local server. This means information is accessible anywhere, even outside of the office, as long as you’re connected to the internet.

For consulting firms and other companies that have remote workers, this means your field staff are able to submit real-time updates wherever they are.

Barnes & Noble College, which operates over 750 college bookstores in the United States, built a reporting tool that allowed their field auditors to submit real-time reports from any location, significantly streamlining their previously cumbersome audit process.

Database Web Applications You Can Build Without Coding

Traditionally, building a database-driven website required the help of web developers who are experts in server-side programming languages such as PHP, ASPX or ASP. 

That’s no longer the case.

Today, you can easily build custom applications that can be connected to a cloud database and deployed on your website. Here are some applications you can build using Caspio’s low-code platform:

• Lead Generation Forms – Enable prospect customers to enter their contact information on your online submission forms so your sales team gets a steady stream of leads. Want to take it a step further? Link your lead generation forms to your custom CRM database and help your reps convert these leads into sales.

• Feedback and Survey Forms – What’s the best way to know what your customers want? Ask them! Caspio’s low-code development platform gives you the ability to build customer surveys that you can customize with checkboxes, dropdowns and other features. Ensure security and confidentiality with passwords and hints.

• Searchable Databases and Directories – With a searchable directory and database, everyone gets access to a single source of truth, ensuring no one uses outdated data.

PRO TIP: Caspio makes it easy to create a searchable database application. Simply import data from your existing spreadsheets, configure your DataPage and then deploy your app on your website.

• Data Visualization Tools – Caspio enables you to create interactive graphs, charts, calendars and more to spice up your database-driven website. View, analyze and present trends and metrics with visual reports instead of rows after rows of raw data.

• Events and Membership Management Systems – Are you a foundation that organizes fundraisers and manages donors? Use your database-driven website as an end-to-end registration system to gather and organize attendee information.

Create a Database-Driven Website Using Caspio

With a robust and scalable web database at its core, Caspio’s point-and-click tools enable business developers to achieve sophisticated database-driven functionality without writing code.

This means you don’t need prior development experience to create database-driven applications that you can link and deploy on your website. All Caspio-powered applications can also be seamlessly embedded on any website regardless of the hosting provider or content management system.

Need lead generation, survey and other submission forms? Perhaps your organization can use a searchable directory? Want to manage event registrations and memberships?

Sign up for a free trial and discover how Caspio can help you create a database-driven website without coding.