Blogging/Articles
A blog, in it's simplest form is a section of your website where you can periodically compose and publish articles. Visitors to your site can subscribe to your blog which will notify them whenever a new article is published. Some blogs allow visitors to comment on the articles, these comments can be read and responded to by other visitors.
Forums
A forum is the perfect solution for websites looking to build an online community among their users. Forums allow users to have topical discussions with one another by posting and responding to messages or questions. Discussions are organized into folders by topic and all messages are searchable.
Gallery
A regularly updated photo gallery is a great way to engage users. Photo galleries automatically organize and resize images to present a clean, professional and easy to navigate visual experience.
Audio, Audio-Casting (Podcasting)
Podcasting is an excellent promotional tool which many businesses use to educate their listeners. A podcast automatically delivers the audio content to subscribers once it becomes available. Examples of content that could be podcasted are lectures, sermons, rebroadcasting of live events and radio shows, or promotional music.
Video, Video-Casting
Video has become relatively easy to distribute to users who have high speed Internet connections. Like a podcast, video can also be automatically distributed to subscribers as they become available.
Contact Form
A contact form is possibly the easiest way to connect with your site visitors. The contact form can be configured to forward visitor requests to different email boxes based on the subject of the message. At the least the contact form should capture the visitors name, email address and message.
E-Commerce
For organizations looking to sell a moderate number of products online, e-commerce solutions can be integrated directly into your site. An integrated shopping cart allows product orders to be taken online, shoppers can checkout using one of several payment options. For organizations looking to sell a high volume of products a dedicated e-commerce website is recommended.
Weather
Weather forecasts supplied by 3rd party websites like accuweather can be displayed directly on your website. Show visitors the current weather conditions, and what's coming tomorrow or later in the week.
Google Map Integration
Numerical data is typically only organized into tables, charts and graphs, but if we add location information such as an address or geo coordinates to the data we can now integrate that data onto a map! Google map integration is a great way to explore geographic data interactively. Points on the interactive map can represent the location of a real estate listing, event venue or incident report.
Advanced Search Engine
When all else fails find what you are looking for by search! Any content within your site can be easily found using an integrated search engine. Advanced search makes it easy for users to easily sift through the content of your website to find exactly what they are looking for.
Membership Management
Having a Constituent Relationship Management or CRM system built into your site is an excellent way organize events and fund raising campaigns. A CRM also helps you stay in touch with contributors through email and direct mail campaigns, track memberships and accept payments online.
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking is most often paired with a blog or news based websites. Social bookmaking links (often placed near the bottom of the article) make it easy for readers to share a link to the article with others through one of several social networking websites such as facebook.com, del.icio.us or digg.com. This is a very powerful tool to help you passively promote your your website.
News / Event Calendar
A public calendar is an easy way to keep your site visitors notified of upcoming events. Clicking on an event within the calendar present the user with more detailed information about the event. Events can be organized in a calendar view or list view.
Printer and PDF versions
What looks good on a computer screen doesn't always look great when printed. With this feature "Printer Friendly" and "PDF" versions of your site that will look great when printed can be automatically generated by your site.
Email this Page
Visitors use the "Email this Page" feature to invite their friends to view the content of a page that they find useful or interesting. Recipients of the automated email message see a short blurb of the content within the page, a message from their friend and a link to the actual page on your site.
Polls
Polls are a great way to get instant feedback from site visitors. Statistics from the poll are instantly tabulated and presented to the user once they have submitted their opinion.
Search Engine Optimization
There are many tools that can be built into your website to make the content more accessible to search engines which will potentially improve your search engine results and increase the volume of "organic" visitors to your website.
Website Stats
Website statistics allow site owners to see who is visiting their site, how they discovered the site and where they live geographically. Stats can also tell us exactly how many new people are visiting the site, how long they are stay, how many pages they view and which pages are visited most often.
Feed Integration
With Feed Integration your site can capture user activity from social networking sites, blogs and podcasts throughout the web and organize it within your website.
