Website management tools: intranet, extranet, and web analytics

¶ … Online Investigations for Website Management

When it comes to investigating and implementing tools for website management, there are so many things that can be applied. It is important to appreciate the different types of tools appropriate because there is no such thing as one size fits all. It is also clear that the diversity of proprietary and open source applications available over the Internet is increasing every day. Numerous of these can be of assistance to the website manager. Also, as consumers access websites that are from a growing diversity of devices, receptive Web design turn out to be more and more important. Implementing tools for website management is about building a Web manifestation that scales and purposes well on desktop, mobile devices and tablet. The inspecting size of each device is dissimilar, which generates challenges for Web designers, not only on account of the designs themselves but also by reason of the need to manage website constituents as they scale from one device to another. With that said, this essay will examine the tools for website management.

Intranet and Extranet

The intranet is essentially a small-scale version of the internet, operating with similar functionality, but existing solely within the firm. Like the internet, the intranet uses network technologies such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). It allows for the creation of internal networks with common internet applications that can allow them to communicate with different operating systems (Newell et al. 2000). Intranets serve an organization's digital communications needs. They also provide a secure space for storing, accessing and developing electronic materials. Using intranets to replace older business solutions can produce big gains in efficiency by speeding up workflows and reducing errors. Some specific intranet applications include network folders where multiple employees can access the same files, offline websites that can be tested for functionality before going live, digital reference databases for looking up facts and figures, internal email systems and instant messaging software.

Rocktime is an internet tool used to implement Intranet and Extranet. The Rocktime intranet platform allows organizations to control a diverse range of information efficiently, and most importantly communicate, manage and share this information internally between relevant staff. The Rocktime extranet is where this functionality is extended to include access for 'external' people, for example customers, suppliers and partners. Rocktime's intranet and extranet platforms allow your business to implement varying levels of access and user rights e.g. defining what each person can see and whether they can make changes to such information. In addition both platforms can be accessible securely over the internet via a web browser, consequently removing the constrictions of site-specific geography. As long as staff and users are connected to the internet they can securely access the company intranet or extranet.

Web Analytics OR SEO

When considering the different web analytics tools that your business requires, the plethora of available options can be overwhelming for businesses that may not understand how to use them. And that's where hiring someone to really dig into all of the reports can be vital. One tool is the Web analytics 2.0 is a three-tiered data delivery and analysis service for small and big businesses. The first is the data itself, as it measures the traffic, page views, clicks and more for both your website and for your direct competition.

Google Analytics is another good tool to use. A completely free service that generates detailed statistics about visitors to your website, Google Analytics is the simplest and most robust web analytics offering. Currently used by over 50% of the top 10,000 websites in the world, according to the site's usage statistics, you can find out where your visitors are coming from, what they're doing while on your site and how often they come back, among many other things.

Yahoo Web Analytics

Once you've mastered Google Analytics, Yahoo's similar offering gives you a little more depth in your surveying. It offers better access control options and a simpler approach to multi-site analytics, raw and real time data collection (unlike Google, you can import cost of goods data), visitor behavior and demographics reports and customized options as well. Yahoo Analytics is a bit of a step up from Google in terms of profiling, filtering and customization, so for those looking to dig a little deeper, it's a great option.

Security backups and penetration testing

Arachni is a feature-full, modular, high-performance Ruby framework aimed towards helping penetration testers and administrators evaluate the security of web applications. Arachni is smart, it trains itself by learning from the HTTP responses it receives during the audit process. Unlike other scanners, Arachni takes into account the dynamic nature of web applications and can detect changes caused while travelling through the paths of a web application's cyclomatic complexity.

This way attack/input vectors that would otherwise be undetectable by non-humans are seamlessly handled by Arachni. Finally, Arachni yields great performance due to its asynchronous HTTP model (courtesy of Typhoeus). Thus, you'll only be limited by the responsiveness of the server under audit and your available bandwidth.

The Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is considered to be an easy tool to for finding susceptibilities in web applications. This device is intended to be used by individuals with a wide variety of security experience and as such is perfect for functional and developer testers who are new to diffusion analysis. ZAP offers automatic scanners in addition to a set of tools that permit you to find security vulnerabilities by hand. Another tool is the w3af which is an Audit Framework Web and Application Attack. The project's goal is to generate a framework to exploit and find web application weaknesses that is easy to extend and use.

Another tool that is effective is called the Vega. This device is considered to be an open source stage that is used so that it can test the safety of web applications. However, Vega can help a business find and authenticate Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and SQL Injections, unintentionally unveiled sensitive information, and other weaknesses. This tool is written in GUI based, Java, and also runs on OS X, Linux, and Windows. This device does consist of a very effective computerized scanner which is used for quick tests and a diverting alternative for strategic review. One of the most interesting thing about this tool is that it can be drawn-out using a powerful API in the language of the web.

Recommendations for Big Businesses

CoTweet is an outstanding instrument for small businesses or even divisions of superior businesses that extend social media responsibilities among team members and have a customer-service method to commitment. Similar to countless SMM services, CoTweet brings everything up-to-date automatically and follow-up messages are robotically dispensed to particular social media managers (Segal, 2014). This can make replies more appropriate as team members with assured knowledge bases can control suitable questions and observations from followers. The responder's initials are built-in at the end of the tweet, permitting the follower to understand that there's an individual operating behind the handle.

The difference between CoTweet is its OnDuty status, and this just makes a note of who is accountable for social streams at a definite time. Separately from organizing a business SMM schedule, it permits for more inactive observing. The individual on duty can obtain e-mails when they need them, freeing them up to go to conferences or take calls while remaining alert of social media activity.

Small to medium-sized companies that have one or two devoted social media managers would need to look into HootSuite. This is a free version which allows a business to add five systems and supports Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress Foursquare, and PingFm. HootSuite is looked at as being the best for actively-managed accounts for the reason that its design emphases on streams, which are contained in customizable tabs. A business have the suppleness to establish tabs by content, account, or network making it more relaxed to monitor a particular kind of feed more carefully.

One of the utmost benefits of social media is discovering more about a business audience. HootSuite brings everything to a new level by giving a follower's Klout score and bio along with links to their social media summaries. A business can likewise put together lists of followers a company's want to keep a closer eye on and grow engagement with. In the free version, Stats do not point out that much information, but paid subscriptions are offering unlimited insights and Google Analytics integration. A set a price starts at $5.99 a month and sail through at $1,998.99 a month for the Enterprise package in addition to vanity URL service (Segal, 2014).

Another tool is called Analyze That. For big agencies that are dealing with social media for several businesses with high ROI demands, SpredFast is the right tool for them. This instrument main advantage over other SMM devices is analytics. Also, measurement is figured by the quantity of content circulated, how many people were touched and whether the planned audience was involved. Spredfast assimilates analytics from clicks by following bit.ly links in addition to data deriving from each social network. This material is arranged in demonstration-ready graphs, which is perfect for agencies bringing customers up to speed on outreach development.

Spredfast's benchmarking feature is considered to be the most useful. Managers are able to compare social campaigns to other methods in the business industry or to the similar kind of campaign as it was run in another business. As businesses go on to research utilizing social media as an outreach device, this setting is able to reply to important questions in regards to the right way to bring leverage to each network.

It is clear that these first class analytics are not cheap and in fact they do come with a hefty cost: some would be interested to know that plans go from $13,000 to $1 million a year. Also Spredfast starts off as an in-house tool and then went public in March 2010, then after that became very popular at Microsoft.

Franchise businesses looking to uphold reliable messaging but giving local subdivisions a hand in social media approach would want to give Engage121 a try. Even though its participants are not many, Engage121 is best in its class at surrounding monitoring, distribution and arrangement. The tool is extremely user friendly and can just about support any site with a social company. Corporate managers are able to make create a corporation-wide campaign message and use mail merge to air it with a local store's address and name. Authorizations may be set to permit a branch to agree a message from corporate before it is dispersed to area followers, sustaining a local voice and brand steadiness all at once.

With the quantity of buzz around big-name products, engagement and monitoring are for the most part perplexing. Engage121 is able to keep things easy with customized filters, providing managers total control over what kinds of messages they are able to look at. However, just below each message is a post button. Whenever the company pushes it, a very user-friendly line pops up where managers can effortlessly reply to followers' messages or start chats with social media influencers from other big businesses.

Conclusion

It is clear that big business have a lot of tools to use when it comes to website management. It is obvious that some of these devices cost more than others. It is also true that some have more functions and it appears that quite a few are even more user friendly than other tools. Some require more time to use and other tools do not. It is evident that the tools that are more popular are the ones that are more effective for big businesses. It seems that just because one cost a whole lot of money does not mean that it is more operative.