(That will save you time AND money.)

By Monica Pitts

At MayeCreate, we love solving problems. One we solve frequently is making clients’ businesses run smoother by leveraging their website. So let’s get to problem-solving.

Integration 1. Employment Applications
Think about your HR process like a sales process.

You are prospecting for great employees, so make it easy for them to apply:
• Make applications mobile-friendly
• Remove required downloads
• Allow the application to be completed entirely online

It’s possible, people, it’s possible.

We build our websites on WordPress and use a plugin called Formidable to build the application. Then we use Form2PDF, which takes the stuff from the form and puts it into a PDF, formatted exactly how your HR wants it.

Integration 2. Appointment Scheduling
Allow people to make appointments on your website, and save yourself a lot of time.

Simple Free Option – Calendly
Calendly is a service to set up online appointments. You place a link on your site or in an email, and voila! People easily setting appointments.

Robust Paid Option – Simple Schedule
We most often use a paid version called Simply Schedule. It integrates with Formidable and our Google Calendar. Using these two plugins combined, you can specialize your appointment intake forms and send reminders to the people you’re meeting with based on the time of the appointment.
This method takes more time to set up but it’s worth the investment if you plan on doing something repeatedly or if you need customization.
But, if you need something simple, a free Calendly account will do you fine.

Integration 3. RSS Emails
Automate emails to send when you update your site.

What is RSS?
“A web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format.” Thank you, Wikipedia.
Any post-powered section of your site like your blog, job postings, or portfolio will have an RSS feed.

To set up RSS emails you’ll enter your website feed in an email marketing system like MailerLite or MailChimp. And when you info to your website, the email marketing software makes the email and sends it…like magic.

Integration 4. Third-Party Software
Integrate any software you use daily into your website.

The ease of integrating two systems entirely depends on what software you use and what type of website you have.

Here’s how we use this integration in our business. Our ongoing marketing clients fill out a form on their website to request work from MayeCreate, and the form puts the information into a spreadsheet and also in our project management software which makes it easy to manage and removes all the time consuming copying, pasting and button clicking!

How can you apply this in your business or organization?
The types of integrations we handle most often are:
1. Integrating a CRM to intake information from your website for user profiles.
2. Integrating HR software with websites.
3. Integrating website donation forms with donor management software.

Integration 5. Record Management
Do you have any of these?
• Employee certification records to keep updated
• Employees re-signing paperwork annually
• Clients signing paperwork all the time
• Members paying annual dues

If yes, you might need something on your website that can manage and automate this for you.

It doesn’t always have to be fancy.

We created a record-keeping system for our local Fire District with Formidable, Google Drive and Zapier.
Each year their volunteers go to the website, submit their certifications and sign off on their continuing education. The information is saved in Google Drive, and the client uses a dashboard built using Google Sheets to see if everything is taken care of.

Sometimes fancy is the best route.

If you need a more robust system to automate record-keeping and simplify the spreadsheet maze you’re using, there’s probably a ready-built software out there that can simplify your life and most of them have online portals.

Integration 6. Online Payment Collection
One of the most requested things we do is help businesses and organizations collect online payments and donations.

Skip the check entry.

Have people pay online. Then it can be deposited directly into your bank account securely. You will pay a processing fee, but you are also likely paying someone to make deposits and stalk people to make payments – so it could be an even trade.

Often we do this with Stripe, a payment system that integrates right into your website.

Website integrations can make your life and your client’s lives easier.

There are only 1 million other ways on top of these to save time and money.
The thing I want you to do every single day is ask yourself,

“Am I doing something repetitive? Is this demotivating?” If it is, then it can probably be solved through some type of technology.

I’m not saying there’s no setup. I’m not saying you’re not going to have to learn how to do it. But I am saying you don’t have to feel that way anymore. There’s a better way.

Monica Pitts is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of MayeCreate Design. She spends her days constructing a marriage of form and function; creating art with her design team to grow businesses through websites and online marketing. Monica considers herself an artist, marketer and web dork with the ability to speak geek and English.