One method of making your website more interactive is to create ways for your visitors to communicate with you and with other visitors. This allows visitors to provide you with feedback, suggestions, and ideas. It also encourages visitors to spend more time on your website, increasing the chances they’ll purchase your products and/or services.

This section reviews the various communication blocks available in HotDoodle and provides instructions and applications for each one.

Articles Block – An article is a specialized way to present content within HotDoodle. Articles are presented as a list including a title, the body text, and even a picture. The article block includes several options for customizing the formatting and behavior of articles. Articles can be used for a variety of purposes including whitepapers, news stories, and testimonials.

Bulletin Board Block – A bulletin board is essentially an online discussion group. Members of the bulletin board can “post” messages or comments on existing messages. These messages and related comments develop into “threads” that represent asynchronous discussions between two or more people on a particular topic. Discussions are usually grouped into categories. Members of a bulletin board can “subscribe” to receive notification of new posts on all or specific topics. Boards are a good way to convert passive viewers into active participants of your website. A Bulletin Board in HotDoodle is also a means to format and send newsletters to members on your site.

Form Block – A form is a web page that allows a user to input information and submit it to the website owner via email. A form may include text areas, radio buttons, drop down boxes and/or buttons. Forms allow visitors to provide contact information, make comments about your website, or ask a question. The information entered into the form can be emailed directly to you or saved in a database within HotDoodle, allowing you to access, analyze, and utilize the information for a variety of purposes.

Blog Block – A blog or “web blog” is a series of usually brief comments, stories, or articles presented in reverse cronological order, where newer posts to the blog appear at the top of the page and proceed to older posts as the page continues. Blogs are usually updated weekly or even daily and are a way to get visitors to return to your website on a regular basis. They are a quick way to continually add new content to your website. HotDoodle blogs can include formatting such as fonts, images, links and even other blocks such as calendars.