Online Data Entry

What is online data entry? Let’s see why it is important to you!

Introduction

You may have heard that the World Wide Web (WOW) is the fastest growing and most popular digital medium, but how many of us know who creates our content online? Most often, your favourite web page isn’t something else but a piece of data – such as the person who created your address on Google Maps. For example, in case you go to www.golftop, you may find out that the website was designed by an engineer at Google. Or if you search for “What do people say when they are nervous?” on Quora, you’ll most likely come across the description “They said they were nervous – sometimes just very nervous”. Now imagine how often we interact with websites or information sources other than those owned and operated by the company making them. Because of this widespread presence, and the huge amount of data available online, there has never been a more urgent need to understand what data is available, whether in the form or format to be used or how to access and make sense of their rich information. In some cases, these insights are just waiting to be collected, stored or accessed (with many free services readily available). The purpose of this article is to help you learn about all the different ways you can get started in understanding your own data.

The Basics

Understanding how data is used is not new, we still use many forms of web analytics, social media monitoring, e-commerce monitoring and many others. But let’s start first with a simple introduction to common ways to create data, where each one of these processes comes with specific limitations. These include:

Online shopping carts

In order to place an order from where you live, shop at Amazon or elsewhere on the internet, enter your details into a cart. Make sure you can easily identify yourself with your name, address and birthdate. You don’t need anything too special: you just need a credit card number. All you actually need is the unique ID on your bank account. If you click away, you have been charged for your time and money. This process can take up a few minutes and requires no personal contact with anyone else. No one takes any money from you. Also read terms and conditions here. A business model to sell your products online is called an online store.

Informational advertising

With so much online advertisement, where is the adverts? When you visit a local newsagent that sells local news, the headlines will match exactly what is displayed on your mobile phone/computer. However, because they provide a completely different experience, they are also at a disadvantage compared to traditional advertising. They’re limited in what they can display because they have lower quality control than the commercial side (or they also charge more). Advertising is paid more but the quality of the product is slightly higher (depending on which one is buying the product) and the cost of producing a brand new video/image is also high (because these videos are expensive). Even though television has always been the default choice, with the rise in online video the only way that shows are viewed by everyone is through a screen.

Cleaning your data

Your data is always changing. Your customers are always searching for you and providing feedback, opinions and reviews. As such, it is crucial to clean your data properly by keeping track of who is looking at the data and seeing all the information. There are lots of types of cleaning, depending on your type of industry. Here are some common methods used:

Informal cleansing

If you have a lot of unauthorised users and information, you should consider using a site like Glassdoor or Indeed to remove all those entries from your database. It’s great you’re doing this, since then you won’t be stuck with thousands of irrelevant pages on your site. This method is only really useful if you want to keep the vast majority of your site up-to-date, and even if it’s simply removing the unnecessary entries.

Informal cleaning

When you encounter data errors, manually take note of them. If you want to remove entries for every user on your site, write down each user name on a post-it, put them in a box in the bottom of the page and leave them there for 24 hours. Once 24 hours have passed, you should delete the posts with the names. Informing someone that a job they are doing might involve entering incorrect info could create confusion. If this happens, ask a colleague to correct the entry for you. On top of deleting this whole section, try not to overpopulate your space unnecessarily. By doing this, they will feel less guilty when they realise you need to change the size of the spaces for your employees. To avoid having multiple people in the same space, you can either have separate sections for individual jobs at different places or have a dedicated tab in the middle of the page, thus giving greater control to each employee.

Informal cleaning

If you do decide to make changes that include adding a button to take users to another page rather than yours, you can ask someone from within your team to assist in correcting this mistake. Be careful about accidentally typing your manager, colleague or boss’s name in the wrong part of the code so nobody knows what you do. Leave this part of the task to your employer. Not only does this give them confidence but it provides more authority to you to act quickly if needed. If you wish to delete all your customer details from your site. Then simply write them down on paper in whatever format you choose. Do remember that you cannot edit the data later on. That means if the data you create has not changed, you must delete the data from your system now. If you are creating a document, then make sure the data on the files on disk are intact. Once again, you cannot edit the data later on or change the data later on. You must save and restore everything before proceeding.

Informal cleaning

If you have a large amount of images, you can simply write them off on your computer and scan them as you scan them. Some software will automatically scan them for your pictures and then turn the photos into text based on the text that can be found on the image or on the original file (if you had purchased them separately). Then print the text and cut it up into different pieces and paste each piece into an application. Another thing to ensure is that there is enough room on your computer’s hard drive so that the text fits. You can change the output size as necessary.

Informal cleaning

If you have any entries that contain ‘you’ or ‘your’, then use a service like JustAnswer, Quora or Ask a Question’s Wizard to eliminate these entries. Alternatively, remove your information from your Facebook profile if it contains this information. Finally, if you want to remove the entire comment section from your website that contains hundreds of questions, then you can edit the option to edit them from the dropdown list that appears above the ‘Enter question. A short answer to the question. Simply make sure to use ‘a’ before selecting the question to reduce confusion.

Informal cleaning

If you are unsure of any spelling issues, then use a spell checker to check. Look for words like ‘your’ and ‘yourself’. Never use the word ‘yourself’ on your telephone as it might cause problems later down the line. Use a dictionary if you are unsure of the definition of a word.

Informal cleaning

If you are unsure of a term, you can use Wikipedia or a similar information source. Don’t forget, you could edit your own Wikipedia page, where you can edit a particular term. It is advisable to edit all your websites after receiving your qualifications to prevent accidental edits.

Informal cleaning

If your website is based around a pet, then you can edit the information provided to remove all reference to animals in your site or create one about dogs or cats if you want. Again, do edit all sites periodically. After you have completed editing all of your websites including your own, look for any possible differences between your website and a competitor's. Do try to get something similar to what competitors offer.

Online data entry

As mentioned previously, the basic data entry method is to enter information into a webpage with the goal of making sense of their content. The aim of the data entry process is to provide data that can be used to inform decision-making but only when considered appropriate. Since data entry involves making sense out of what is already on the web, the steps required for success are fairly straightforward (if you take them seriously). Although, as discussed above, the basic steps for getting started in internet data entry may prove difficult to follow. It may go without saying – it’s a long journey. Every site has its own quirks and there are many different reasons for mistakes, data entry errors or bad decisions – so you may find yourself asking, “is this really worth doing?” But once you do, it is well worth the time. Hopefully the tips above have helped you better understand when, why and how to start your online data entry journey. And if you would like advice on something else about online data entry, please talk to me instead of leaving a comment.