Ok, so we have a homepage and it got built somehow.
I know we're skipping over a lot. But this is a lot to go over and there's tons of information out there. You could spend hours reading up on all these concepts, so if that's what you need, go for it.
Let's keep moving.
The Building Blocks (Quick Recap)
We have webpages. They're built with:
- HTML — what's there
- CSS — how it looks
- JS — how it acts
Obviously, the internet being the internet, webpages can talk to the servers and services they need to be useful.
API Calls
Usually, online, these communications look like "API calls."
API stands for "Application Program Interface." Super-technically speaking, pretty much any program on any machine has its own API. But the way we usually mean it, API refers to a webpage or machine calling another machine on the internet.
Your site asks for something. Another server responds. That's an API call.
Why This Matters for Your Business
EVERYTHING.
If you want your website to be useful for your business, it has to talk to other systems. A static page that just sits there telling the world about you? That's a brochure. A site that captures data, responds to users, and connects to your tools? That's a business system.
The Tools (If You Don't Code)
The building blocks for these integrations are kind of like the building blocks of the internet itself: to fully leverage them, you need to understand code.
But if you don't, there are plenty of services out there that will take your money and give you data-to-data functionality.
Airtable — for saving data in spreadsheet-like accessible tables
Zapier — for connecting different tools together without much code
We don't use these for our operations at uplevers.com, but if you want your site to connect to these tools, we can do that.
The point is that these tools enable your site to be more than a page that tells the world about your business. They give you the ability to interact with data and customers — to give them information and stuff that's actually useful to them.
Pre-Built Tools for Interactivity
Once you can integrate between sites, you can also send your users to different sites to get specific information.
For example, Typeform.com enables you to write surveys and workflows that query your customers about specific needs. (We do this too, with less effort on your part.)
So, using tools like Wix, Typeform, Zapier, and Airtable, you can add interactivity to your business experience and ask customers to give you information.
Clicking here is more fun than reading.
The Catch
These tools often look hand-stitched together.
Your user will see the domain change from "yourbusiness.com" to "some Typeform URL." Then they might get emails from more than one system or integration. The experience feels fragmented.
Emails. That's a whole other thing. We'll put a pin in that for now.
How uplevers.com Does It
We already built these systems. So we just make a new version customized to your business's needs.
This means we keep all the data in systems dedicated to your business, and your customers ALWAYS see your business domain. In our opinion, this is awesome because it builds trust.
When someone fills out a form on your site, they stay on your site. When they get an email, it comes from you. No weird third-party URLs. No fragmented experience.
The Disconnect
When asking independent contractors or teams across timezones to implement these features, there's often a lack of holistic perspective.
The alignment between "marketing conversions" and "building a website" can be a little... imprecise. The developer builds what you asked for. But did you ask for the right thing? Did they understand why you needed it?
We address this by creating sites and marketing copy together, with expert perspectives on both. We use AI to capture how we build these sites, so we can build faster and get progressively better results.
I got excited about how great we are again. This is not an ad — this is to help you build business systems.
What Good Business Systems Actually Do
Good business systems do more than "send an email" when a user submits a form or assessment.
They collect the relevant data about the user. And they get the user to think about the VALUE your business has to offer.
That's the difference between a website and a business system.
What's Coming
We've covered the tech side — how pages talk to servers, how tools connect, and why it matters. Next, we're going back to the business side: how all of this actually works together for you.
Recap
- Webpages talk to other systems — that's what makes them useful for business
- API calls — how your site gets and sends data across the internet
- Tools like Airtable, Zapier, Typeform — let you add interactivity without code
- The catch — stitched-together tools look stitched-together; domains change, emails come from multiple places
- uplevers.com approach — pre-built systems customized to you, your domain, your data, builds trust
- Good business systems — do more than send an email; they collect data and get users thinking about your value
