Types of Websites and their Uses

Published on the 27-Aug-2007

Below I will go through the different types of websites and you can decide for yourself which website is right for you or your company.

1. Company Brochure Website
   This is your ‘basic website’ and consists of pages such: about us, contact, a list of products and services and general information. Keep it simple and don’t expect people to come to your site more than once. Traffic will be mainly generated from your offline advertising.
   
2. Online Marketing Website
   This website type is an integral part or rather an extension of your offline or traditional marketing campaign. Use search engine optimisation (SEO) and analyse your traffic over time. Special Offers, e-Books and useful tools can bring people back. A newsletter will also dramatically increase traffic. Make sure your information is interesting and kept up-to-date at all times. As your content needs to be up-to-date make sure you can either update the pages yourself or negotiate a maintenance contract with your web design company.
   
3. Lead Generation Website
   This aim for this type of website is, yep you guessed it, to increase your leads. Focus on the message, benefits and applications or your products or service and then use the layout of your website to enhance your image. You must give them a compelling reason to enquire. Offer them multiple response methods to make it easier for them to contact you.
   
4. Customer Service Website
   You may get more benefit from providing useful information to existing clients such as downloadable files and forms, private client pages, etc. Certain businesses can save a great deal of time and money by publishing information on their website rather than taking phone calls or emails.
   
5. Listing Site
   This type of site provides your clients the ability to browse through a complete listing of your products and services then either contact you online or phone you for more information. This type of website provides you with the next step up from a ‘Lead Generation Website’ as it gives the client a lot more information.
   
6. Simple eCommerce Website
   This is similar to an ‘Online Marketing Website’. You will need to bring in visitors but here the goal is to make a sale. Provide the client with as much information about the product or service that is necessary to make the sale but make it easy to read and not too long. Start by handling payments and inventory offline and then when you get really busy upgrade to an ‘Online Catalogue Website’.
   
7. Online Catalogue Website
   Once you have outgrown your ‘Simple eCommerce Website’ you will need features such as automatic inventory, complex order fulfilment and tracking and online payment processing.

   
   Well that is all the different types of website and their particular uses and scopes. We hope that helped you in deciding what kind of website will be most suitable for your requirements.

   If you would like any help or are unsure of which website type you need, we offer a FREE consultation in which we can discuss your requirements. Visit our contact page to set up a consultation.