Website: Meaning, Types And Its Advantages For A Business
Definition
A website is a collection of all the web pages present in a single domain and published on one of the web servers from across the world. A website is accessible by anyone from anywhere globally only if they know the domain address of the website. In the 21st century, owning a website has become easier now. Anyone from anywhere can start building a website using the limited free features offered by website builder tools such as WordPress or Wix. Well, the list goes on. But, you will need to seek help from a professional web design company in Bangalore or anywhere else, if you want to build a website according to the latest trends in the web design industry.
One might wonder, after investing money on building a website, how does it help the person who owns it. A website has helped many people from across the globe to achieve their goals. Be it an individual, an organization, a supermarket, a hospital or even a university – everyone should have a website if they want to engage with the daily increasing internet users whether to make profits or just share information with a wide range of audience. A website has helped an individual to share information as blogs. Many students consume more information from these blogs included in a website than refer to the books available in the library of their respective university. Also, many universities have been able to attract students by the use of websites because a website gives all the information required for the student before they can continue with the admission process.
Let us cite an example using Amazon.com – an e-commerce company in the US which serves worldwide. Amazon.com started as a book-selling website, after which they diversified the things that they sold. This led to the company becoming one of the highest fortunes generating companies and made its founder a multi-digit billionaire. So, the reason that Amazon.com – an e-commerce company made it that far was because of its well-maintained website. Yes, you read it right! The basic foundation behind the success was its website. Of course their business model helped them majorly, but the website was their only source to engage with their customers. They provided the products online and had a payment gateway that was secured, and this made people trust them. Soon, Amazon.com became a household name for everything, little or big thing that a consumer wanted.
With this example, understand that a website can help your business to engage more with the internet users and later convert these users into your customers.
Types of Websites and Its Advantages
There are many types of websites to choose from. But, for a business setting, only a few would suit well. When discussing the website, the first thing to understand is what type of website really suits your business. But, trying to make your website to include many types would confuse your customers. The best website design would be to include one of the following types:
Informational Websites:
An Informational website is a type of website that merely focuses on providing information, as its name says. The visitors or investors consume the information. This type of website plays an important role in informing customers and investors about the business and acts as the communicator between you and them.
The information is not the only thing that attracts visitors to these websites. It’s the information along with the design. A good design helps attract more visitors to your website, whether to inspire them or to make them familiar with your business.
Advantages of an Informational Website:
- There is no need to secure the website to a high extent. Just a simple encrypted connection can protect the website from dangerous threats.
- The design and information attracts many visitors to your website which can increase ad revenue for you.
- Compared to other types of websites, these websites are cost effective and need less maintenance as well.
- Just a simple knowledge about website building can help you run the website by yourself.
E-Commerce Website:
An E-Commerce website is a type of website that helps a business to sell a variety of products or services or just stick to one. These websites aim to ensure a visitor becomes your customer by purchasing from your website. The website is secure and requires a working payment gateway to ensure security of the customer’s payment completion and storing their credentials. Unlike an informational website, it integrated this type of website to not just an analytical tool, but also to too many other tools such as inventory softwares and other softwares to enable a smooth flow of functionality.
Advantages of an E-Commerce Website:
- These websites help to drive more traffic to your website and to convert many visitors into your customer.
- These websites are secured with top end encryption that helps visitors browse through your website with ease.
- Better engagement is assured on these websites as many people search for products and services throughout the world.
- Higher chances to shift your business to a global market.
- Less Time Intensive as once its setup, customers are ordering the products through the online system.
- Lower running costs compared to the offline store
Lead Generation Websites:
A Lead Generation Website is aimed towards, as the name says – to generate leads for the business. This type of website helps the sales funnel for various B2B companies. Since many visitors would not buy products or services which cost a lot, collecting new leads helps to create awareness and nurture the visitor and then convert them into your customer.
In many websites, once the visitor reaches the website, the next step would be to convert them into leads by making them fill an online form. So getting these visitors to convert as soon as possible without the need to wait and inform the visitor about the product, there are few strategies to be followed. The strategies which would help convert instantly are – good content about the product or service, webinars which give details about the product or service and a landing page which is well designed and has the content just related to your product or service.
Advantages of Lead Generating Websites:
- Creates awareness about your business to the visitor.
- Improve your sales and profit ratio with every conversion.
- Minimize Advertising costs as you needn’t have to target many people to generate leads. It’s more like target what you have.
Conclusion
Having a website might seem like increasing your monthly expenses, but the returns from it is exponentially higher than what you invested. And that too, only if you did things the right way. A website can help your business rise to higher levels, but only if you choose the right type of a website you want. A right type of a website can make it easier for your business to attract and engage with your visitors and then convert them into your customer. So think wisely before you choose your type of your website. A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an Online Marketplace like eBay