Types of Websites
Websites comes in many different forms, shapes and sizes. However they fall into five main categories:
- Brochure websites
- Microsites
- Ecommerce website
- Forums and bulleting boards
- Search engines and web directories
Some websites may have a combination of features from other categories.
Brochure Websites
Brochure websites are usually used to promote companies on the Internet. It is the web equivalent of print brochure. The website will normally contain the following web pages:
- About us
- Our products / service
- Who we are
- Contact us
- Our clients / portfolio
- And sometimes, latest news or newsletter page
Each of these web pages may be sub divided and linked to more detailed pages from the main pages.
This type of site is an excellent way to promote your company and to extend its reach into different regions.
Microsites
Microsite websites are generally used to promote specific service or product, and tend to contain about five web pages. The idea behind a microsite is to concentrate on a specific offering of your company and to make it easier for clients and customers to focus on your service or product.
It also makes it easier for customers to find your offering using search engines. Microsite tend to be optimised for search engine and are keyword rich.
Microsite are also used to support marketing campaigns and to aid brand awareness of new products or services.
Ecommerce Websites
Ecommerce websites, sometimes referred to as shopping website are quite simply websites that enable you to buy products or services directly from the site. The site would normally have five distinctive pages:
- Home page with product categories and subcategories.
- Product list pages – this page contains products in a list form with a headline description and perhaps a thumbnail image of the products. Sometimes it will have an add to basket button and a product comparison button.
- Product detail pages – containing detailed description of products, including quantity, colour variation, size and stock information options. Product detail page of the ecommerce site also has an add to basket button
- Basket page – shows a list of products purchased, quantity, cost and total cost of products purchased
- And checkout pages. The checkout pages have three sections: Customer address, delivery address and payment details. The payment page is hosted on secure server.
Forum Websites and Bulletin Boards
Forums are sometimes referred to as bulletin boards, and are websites that allows users to post and read messages, and share ideas.
Users of the bulletin board post topics for discussion or asked questions about issues. The resulting reply is called a thread. As more users reply to original post topic, the thread grows and is displayed in a list form.
Forums have moderators to ensure that rule and regulations of the forum are adhered.