What type of Website your company needs? Although everyone needs a website and an online presence, the type of site you will require differs largely based on the type of business or person you may be. Your target audience also determines what website you will need along with what features you should have.

Freelancer

If you're a freelancer or a solo act, your budget is probably not on the high end. It would be best to stick with portfolio websites, or CV/Resume sites. For added functionality consider including a blog as well, as that would help greatly when it comes to search engine optimization.

Development platforms best suited for these types of websites are drag and drop cloud-based web development companies. This includes but is not limited to Wix, Squarespace, and if you're ready for a challenge, WordPress.

When choosing a website, you can either build it yourself if you feel confident in your skill, or you can have someone build it for you. Then you can manage it yourself as these systems have very user-friendly back-ends.

Sole Proprietor

If you’re running a business whether it be a physical establishment offering a service or product, or an online-only business. It would benefit your business greatly if you had an online presence. Consider a corporate website. It might have some background about you and a blog to update clients with the latest news from your company. If you like you may even add e-commerce functionality as well.

Content management systems would be the way to go, as they have user-friendly back-ends that allow you to modify content and add functionality with plug-ins. Some of the most popular content management systems are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, although there are many more. In 2020, over 455 million websites globally use WordPress, an increase of 4% since the previous year.

If you plan to go down the content management systems route, I would highly suggest you have a professional design for you. Then you can learn to manage the back-end and how to update content along the way to save you some cost in the long run. Of course, if you would like to add more features using plug-ins there is no harm in contacting your favorite web developer.

SME (Small to Medium Enterprise)

Now that we are entering slightly bigger fields it would be best to start looking at more modular and custom-built options. While you may not have the need currently for a website with tons of functionality, it is best to plan for the future. Your business is important and it is growing, you want a website that can be scaled as your business expands. At this stage e-Commerce is a must, a blog is a necessity. You may even want to start to have more complex front-ends for your clients. A portal for them to log into and manage their relationship with your company.

The type of website this company will need is highly subjective. Custom websites built using python and JavaScript frameworks are not uncommon on this side of the web design spectrum. Back-end frameworks like Django and Node.js are what you will hear your web developer throwing around. For your front-end, I would recommend a framework like React, Bootstrap, Vue.js, and jQuery.

These frameworks make your website highly versatile and customizable, not just in the short-run but also in the long-run. You can add any type of features, as your web developer will be coding and programming them from scratch. Your website can expand will your business needs as you head for glory. You will also need a web developer to stay on to manage and service the website over time.

Large Corporation

Stability is very important for large corporations, downtime is catastrophic, things must simply work. Your website must be highly customized and optimized. It should also be spread out with multiple servers and load balancers. Across the world to accommodate surges in traffic that you will experience. Remember downtime costs money and loss of income, which makes shareholders very upset.

Apart from custom websites built using custom frameworks, both on the back-end and front-end, you will require a dedicated team. They will monitor and service the many different components that make your website a smooth and user-friendly experience. Using load balancers that redirect traffic from your domain to different nodes. You can ensure that you have redundancy and reduce any possible downtime to a minimum.

The feature set that we are looking at here is unlimited. Whatever you want you will get, you even get features you didn't even know you needed. Such as custom user tracking, analytics, and anything specific to your niche. Naturally, all that functionality comes at a premium, but it also ensures your business stays competitive and on the ball.

So what type of website does my company need?

What type of website your company needs depends on what direction you hope to move in and the confidence you have in your company. As well as the long term sustainability of what you hope to accomplish in the future. You will have to decide what website best suits your current needs. As well as any likely needs you may have in the future. Keep in mind you do not want to spend a lot of money today, only to realize you need to spend much more a few years down the road when you have to rebuild your website.

Planning ahead can save you a large headache later down the road, and it is best to understand your options and be briefed with what is possible by an expert in the industry. For more information do contact me and I will be happy to give you a no strings attached consultation. From there you may decide which direction you would like to pursue.