Your business website is an online marketing tool. Today 98% of consumers are searching online for local businesses. This make having a website an essential part of marketing effort for any business. But many companies struggle with finding the right website style among different business website types available. What features your website need to effectively engage your customers? Do you need to have an E-commerce store to sell your product online? Do you need to incorporate social networking?
When websites are planned, designed and marketed in a correct way; they act as your ambassador, attract more customers and help you make money.
There are three types of business websites. Which type do you need?
A business website isn’t just a set of pages with attractive graphics and text put on the Internet. Every business website has some goals such as encourage prospects to engage, improve customer service/brand or to sell something. A website can have many functions and features, but which ones are good for you? Choosing the right kind of business website is one of the key factor for online success. I highly recommend the functional websites.
Business Website Type #1 – Placeholder Website
Placeholder websites are common and are easily recognizable by their limited visual appeal, limited size and limited function. These websites are static, have small and limited images, and contain less information about the business. Placeholder websites surely do not have enough information to help complete sales. They only help to ascertain that business exists and how to get in touch with them. These websites generally rank poor on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. I do not recommend placeholder website for business.
Business Website Type #2 – Brochureware Website
Brochureware websites look much more like beautiful printed brochure, with some motion or animated graphics adding value to it. These websites are generally basic and informational in nature. Their purpose is to communicate simple information about a businesses products or services. Most often these websites have 1-5 pages and their cost range from $200 to $600.
A brochure website is good choice for local service companies or brick and mortar businesses wishing to advertise their products or services online. Examples of businesses suited to brochure website are home maintenance, catering, restaurants and auto repair services. Small businesses and individuals that offer workshops find brochure website a great way to promote their classes or services.
These websites are usually developed using static .html pages with some javascripts or Flash etc. and requires knowledgeable web developers to update or edit them.
Other downside of brochure websites is that search engines can’t “read” them properly. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo etc. looks at the text and links on websites in addition to technical elements like meta-tags, page titles all of which is significantly more difficult/impossible for search engines to read on a Flash website.
Business Website Type #3 – Functional Website
The most recommended website today are categorized as the functional website. Functional websites can vary significantly in functionality they offer, but they all enable some type of function to occur beyond just good looks and feel. Three main functions these websites offer are (generally functional websites perform more than one of these functions):
Content management
Content management – allow people who are not web designers the ability to change or manage a website content easily. At WeCT, our preferred CMS (Content Management System) is Umbraco and WordPress. We suggest Custom Designed Website with CMS, which are designed with specific needs in mind.
Custom website with CMS are for businesses that have a certain unique set of needs or requirements for their website and are usually heavy on content. These websites include custom configurations to display media like Audio, Video, Graphics etc. and text content (Articles, Blogs, Tutorials, etc).
These websites can range anywhere from US$1000 to US$10,000 or more. This is because of a simple reason that today there are too many possibilities with web design and development for this type of website. The best way to figure out a price for a custom site is to request a quote.
E-commerce
E-commerce – these websites are the best fit for businesses that want to sell their products or services online. E-commerce websites are electronically organized similarly as retail stores with departments or categories providing easy navigation to end-user and help finding a specific product user is looking to purchase or lets them easily browse through the online store’s inventory.
The e-commerce website utilizes a shopping cart feature. It collect all the items a customer selects and has a final checkout process. An e-commerce website expose products/services you sell to global market and make them available worldwide.
A well-built e-commerce store not only allows you to sell your products and services to generate revenue online, they can also aid in procedural efficiency as well like inventory management, shipping calculation, tax calculation and gather important information about your customers which help you design your marketing strategy effectively.
Since e-commerce websites have pretty robust system, they usually require training to learn how to properly manage the store. Sometimes learning curve may be steep but is not a big obstacle for a business that is serious about growing online.
These website typically costs from $2500 and go upto $15,000 or more depending on the scope of the project. While the costs of an e-commerce store is considerably high, it is a decision that needs to be evaluated with future expansion goals and viability of the business.
Lead generation
Lead generation – A lead-generating website designed to attract qualified sales prospects 24/7 to your “door”. These website use web forms, offers and tracked phone lines to generate business leads.
Functional websites contributes to the bottom line of the business and ensures that you get the maximum benefits from your online presence. These websites adapt and change over time and ensure that you maximize the chances of completing a transaction with your website visitors.
A great website is critical to almost any business – big or small. Your website is a pass into your business; make sure that it leaves a wonderful first impression. The best way to find out what website is right for your business is to sit down and define your business goals. Once you have set your goals talk to us to get the right style and create an effective online presence. Our web designers and developers have the expertise and skills to help you in making the right decision in choosing a web design that will highlight and underline your business, brand and products or services effectively ensuring higher ROI.
Contact web designers at WeCT who can help you better understand the options and the pros and cons of each approach.
About the Author: Bhasker Thapan
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