Your website is usually your company's first point of contact online.
Most times, visitors look up a company online before making a call or
a purchase, and their check-up often gives them an idea of the brand
itself. Sometimes, visitors land on a website and leave immediately
without taking any action. It may be because the website type does not
match the business or there is no cause for navigation at all.
To decide on a type of website for your business, first ask yourself -
what are the strongest points that will attract potential customers?
Is it our projects, the products or services, the team, etc? This is
usually a starting point to help you make the best choice out of the
following types of websites:
Parallax website
A parallax website is a one-page website that has a unique scrolling
effect which enables a visitor navigate to the top or the bottom of
the page and get all the information needed. It is usually broken down
into different sections to present information in different sections.
The most impressive feature of the parallax website is its illusion of
depth. It gives the impression that the web page has different layers.
Parallax websites are great for products or services that need a
powerful landing page to convert visitors to leads. In short, most
times, it doubles as a landing page to showcase a unique product or
service and incite the visitor to take an action.
This type of website works with minimal information,
straight-to-the-point benefits and captivating call-to-action buttons.
For example, a company selling a single product can decide to use this
website effectively to induce a free trial of their product.
Brochure/Resume
By far the most common type of website, the brochure or resume website
is as the name suggests. It showcases the products and services of a
business like a brochure or a resume; meaning it gives all the
information you need to know on all its pages. Boasting different
pages with different headers such as the Product, Services and About
Us pages, the brochure or resume website is great for SEO.
Most times, visitors do not spend time on a website. To encourage
that, some brochure websites feature sliders on the homepage to
showcase the strongest points of the business and incite the visitor
to visit particular pages where they can take an action e.g. book an
appointment. If not, brochure websites tend to be bulky and visitors
may just spend time on one or two pages and bail out without visiting
the most important pages.
This type of website works best for businesses with a lot of
information to showcase - such as multiple products and services, team
members, business summary and portfolio. Most companies use this type
of website as it provides enough space to showcase their strengths. Be
careful though. You don't want to pass too much information such that
the visitor loses curiosity to seek for more.
Content management website
A content management website enables updating of content regularly.
This type of website is perfect for companies with active blogs, news
websites, magazine-type websites and businesses with products that
need to be updated regularly.
To showcase new products or latest news, the home page can use a
layout to display information such that visitors get a summary of
upcoming events from the home page and click on links to view more.
Content management websites are great for SEO as the content is
updated without losing previous information.
Ecommerce website
A type of content management website, ecommerce websites are
predominantly for online shops. The homepage usually has a display of
products for sale.
The difference between the content management, brochure/resume and
ecommerce website is that the latter has some form of payment system
integrated into it to enable easy purchase. Also, ecommerce websites
are built to run round the clock, and need a lot of attention in terms
of updating inventory. Else, a visitor may purchase a product that is
out of stock and the website manager will have trouble cancelling an
order.
Combination
Some businesses may decide to combine two types of websites to
showcase their unique features. For example, a business may combine
both the brochure type website with that of the ecommerce.
Continue...
ReplyDeleteThough a single type website works better than combining both as the information presented on the home page or landing page are different for each type of website, some businesses have done so without encountering any drop in page views.
Of course, there are other types of websites to choose from, but these are the main categories your business website will most likely fall into.
Conclusion
Building a website for the sake of it does not quite work in this new age where competition is fierce online and offline. The most important tip is to decide what works best for your business and speak with your website developer on showcasing the unique strengths of your business.
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