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It is common for people to confuse websites and web portals since both are fantastic platforms. Still, they are used for entirely different reasons. They are two completely distinct terms, but they are interconnected in that both websites and web portals are web-based. When we speak of websites, they're the web pages collected, while portals on the web are gateways for access to the World Wide Web and offer many services.
Web sites are used to reach a wide range of people. On the other hand, portals restrict how many users they can reach and limit them to a particular segment of users. In this blog, we will look at the web portals and websites and how they differ from each other.
What is a Website?
The term "website" refers to a group of multiple web pages that reside on the internet. Any person can gain access to the website using an address on the internet. The information on a website can be seen globally and accessible by all. The content will always remain identical for those who visit it. One does not necessarily have to sign in to the site to access it. Visitors to the website can perform actions like clicking an image or entering their email addresses or other information, and so on.
The websites could be focused on particular industries, products, services, or anything else. They are meant to educate and inform viewers and readers about their offerings, industries, or products. They do not require a personalized database. So, the site does not even mention it.
Types of Websites
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Static Website
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Dynamic Website
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Interactive Website
Static Websites
Static websites are those which have websites with fixed content. The content stays the same until modifications are made. The websites are simple with plain text, and some may also contain multimedia content. When a person visits a static website, the exact content will be displayed regardless of the visit date.
Dynamic Websites
A dynamic website provides an array of information every time a visitor is on the website. They are constantly updated according to the parameters of templates and scripts, content, etc. Therefore, when a person visits an online site, the content is updated. The websites are designed using various software and languages such as PHP, Python, JSP, etc.
Interactive Websites
Websites that can communicate and interact with users are called interactive websites. These websites are full of attractive images and engaging content that helps keep users' attention. Users can leave their comments or provide feedback on these sites. Interactive websites are an excellent way to interact with your customers, and most businesses use these kinds of websites. They can help you determine your customers' attention but also help in increasing sales. The cost for developing websites is different from that of static and dynamic websites.
Functions of Websites:
Tell Your Story: A website allows you to tell your customers about your products and services and assist you in engaging them over a long time to convince them to select your business.
Answer FAQ's: Sites can help answer questions or confusion by new customers. They can become your most potent client base. Therefore, including these types of questions on your website will help you gain more clients and reduce the time of your clients.
Provide Clear Contact Details: The contact us page on your site is an entry point for a better customer force. It allows your customers to look up information regarding different ways to reach you, such as the email you use, office address, telephone number, etc. Get rid of traditional methods today to allow your company to reach out to clients through a highly regarded platform by all.
Build Credibility: Create a website that has lots of professional edges. Choose themes, functions, and themes and let your website be transparent about your services, products, policies, affiliation, and partnership. In reality, you could also add a portfolio on your site that will make your customers feel more confident about you.
Expand Your Client Base: With website and SEO actions, you can enhance the visibility of your business and generate lots of client awareness throughout the world.
Process of website Development: The correct method to build websites or using the approach of a web development company offers a great deal of detail to your website's development. The correct way to construct an effective website is to follow the following steps:
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Gathering information
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Planning
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Brainstorming
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Content Writing
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Coding
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Testing, Review, and Launch.
Languages and Frameworks prominently used in developing websites: Our technology and web development since the beginning has witnessed the rise and demise of numerous web development frameworks and languages that, despite their limitations, continue to dominate and rule, while others have been a part of history. The most widely used old, modern frameworks and languages include Java, Ruby, Python, PHP, CSS etc.
These are the most used languages; however, that's not all. They also come with different frameworks that make the creation of various kinds of websites simple. A few of them are Django, Ruby on Rails. Symfony, Laravel, Bootstrap, CakePHP, Zend, CodeIgniter, etc. The most used and reliable language is PHP, recommended by numerous development firms and developers.
What is a Web Portal?
As discussed previously, Web portals are an access point into the World Wide Web that offers various services. In simpler terms, it's an administrative system through which organizations or companies can set up or share information, exchange information, or even data that can be reused in the future. Web portals, unlike websites, are private websites online that are only accessible via their URLs. Users are required to input their login identification and password.
Web portals are user-centric, and every user is assigned a password that can be used to log in to the portals. They are dynamic in their information, i.e., the content is updated each when a user is on these websites. There are a variety of web development firms that design and build websites based on your needs.
Types of Web Portals
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B2C Portal
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B2B Portal
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Partner Portal
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Community Portal
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Learning Portal
B2C Portal
The B2C portal development is a standard web-based store that aims to create the best shopping experience. It allows a shopping experience to be created from generating customers' interest in the product or service until the final transaction.
B2B Portal
Most of the time, B2B portals has to deal with more complicated and challenging products or services than a B2C portal. There is no space for impulse purchases on B2B portal development, and the buying process gets more sluggish and requires more staff.
Partner Portal
Partner portals are made to help companies sell products or services through indirect sales channels. A portal for partners is an instrument for managing your relationship with your partners and convincing them to promote your services or products.
Community Portal
A great way to promote your brand and increase its visibility is to use the platform for the community. It also provides a method to find out what the user thinks about your products or services and gather objective information to enhance the quality of your products or services.
Learning Portal
As individuals begin to change their learning practices to online platforms, the requirement for learning portals becomes extremely important. In the marketplace, they can be used by companies who wish to cut down on the cost and time spent training new or existing employees in the individual.
Functions of Web Portal
Upgrading your Website: Web Portal development helps in improving the performance of web pages to help you give high-quality information. A web portal is the latest toolset globally that allows for the implementation of information more efficiently and functions in a different way of communicating.
Improves Relations Immensely: It helps in improved customer-company relationships by enhancing the customer relationship by offering the most sophisticated and accurate information available through a user-friendly, comprehensive platform.
Domain Specific: The development of domain-specific websites helps attract users looking for information and services in a particular domain. Therefore, it helps you draw attention to a specific domain.
Interaction: When completed efficiently; web portal design can assist you to interact better with your clients and customers. They can help you make your websites more interactive and better target your customers.
Method for Web Portal Designing Services: Web portal design and development is a complicated art since the functions are incredibly complicated to render. The complicated procedure of developing a web portal involves the exact steps like website development. The difference lies in the features, functionality programming, testing, and integration. As we've covered functions and features, let's begin with the frameworks and languages that are used extensively for web-based portal design by leading web portal app development firms and web portal designers.
Languages and Frameworks prominently used in developing web portals: Web portals have different designs. They use the same languages like the ones we employ in developing and web design services for a website's development. Therefore, some of the most popular frameworks are used to create web portals are:
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AngularJS
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Laravel
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React.JS
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NodeJS
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Ruby on Rails
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Symfony
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Asp.Net
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Yii
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Metor.JS
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CakePHP.
Key Differences Between Website and Web Portal
Now, let's examine the significant distinctions between websites and portals to explain their differences.
Complexity
Although sites (business cards, blog, or landing pages) offer information about specific themes, portals on the web are multi-layered and more complicated, providing a wider variety of content for different kinds of users. Web portals typically include various interactive features that make users into active users. These may include full-screen video and drag and drop components such as calculators, maps, etc. These components require a modular framework of solutions, which means that portal pages contain a variety of tools that are not visible to the user.
Functionality
Functionality is heavily dependent on the intent and type that the platform. As previously mentioned, the functions of websites and web portals can overlap, mainly serving the same group of users (e.g., clients who shop online).
But, they generally provide users with an array of capabilities and interactivity tools, which may be different based on the user's role and the type of user. Some of the most sought-after features offered by a portal are login for users' accounts, dashboards for analytics and navigation, as well as custom feeds and chat history, content, as well as features specific to the industry (e.g., ordering control for portals that sell eCommerce online application forms for portals for students).
On the other hand, websites are focused on offering the same experience for everyone and offer a small number of interactivity features (content filters and contact forms, live chat). This is a significant distinction between a portal and a website that allows you to distinguish them.
User Experience (UX)
The making of websites is pretty simple and typically doesn't require any time. The content on a site is distributed over a simple structure.
However, UX designs of portals require more intricate approaches and tend to take longer. It is a fact that the creation of UX for a website involves research that allows consideration of the needs of different groups of users and also needs approval from various stakeholders. In addition, before being presented to the users, UX models of complicated portals typically go through various tests of utility that assess whether the solution will let a user achieve the desired goal in a simple, practical, easy, and effective method.
Legal Regulations and Security
Due to their simplicity and primary informational function, websites aren't regulated by lawful lays. However, websites that are generally a part of large corporations with numerous informational responsibilities, such as compliance with regulations, security of personal data, and other data protection issues. They require developers to create solutions that are in a position to tackle these challenges. When it comes to the development of products, this might be a multilayer access policy or an assessment of the audit paths, and so on.
Website vs Web Portal: What Works Best for You
A website and web portals allow you to connect with your target audience (customers or clients, partners, and employees) and provide content, and offer services and products on the internet. The choice between a web portal and a web portal is based on your goals, the technological infrastructure in place, and the resources you have available for the development of a web-based application.
Consider Web Portal Development If:
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It is necessary to gather disparate experiences, applications for business and services together and create a workflow that can be controlled online.
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There are many data sources, and you need to build a unified web interface that allows users to easily pull data and access it from these sources based upon the permissions and roles of users;
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You need to provide a specific audience or audiences with personalized content/services/products/tools;
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Your goal is to improve customer/client/employee experience and develop continuous relationships with your audience;
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It is essential to have a place to collaborate and communicate with your audience.
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Your website system must be seamlessly integrated into your operation and technical infrastructure.
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You're focused on the automation of business processes.
Consider Website Development If:
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It is enough to present information or content to a large audience, display your service or product or explain your purpose (business card or blog, corporate site);
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You aim to get new customers/audiences, increase traffic, and build the brand's reputation;
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You require a web-based system that operates independently from your business processes and will not integrate with your business or the digital technology (e.g., ERP CRM, HR, ERP, people management systems, and asset managing system);
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Your business is conducted offline and cannot be converted to an online environment;
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There are a limited amount of resources and time to create, manage, maintain and sustain your website.
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The Key Takeaway
As you can discern, both web portals and websites have distinct advantages and, based on the needs of your company; you can choose either. A website is an excellent alternative if you're looking to build an online platform that will represent your company online and attract an increasing number of customers from across the globe. It is possible to hire web developers from a full-stack development company as they can assist in both front-end and back-end web development.
However, suppose you're searching for a private website that can target a particular type of user. In that case, web portals are the best choice. They're a great alternative if you wish to control the content that users view. To accomplish this, you might require advanced features for managing users, and the help of an expert can assist.
