Are you looking to create your website, but not sure which website types are the best for your online business? you are in the right place.
You may need a business website for your online business, a portfolio website to share your skills as a solopreneur, a non-profit website for your organization, and so on. Many website types exist and each one has its own marketing strategy.
In this guide, we are going to show you all website types and explaining you the use and goal of each one.
The Benefits Of Having A Website
Own your website have many benefits for your online business, be present online is a key success of any business. Whether you are offering services, selling physical products, coaching, training, or even selling your arts like pictures and videos, your own website allows you to access the national and international market. A website allows your business to be known by people, which allowing you getting more traffic, more customers, and more money.
A website can be one pager, blog, business, news, magazine, and so on. In this guide, we are going to explain you all website types to choose from for your online business.
Static And Interactive Website
Static websites are the most used by small businesses, they are websites with same static pages seen by anyone visit the website, the changes to the pages are done manually by yourself in your WordPress website.
Interactive websites are websites that change page views according to certain criteria, like location, IP address, username and so on. Netflix and YouTube are the best examples of interactive website, each user see different content according to his/her preferences, location and research history.
Since almost all businesses are just looking to present their products and services, is most likely to use a static website, which is easy to create with no coding knowledge needed. Except if you are looking to give a service which need an interactive content, you may need a web developer in this case, since an interactive websites need more knowledge and development skills.
Before To Select Your Type
Before to start selection your website type, you may need to check few things. Maybe you already have an idea about your business and what you are looking for, but if you don’t know what niche you want to start your business with, you may check out our full guide with a list of niches you can choose from.
When you get your niche, try to understand what kind of website goes with your idea. Are you offering a service, you may choose a business website, you are a photographer and want to sell piece of arts, a portfolio may be better, you are looking to sell your own physical products or starting a Dropshipping business, an e-Commerce will be the best.
Overall, study your online business and do research to understand better what the best strategy to promote your brand using the best website type. Compare your research with the list of website types below, this will help you a lot determine the WordPress website to create for your online business.
Website Types
Many website types exist and can be used by different business models. If you have a small business, a business website may be the good choice for you. If you are looking to allow other people enter their own information in your website, you may consider using a Wiki website. A non-profit website is designed for non-profit organizations, and so on. Below are all website types you can choose from for your online business.
– Business website
The Business Website is the most website types used in the world. This type is a classic website with multiple pages. This type present the business with the big banner in the home page with menu and logo, usually include the brand history and services offered by the business, with some other pages. The business website type use between 5 to 10 pages.
The home page is the main page, all important information will be listed in this page. Services page is where are listed the services offered by the business. About page shows the business history, as well as the staff. The contact page shows the business information, like the address and phone number.
Depend on the business, a blog page may be added, where it shows articles and posts talking about the business services. These articles are used to bring traffic to the website, which allowing redirecting visitors to the service page to get new customers. Other specific pages can be added focusing on a specific service or product.
– One-Pager website
If you just starting your online business and have no idea yet what to put on your website, create a one-pager website and add other pages as you grow. A one-pager website is a website accessible through internet for anyone, has it’s own domain name and logo.
The only difference between a business and one-pager website, one-pager has only one page which is the home page, but is a website as any other website. All business information are added to the same main page in different sections instead of pages.
– Blog website
The blog website is a platform to share valuable information like posts, guides and articles. Narily.com is a good example of a blog website, we share valuable free content as guides, posts, articles and more.
A blog website is usually used by someone or an organization to share their knowledge, services, and to bring traffic to their website. A blog website can be used also to make money online, by adding adverting and share affiliate marketing links. If you are looking to make money using a blog, follow our guides in our different categories, WordPress and Affiliate Marketing.
– Personal website
A personal website is usually created by an individual business owner or a public figure. If you are an influencer or a photographer and you run a business using your own name, a personal website will be the best choice for you.
A personal website can also be used just for fun, even though you don’t have any business, but you want to share your history or your life, create a personal website and post your pictures, video, text and so on. If you post only pictures and video, your personal website become a portfolio website.
– Portfolio website
A portfolio website is usually used by a solo business owners or an organization to present their achievements. A photographer, designer, artist, developer, writer, present their work to show their skills and attract more customers. Like an art exhibition where their present paintings, a portfolio website is so similar and present paintings, images, pictures, videos and so on.
– e-Commerce website
An e-Commerce website is a shopping platform where you can sell your products. If you have your own physical or digital products, create your own e-Commerce website, and sell them online. An e-Commerce website is more complex than a business website, but you still can create your own website without any coding knowledge.
Even if you don’t have your own products, you can still create your e-Commerce website and sell other people products. Dropshipping allows you to sell physical products and making money online with no inventory and no experience.
– Membership website
A membership website is one of the best way to make money online in long term. Having a membership website allows you to make customers to pay for subscription and have access to advanced services, this will make you a money machine, where you can earn a monthly or yearly depend on the service.
Maybe you are already member of a service, and you are paying a monthly or yearly fees. Your Gym, TV, or any subscription where you pay online using a membership website. You can do the same thing by creating valuable content, and make your customers pay monthly or yearly to access the advanced section.
– Online forum
An online forum is a website allowing you to build a community, where people can share information in one specific topic or many topics. Depend on the website, you can have a specific niche or multiple niches where people can exchange and share information. This will allow you to get a lot of traffic and make money from advertising and affiliate links. You can also make restricted access to some advanced information, and have a membership website into your forum.
This website model is great because you don’t need to maintain it, all you have to do is to create and promote the website, when it’s done, it will run in auto pilot. The best example will be Quora and Reddit.
– Social Media Website
Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and all social media websites are the best examples. Social media website is a website allowing people to talk each other and share pictures, videos, and maybe make phone calls. To have this kind of website, an experienced developers are needed to create a social media website. This kind of website allows you to make a lot of money from advertising.
– Informational website
An informational website can be a news website, a blog, an encyclopedia and so on. An informational website is any site sharing information for free, this information can be in one specific topic or in multi topics. If you would like to share information for free, use this kind of website. Even though the information is free, but you still can make money with advertising and affiliate marketing links.
– News Website
A news website is like informational website but more specific. A news website is specialized and usually managed by news televisions, news papers and so on. This kind of website is own by journalists and add information daily or even hourly. A complete IT team with full time work is needed to be able to add content all the time and maintain a news website.
– Video Website
YouTube and Netflix are the best examples of video websites. These kind of websites shows only videos. Some have their own video and don’t allow customers to add their owns like Netflix, and some allow customers to add their own videos like YouTube and Pinterest. Usually with this kind of website, you can make a good amount of money from advertising.
Depend on the level of advanced features the website can offer, it may or may not need an experienced developers to create this kind of websites. More options are added, more knowledge is needed.
– Educational Website
Educational website is used by universities, they usually use the extension .edu, which mean Education like harvard.edu. Colleges and education institutions also use this type of websites. The goal of this kind of website is to educate people about many things, it can be education about a specific topics, or about the admissions, subscriptions and so on.
A blog website can also be categorized as an educational website, because it provides information to educate people about a specific topics. Narily.com is one of the educational blogs sharing with you free valuable educational content.
– Event website
Event websites are rarely used, because the events can be added as a section into a website. But if you are looking to create a website which handle only events, this is possible. Event Create is one of the best event website you can use to create events if you don’t have your own website, it’s allowing you to create and manage your own events.
– Wiki Website
Wiki websites are platforms sharing free information, and the main difference between Wiki websites and others, Wiki allow other people to add information on the website by their own. Wikimedia.org is one of the biggest Wiki website, as well as Wiktionary, Wikipedia and others.
These kind of website usually don’t make money from advertising, since the information is added by the community and all benefit from the information. If you want to create this kind of website, a development skills are needed.
– Nonprofit website
A lot of non-profit websites exist, and the goal of these websites is to promote a non-profit organization, to collect funds and donations, to help people in need. Many religions, associations, hospitals, and other organizations helping people use this kind of websites.
It’s almost same website as a business type, but donation section is always added in many pages, to collect money for the organization. If you manage a non-profit organization, use the .org extension instead of .com.
Which Website Type Is Good For You
Depend on your business and goals, all website types can be the best for you. If you just start an online business, the business website type will be the best, use the .com for your domain name and start creating your online business.
If you are looking to share guides and articles, the blog website will be the best, add advertising to make money from it. You are a solopreneur and looking to show your skills, a portfolio will be the best choice. Or if you are creating a website for an organization, a non-profit website with .org domain name will be the best.
Any type you choose for you business need a WordPress website creation. You can find a lot of free resources in our blog, all about getting your domain name, making an attractive logo, finding the best web hosting provider, and creating your own website. Visit our WordPress category to learn more.
Landing Pages and Sales Pages
Now you know the difference between all website types, there is another type of design, not necessary a website, but can be included in any website. They are pages, but not as normal website pages.
Landing pages are a special pages used to market a products and services, they have a specific design and sections. If you are looking to market a specific product or service, use landing pages instead of normal website page.
They are well designed and are used specifically for marketing. Landing pages usually offer a freebies to attract customers to the paid offer, they use funnels to get the audience through a specific path, and make it become a customer and buyer.
Sales pages are very similar to landing pages, but designed to sell the product in the same fist page. Landing pages take customers through a process. Sales pages give you the offer directly in the fist page. These pages designed to attract more customers and make more sales than normal website pages.
Funnel vs Website
Landing pages use funnels to walk the customer through a process in no time. Usually, a customer buy a product or service from a business he/she know and trust.
Your website is a showcase of your business, people get to know you through your website and services you offer. Making people know your business and services takes time, to get the customer trust you need a longer time and effort, and money for advertising.
Funnels are here to fix this issue, and make new customers become buyers in no time, without knowing you or your business.
The website list products and services, and explain with few text how the business can help the customer. A funnel do the same, but in different manner. Marketing specialist can create a good landing pages and funnel process. But overall, the funnel goal is to make new customer become buyer and trust your business quickly.
Final Thoughts
Knowing the website types, helping you a lot on choosing the best for your online business. Many website types exist, and all have a specific goal. The design differ more or less from type to type. Some of them can be created by anyone with no coding skills, others need advanced development skills. The good news is the majority of them don’t need any skills to be created using WordPress.
Because website are limited to make your business present online, landing and sales pages with funnels are created to help businesses making more sales in no time.
The best solution for your online business, is to have your website, and add landings pages, sales pages and funnels into it. You don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars each month to host landing pages and funnel, you can create your own funnel system using WPFunnels or WooFunnels WordPress plugs. Combine all of these technics, give you a big chance to attract new customers and make more money online for your business.
In this guide, we explained you all website types you can choose from for your online business, and the technics you can use to attract more customers and make more money. We hope this will help you find the best design for your WordPress website.
If you have any question or want to share your experience, please feel free to leave a comment below. For more information, visit our WordPress category.
