types of websites

Types of websites

Static website  

A static website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format that is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup Language, HTML. Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, a five-page website or a brochure website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services via text, photos, animations, audio/video and interactive menus and navigation.This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require basic website design skills and software.

Flash Websites 

A Flash website is one that uses Adobe Flash, a program that requires every user to have a browser plug in to view the website. The real benefit of a Flash website is that you can use advanced animation, music and video. They are brilliant for showcasing your work and mean any fonts and images can be used on the site. The drawbacks are that they are not indexed well by the search engines (meaning poor performance in search listings i.e. people will not be able to find you on Google et. al.) and that they are not very accessible or easy to update.

Content Management

A Content Management is a web-based tool to allow any authorised user access to edit the website. The idea behind a CMS is that day-to-day maintenance is handled by the client who, typically, has no prior experience in web page programming. By using modern programming languages and WYSIWYG (pronounced ‘wizzy wig’ - meaning ‘What You See Is What You Get’) editors look and work in a similar way to Microsoft Word, but convert the content in HTML (the language of the web).We find that people who are proficient in Word can easily work our CMSs with the ability to create new content, add content, insert images and basically control what is in the website.A database powered CMS will store the content of the web page in a database table, meaning it’s searchable and can have various meta data attached to it. It also means that you can have various version of the same page (for example, the live version, older versions and perhaps a new version that is not yet complete.) This makes a CMS a very powerful tool for managing the site content.

Dynamic websites

Dynamic websites rely on server side scripting to provided advanced interactivity and usually use a database to deliver the content for individual pages. A dynamic approach is appropriate for developing large websites with content which is formulaic, for example, catalogues, photograph albums and complex series of data. A dynamic website will be required to allow users to sort and search records, or to restrict access to parts of the website using a log-in procedure.

eCommerce websites

An eCommerce website is a dynamic website which has the functionality to process financial transactions. Most e Commerce websites are built to mimic a bricks and mortar store and use the model of stock pages, shopping basket system and checkout, using a secure online payment system.