The web is enormous. There are now billions of websites on the Internet, each competing for the attention people give to their daily Internet browsing. When you’re launching a new website, it can be surprising to think about all the other websites.
But it’s helpful to remember that on a huge number of websites, you have many different categories of website types trying to achieve different goals. When considering the best way to create your website, consider carefully what kind of website you want it to be. When you can narrow down the goals and settings you have in mind, it will be easier for you to find other websites in your category to look to for inspiration.
What is a Website?
Websites can be used in several ways: personal website, corporate website, a government website, organization website, etc. Websites can be the work of an individual, business, or other organization and are usually dedicated to a specific topic or purpose. Each website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so that the differences between individual sites as perceived by the user may be blurred.
Some websites require user registration or subscription to access the content. Examples of subscription websites include many business websites, news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file sharing websites, message boards, internet email, social media websites, web sites of stock exchanges providing data in real-time, and sites providing various other services.
Difference Between Static, Dynamic, and Responsive Website
Static Website
A static website is web pages that are stored on the server in a form that is sent to the client’s web browser. It is encoded primarily in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML); Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to control the appearance outside of the main HTML. Images are usually used to achieve the desired look and feel and as part of the main content. Audio or video can also be thought of as “static” content if it plays automatically or is usually not interactive. This type of website usually shows the same information to all visitors. Like distributing a printed brochure to clients or clients, a static website usually provides consistent, standardized information over an extended period of time.
While the website owner can make periodic updates, it is a manual process of editing text, photos, and other content that may require necessary website design skills and software. Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as a classic website, a five-page website, or a brochure website, are often static websites because they provide the user with predefined static information. This may include information about the company and its products and services in the form of text, photographs, animation, audio/video, and navigation menus.
Static websites can still use server-side include (SSI) as a convenience for editing, such as sharing a common multi-page menu bar. Since the site’s behavior towards the reader is still static, it is not considered a dynamic site.
Dynamic Website
A dynamic website is a site that changes or adjusts itself frequently and automatically. Dynamic server-side pages are generated on the fly by computer code that produces HTML (CSS is responsible for the look and feel and are therefore static files). There is a wide range of software systems such as CGI, Java Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages, and ColdFusion (CFML) that are available for building dynamic web systems and dynamic sites. To facilitate the creation of complex dynamic websites, various web application frameworks and web templating systems are available for general-purpose programming languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby to make it faster and easier to create complex dynamic websites.
The site can display the current state of the dialogue between users, track a changing situation, or in any way, provide information customized according to the requirements of an individual user. For example, when a news site cover page is required, code that runs on a web server can combine the saved HTML snippets with news received from a database or other website via RSS to create a page containing the latest information. Dynamic sites can be interactive by using HTML forms, storing and reading back browser cookies, or creating a series of pages that reflect previous click history.
Another example of dynamic content is when a retail website with a media product database allows a user to enter a search term, such as for the keyword Beatles. In response, the website content will spontaneously change its original appearance and then display a list of Beatles products such as CDs, DVDs, and books. Dynamic HTML uses JavaScript code to instruct the web browser on how to interactively modify the content of a page. One way to simulate a specific type of dynamic website while avoiding performance degradation when running the dynamic engine for each user or link is to regenerate a large series of static pages periodically automatically.
Responsive
Responsive design goes further one step than liquid or fluid. A responsive website will look different on every device – in fact, some less important elements will even disappear to fit the screen to minimize the need to zoom, pinching, or scroll.
If your target audience spends most of their time on mobile phones, then it’s essential that your site is mobile responsive. Luckily, website builders like Wix offer mobile-ready themes, so you don’t have to worry about optimizing your website.
Popular Ways to Create Websites
Now that you have an idea of the different types of websites available, let’s take a quick look at how they are created.
When it comes to building a website, there are two different paths:
1. CMS
The first option is to create a website using a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress. You can do it yourself by downloading WordPress or another CMS, purchasing a template and building your website with code. You will have to pay for the domain name and host your site.
There are advantages to creating a website this way, but you need technical know-how to do it. If you do decide to hire a web designer to design your site, they will probably take this path.
2. Website Builder
Website builders are online platforms that allow users to create their own websites based on a set of templates. You don’t need to know how to program to use website builder – they are usually very easy to use and you will be charged a monthly maintenance fee to keep them going. They are perfect for business websites, e-commerce sites, blogs, and portfolios. More complex websites, such as portals and media sites, will most likely need to be built using a CMS.
However, not all website builders are the same. And if you are going to use it for your website, you need to know that it is best for the job.
Types of Websites
There are many different types of websites. They vary in function and layout, but they typically share specific characteristics. Here is the latest list of all types of Websites and its uses and purposes that you should know about.
1. E-commerce Website
An e-commerce website is a website where people can buy products directly. You’ve probably used several e-commerce websites, most of the big brands and much smaller ones have one. Any website that has a shopping cart and a way to provide the credit card information to make a purchase falls into this category.
If you are learning how to launch a website for your business and plan to sell your products through it, then this is the type of website you need to create. When building an e-commerce website, you need to make sure to include some specific steps, such as investing in e-commerce software and getting an SSL certificate so that your customers can pay securely. And you’ll want to make sure your web design and a copy is created with the site’s primary goal in mind: making sales.
Ecommerce websites can be an extension of your business, or they can be something you build your new business around. E-commerce sites like amazon.com, walmart.com fall into this category.
2. Business Website
A business website is any website dedicated to representing a specific business. It should bear the company’s brand name (same logo and positioning) and communicate the types of products and/or services the company offers.
By now, every company should have its website. This is a widespread expectation. Any potential customer you come across will simply assume that if they Google your business for more information, they’ll find a website. And if they don’t, it makes the business less professional or legal.
Ecommerce websites are business websites, but it is also possible to have business websites that don’t sell anything directly, but rather encourage visitors to connect for more information (lead generation website) or a showcase if they’re interested in becoming customers.
3. Entertainment Website
If you are thinking about your web browsing habits, you can probably think of a few websites that you visit just for fun. These can be humorous sites like The Onion, webcomics like xkcd, or only sites with funny or interesting content like Buzzfeed.
Most of these websites, like business and e-commerce websites, aim to make money, but usually through advertising that appears on the page, rather than selling certain products or services.
If you are looking to launch an entertaining website, you have many options for the formats they can accept. You can shoot funny or informative videos, write funny blog posts, draw comics, or create fun quizzes.
Since there are so many entertainment websites out there, you need to expect it to take some time and work to find an audience that will connect with you (and even more time and work to start making money, if that’s your ultimate goal). Still, if if you’ve got ideas for creating content that you think will be interesting, an entertainment website is one of the best ways to get that content to the world.
4. Portfolio Website
Portfolio websites are sites dedicated to showcasing examples of past work. Service providers looking to show potential clients the quality of the work they do can use the portfolio website to collect some of the best samples of past work they’ve done. This type of website is easier to create than a business website and is more geared towards a specific task: collecting working samples.
This type of website is most commonly used by creative professionals and freelancers who are hired based on demonstrated skills and can be a more effective alternative to a business website that caters to this focus.
5. Media Website
Media sites collect news or other messages. There are some overlaps with entertainment sites here, but media sites tend to include reported tracks in addition to or instead of entertainment-only content. This category includes sites such as the Washington Post, Slate, and Inc.
Media websites usually earn either from the ads that appear on the site, or through subscription models, or a combination of the both.
Many media websites are online branch of media that often exist in other forms, such as TV channels or print magazines and newspapers, but some are only available on the Internet.
6. Magazine Website
The magazine website contains articles, photographs and videos that are informative and educational in nature. Over the past twenty years, the magazine industry has evolved from a print-only platform to a predominantly digital format. The magazine website type is well suited for informational websites, especially for university and institutional publications.
When thinking about creating a magazine site, start by creating a basic structure. Users should see the same layout no matter what day they land on your home page, and every article should have the same layout and navigation. Remember how responsive the overall design is to different screen sizes so that your content is easy to read on both desktops and smartphones.
Popular magazine websites include time.com and gq.com.
7. Blogs
The blog is regularly updated with articles, photos and videos. Blogs started out with more everyday personal content than magazines. But since then, the lines have blurred, and it’s now common for big brands and companies to have their own blog. Adding expert content increases the overall trust of the company or individual. Blogs also provide content for social media posts and email campaigns.
However, blogging can get cumbersome for small businesses. Make sure you have a team and strategy in place to keep your content fresh before considering launching it. In fact, it’s better not to blog and offer a few videos or tutorials than to have a hopelessly outdated blog.
The 10 Best Blog Sites & Platforms
- WordPress.com
- WordPress.org
- Blogger.com
- Tumblr.com
- Wix.com
- Joomla.com
- Medium.com
- Squarespace.com
- Weebly.com
- TypePad.com
8. Landing Page Website
A landing page is a special type of page designed for a marketing campaign that encourages visitors to take certain actions.
Landing page content should be limited and point to the call to action (CTA) phrase you want the user to take. Leave enough white space around the CTA and keep elements unrelated to the goal of this campaign on other pages.
9. Brochure Website
Brochure websites are a simplified form of business websites. For companies that know they need an online presence but don’t want to invest a lot in it (you can be sure that you will continue to get the most of your business from other sources), a simple brochure website that you can be just a few pages describing what you do and contact information are enough.
Brochure sites were more prevalent in the early days of the Internet, when companies knew they needed a website, but also expected their success to not depend on it. Now that the Internet has become such an important part of how people explore and find almost all the products and services they need, most companies are realizing that they need something more competitive.
If you have a business and you know that you don’t need your website to be a marketing tool to start a new business, you just need something more than an online business card, then a brochure website can do that trick.
10. Social Media Website
About 2.77 billion people use social media on dozens of different platforms. No matter what your target audience is, you will likely find them on Facebook or Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or LinkedIn. While you can’t change the design of the platforms themselves, you have some control over the look of your page and you can create content that encourages social media sharing.
Go for a consistent look across all of your social media and web pages consistently so users can instantly see what your brand is behind the page. Use the same logo and color choices. Choose a specific voice and personality that will be reflected throughout the content.
When creating content, focus on things that have a lot of potential for posting on social media, such as funny videos, infographics, memes, detailed reports, and free offers.
11. Business/Corporate Website
A business site is any site dedicated to a specific business. It must have a company logo (similar logo and positioning) and reflect the types of goods as well as the services that the company/business offers. At this stage, every company, large or small, should have its own website. It’s the need of the hour. Any potential customer you come across will simply expect that if they search Google for more information about your business, they’ll find the site. Moreover, if they don’t, it will make the business less professional or legal.
The easiest way to create an informative website for your business is to use business tools like WordPress, Wix, PageCloud, or Squarespace.
12. NGO/Non-Profit Website
Like brands and businesses, non-profit organizations and NGOs also require a website. Similarly, organizations need sites to be their online nearness, not for profit do too. A nonprofit website is the easiest way for some potential contributors to donate and learn more about the organization to decide whether to donate or not. If you are thinking of starting a NGO, creating a website for your association is a significant step forward in showing your authenticity and reaching out to more people. You can use it to promote your community’s efforts to encourage devotees to step up and accepting donations.
In most cases, the budget for creating a non-profit website is limited (in some cases there is no budget). So, you can use some open source tools like the fermium version of Wix or WordPress.
The best known website of this type is probably acumen.org .
13. Educational Website
Websites of educational organizations and online courses are classified as educational websites. The main purpose of these sites is to provide visitors with educational materials or information about an educational organization. Some educational sites will include advertisements such as entertainment and media sites do. Some offer membership models or educational items for procurement. Moreover, some of them replace the digital presence of the educational organization.
As a result of the growing interest in these sites, many reasonable apparatuses offer this program. Typically, the knowledge base feature is part of online tools like ZenDesk, Intercom, or Freshworks. However, some web builders like Wix offer this utility out-of-the-crate.
Educational sites like W3Schools and instructables.com fall into this category.
14. Forums
Internet forums or social forums are a great way to communicate and share thoughts with people with similar interests or on a comparative basis over the Internet. This smart element can be the main focus of the site, or just a part of it so that guests can communicate what the site is about.
Despite what you can imagine, setting up a forum is not all that difficult or expensive. The Wix Forum and WordPress (using bbPress) make creating a forum that can be incorporated into your current Wix or WP site. If you are looking for something that is gradually customizable according to the requirements of forum users and can be consistent with just about any site, this might be Website Toolbox what you are looking for.
Reddit calls itself the first page on the Internet and is one of the most popular forums ever. Registered members can submit any content on any topic whatsoever.
15. Web Portal
Online interfaces or web portals are sites designed for the internal purposes of a business, association or an organization. They collect data in different configurations from different sources in one place so that all important data open to the people who need it. They often include login and custom views for different users, which ensure that open data is usually useful for their specific needs.
Web portals can be efficiently created using Joomla or Drupal as both have the plugins needed to develop a web portal using various modules and components.
16. Crowdfunding Website
Crowdfunding websites work by taking ‘pledges’ of varying amounts from many people to reach the target amount needed to produce a product. Popular crowdfunding websites include Kickstarter and Crowdcube.
Crowdfunding is a method of raising capital through the collective efforts of friends, family, clients and individual investors. This approach leverages the collective efforts of a wide range of people – mostly online through social media and crowdfunding platforms – and leverages their networks for greater reach and impact.
17. Personal Website
Not all websites are there to make money in any way. Many people find value in creating personal websites to present their thoughts to the world. This category includes personal blogs, vlogs, and photo diaries that people share with the world.
Sometimes these websites can become something that makes money if they become popular enough and the person who created them wants to make these changes, but they exist mainly as a way to share your feelings, ideas and art with friends and strangers who may be interested.
18. Infopreneur Website
Infopreneur websites overlap slightly with business and e-commerce websites, but they represent a unique kind of online business. Infopreneurs create and sell information products. These can be in the form of courses, tutorials, videos, or e-books.
Whatever form it takes, infopreneurs need their website to do the hard work of building a knowledge brand – convincing visitors they know enough to make their educational products worth buying – and sales work of these products.
To sell secured information products, they will need the same tools on an e-commerce website, including an SSL certificate and a merchant account. Those with a lot of knowledge products should also invest in e-commerce software to make it easier for visitors to choose and buy the ones that interest them.
Typically, Infopreneurs create a combination of valuable free content and premium content that they charge for. The infopreneurs’s website serves as a focal point for both free content that serves as a marketing tool to get people to the site, and paid products that report their profits. Therefore, building a good website is critical to this business model.
19. Wiki Website
Most people are familiar with wiki from the most famous of them: Wikipedia. But wikis can be created on just about any topic you can imagine. A wiki is any website where different users can collaborate on content and make their own tweaks and changes as they see fit. There are wikis for fan communities, business resources, and gathering valuable sources of information.
Starting a wiki can be pretty easy, especially if you choose to use existing software or a wiki site builder instead of trying to build a website from scratch. This option makes the most sense when you need to organize the available information and resources in a central space that you want others to have access to.
A wiki software like the popular MediaWiki that’s used to build Wikipedia.
20. Directory Website
A directory or contact page is a place where users can contact you or other people.
This type of website works well when you want to host a repository of companies or people in your organization. For example, in a directory of local restaurants, you can find restaurants in the area with menus, price range, phone numbers, and reviews.
The nature of the organization creates an opportunity for a directory website. For example, a local dental association in a city might list each member, his or her area of expertise, and contact information. Keep this design option in your back pocket for shoppers.
The best known website of this type is probably botw.org.
21. TV or Video Streaming Website
Netflix, along with sites like NowTV, has revolutionized the way the world watches TV. These video streaming sites have become very popular in recent years, with sites like BBC iPlayer and All 4 being more traditional examples of this particular website theme.
22. Photo Sharing Website
Photo-sharing websites allow people to upload, publish and download photos online, sometimes for free and sometimes for minimal cost. You can think of them as online photo repositories. Here, users can search for images in the website database and download high quality and high-resolution stock images.
pexels.com is a great example of a photo sharing website where you can find hundreds and thousands of photos contributed by professional photographers, freelancers and people with an interest in photography.
23. Resume Website
Much better than just listing your skills on paper, an interactive online resume demonstrates who you are, not just your qualifications, giving you much more control over your first impressions of prospective employers.
24. Bio Website
Authors and writers have their own websites that host their biographies, a catalogue of their work with reviews and comments, and links to their social networks, blogs, and places where their publications are sold online. This is especially useful in the world of publishing and establishment of a fan base.
25. Niche Website
This type of website is designed to create specific topics. For example, fitness website focuses on fitness diet related content and services. Niche sites are the ideal type of website you can create if you want zero-in on your audience or have a special interest audience.
Building a niche website for these purposes can help you get more followers and customers or clients because you can structure your website to target a specific group of people. This is in contrast to creating a site that will appeal to a wide audience, which is difficult because everyone is different. Therefore, it can be difficult to reach out to everyone.
How you create this type of website is up to you and what suits your niche. You can combine items from other types of websites. For example, you can make your niche website on an online store, forum, or wiki as well.
26. Membership Website
Membership website is another type of website that is being created for a possible upcoming project. With the membership website, select content is password protected. Users must register to view private content.
Membership websites may offer free and premium registrations, or both. There are many other options available.
For example, you can offer endless or permanent access to private content after a single payment, or you can offer recurring subscriptions that automatically renew.
With the latter, you can even set up subscriptions that renew at any frequency, such as daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.
You can even create a membership site where the content will not be available immediately, but will released at regular intervals. This is known as a drip website and a membership website.
27. Mobile Device Website
Although the use of mobile devices (mobile phones, PDAs, iPods, iPhones, etc.) is in its infancy, it will become much more widespread and overuse. One issue is that standard websites are difficult to browse and some of these devices take a long time to download with their small screens and wireless connections.
Websites that have smaller page widths and take up less bandwidth perform much better on mobile devices. A new domain designation has been created to identify mobile-friendly websites. That is .mobi, domain extension and full url can be www.example.mobi. If you have a small business that would benefit from mobile viewing, you should consider exploring the possibilities right now and hit the ground floor of this trend that’s only going to grow.
28. Review Website
Review websites are another type of content websites that use templates to manage to look and feel. While you can write multiple reviews on a blog, the website we are describing here uses testimonials or reviews created by customers. For this, review platforms usually include a username so that users can identify themselves to validate feedback.
Again, many companies will use WordPress and use a plugin template or get a custom design made by an agency ($$$).
Review sites like yelp.com and tripadvisor.com and fall into this category.
29. Knowledge Base Website
A knowledgebase is a website containing a collection of articles and guides to help customers answer questions about a product or service. A well-built knowledge base categorizes content and provides customers with an easy way to find the answer they are looking for.
Due to the growing demand for knowledge bases, there are many tools available that offer this feature.
Knowledgebase sites like asana.com fall into this category.
30. Job Board/Employment Website
An employment website is a website specifically dedicated to employment or careers. Many job websites are designed to allow employers to post job requirements for a position to be filled and are known as job boards. Other job sites offer employer reviews, career, and job-search advice, and describe various job or employer descriptions. Through the job website, a potential employee can find and fill out a job application or submit an online resume for an advertised job.
Job websites usually charge employers for job postings. Often these are fixed payments for a specific period (30 days, 60 days, etc.). Other sites may allow employers to post basic listings for free, but charge a fee for more prominent placement of listings in search results. Some sites use a pay-for-performance model in which the employer listing the job pays for clicks on the list.
WordPress makes it easy to create a job board where employers can post job listings, and professionals can respond to them.
31. Question & Answer Website
Want to create your own version of Yahoo Answers, Stack Exchange, or Quora? With WordPress, you can easily create a Q&A site. Combine it with other tools, and you can create your own thriving online community.
32. Coupon Website
Do you want to earn affiliate income from thousands of websites offering special discounts on their products and services? Use WordPress to create a coupon site. This makes it easy to add, manage, and expire coupons. Your users can vote and rate coupons, and everything fits into your WordPress admin area at once.
33. Auction Website
Want to run your own eBay as an auction website? With WordPress, you can create a fully functional auction website. Users can bet online, make payments, and you can make money simply by providing a platform for your niche industry.
34. Multilingual Website
You can install WordPress in many languages, but you can create a multilingual website as well. Check out how easy it is to create multilingual websites with WordPress.
35. Affiliate Marketing Website
What is an Affiliate Marketing Site?
Anyone who owns a website would like to profit from it, right? If you have a strong desire to earn some income from your day job, or even want to do it full time, you may be looking for affiliate marketing.
An affiliate marketing site is a website that recommends products and services through content leading to a commission on the sale of those products/services.
There are usually four main parties involved in affiliate marketing: the affiliate website, the affiliate network, advertisers, and finally the buyer.
For example, let’s say you want to create a photo blog to advertise related products (cameras and equipment).
You, as the website owner, will act as an affiliate and create content with links to products and cameras.
Your advertiser could be Amazon or other retailers, while the connected network will track the sale, so when someone clicks on a product link on your site, the advertiser knows the sale is coming from you.
So, next time someone searches for camera tool on Google, hopefully your SEO-optimized blog gets seen by the searcher.
If they trust your product recommendations and decide to buy from your link, then ker-ching, you just made money online.
36. B2B Website
Do you want to connect with other companies on the Internet? Or maybe you want to get a lot of leads every month. If you are a B2B (business to business) company, then it’s not hard to create a website that can generate leads and drive sales.
A B2B Website is a site created specifically for a business that wants to attract other companies to their services/products. How does a B2B website looks like? Well, a B2B website should make the selling process as fast and simple as possible.
This can be clear call to action on phone numbers or contact forms that are clearly presented on the page. While brochure websites are all about aesthetics, B2B websites are about collecting consumer information and ultimately closing a deal.
37. Progressive Web Applications (PWA)
Progressive web applications are complete website solutions that do much more than just post information about your business. These are web application based websites that offer a complete set of features. Through APIs, they can integrate and interact with various other web platforms and services.
38. Homepage Website
Homepages are websites that are called “face of a brand”. They are the main base of your website and serve a number of important purposes. Homepages are well-designed, easy-to-use web pages that effectively communicate the information about what a brand is and what it offers to its target audience. They also help website visitors navigate the site and contain specific CTAs (calls to action) to convert leads.
In terms of design, the home pages are built with the brand’s aesthetic in mind. They are also always optimized for different types of screens and devices. The Airbnb homepage is a great example – it conveys the core message and aesthetic of the brand.
We hope that with the aforementioned types of websites, you will receive vivid information about them, which will help you choose the right one for your business. As it should be obvious, with the current technological development, almost anyone can create any website. The key is to calculate the preconditions for your site and arrange them according to the device that makes you feel good. Getting a website is easy if it is structured by the ideal person or association for you; You can do more by selling your business thoughts.
Not only startups, but also established corporate companies have an advantage in choosing the type of site that suits them, taking into account the cost of facilitation, as well as the availability of web search tools. There are many other sites such as catalogue sites, cell phone sites, and instructive sites.