A Guide to Different Types of Web Sites

● "Brochure" Web Sites - These web sites are really just another form of business card. Business cards do not often generate sales as compared to other popular advertising methods. So, a few companies, happy to live on reputation and other marketing leads, only require an online presence to offer contact information and a general overview of the business.

● Marketing a Business Web Site - These sites can be categorised as advertising online. You have a Service to offer and you wish to advertise your business locally or nationally. Your web site is there to target the customers in your niche and to bring in sales for the business. These sites need a little extra marketing in the right places, but generally if done correctl,y can generate excellent returns.

●Selling Goods Online Web Sites - A business wants to sell goods or merchandise online to the consumer. These sites are a little more involved because the business owner has to have a lot of input on a daily basis. Such sites are programed to take sales and customer details, store them in a database, process payments through the site and also integrate the finances for accounting puposes. Many companies use online sales sites as an add-on to the main high street retail business they operate. Often though, if successful, this way of selling becomes a seperate operation due to the fact it is really like running another business full time.

● Content Management (CMS) Web Sites - CMS web sites are usually the domain of the larger organisation where vast information resources have to be shared throught the business. These sites are often run on internal Intranet sites for employee use. However, some companies use CMS for sales and marketing purposes and most CMS systems have evolved to generate content and sales functions in the same package.

● Blogging Web Sites - Blogging or Blog, an abbreviation for Web Log, are web sites similar to content management system (CMS) sites. The easy installation and automatic functions running these sites are popular for individuals and smaller companies. Blogs are ideal for communicating ideas, thoughts and even products in a way where others can give feedback and interact with the content. The development of the Web 2.0 Internet and need for web sites to communicate information to customers, Blogs are ideal. Being especially designed to feed news or information to News sites or Home computers directly using RSS feeds, making it a powerful, interactive communication tool.