Six Types of Websites

There are a few million active web sites on the Internet today. Almost all websites can be classified into one of the six basic website types below. Our objective is to outline most of categories of web sites, which exist:

* On-line brochure sites

* Content Management sites

* Lead-generation sites

* E-commerce sites

* Self-service sites

* Hybrid Websites

Online Brochure Websites

Most likely, the most popular type of web sites that companies invest in is On-Line Brochure Websites. The objective is to make your company and product-service information available on-line, save on print and postal costs, and decrease support inquiries.

Content Management Websites

The objective of a Content Website is increase readership, level of interest; time spent on the site and of course maximizes on-line advertising revenue. You would want to measure visit length, page views, and the number of subscribers.

Lead-generation Websites

The objective of a Lead-Generation Website is increase lead generation. You would measure white paper downloads, time spent on the site, newsletter opt-ins, reject rates on contact pages, and leads-to-close ratio.

E-commerce Websites

The objective of an e-commerce website is sales, or more specifically to increase sales and decrease marketing expenses. You would want to measure sales, sales per visitor, cost per visitor, and conversion rate.

Self-service Websites

The objective of a Self-service website is increase customer satisfaction and decrease support inquiries. You would need to measure decreases in visit length, inbound call-centre metrics, and customer satisfaction metrics.

Hybrid Websites

Many websites are a mixture of types. For example, a business web site may promote the business’s products, but may also host informative documents, such as white papers or provide news for it’s visitors. There are also numerous sub-categories to the ones listed above.