Types of Website

A business website is one of the popular types of websites that business organizations create to represent their brand online. Generally, a business website aims to give information about a company’s goods and services and promote them. As a result, these sites build a strong online presence for their business.

Business websites are actually a broad category that includes eCommerce stores, commercial blogs, and other types of business-motive websites. So, some websites can be called both a business website and eCommerce website or a business website and a blog. 

For example, let’s say Microsoft.com

This is both a business website and an eCommerce site. Because this website contains informative and promotional content as well as checkout options to allow users to buy its products.

Having a genuine business website increases the credibility of the business. Various studies suggest that people trust companies and business agencies with a good online presence over others without it.

So, it has become mandatory to have a business website for all businesses. Here are a few types of businesses that may need a site:

• Gym/fitness, yoga studio, beauty care, and therapist.
• Electronics, mechanics,
• Café, restaurants, hotels
• Law firm, finance
• Dentistry, clinic
• And any service provider or business.

Now, let’s check out some of the most popular business website examples that’ll inspire you!

• Microsoft (Technology business)
• World Financial Group (Finance consultancy)
• Chicago French Press (Coffe and tea business)
• Ladies Get Paid (Professional course for women)
• Forbes (Business news and blog Site)

Are you also thinking of making a new website for your business?

Get the one for you, contact our Team today!

Portfolio websites are types of websites that showcase the best work of professional individuals. These websites are created by professionals and freelancers. So that they can advertise their skills and works to gain attraction from potential clients or customers.

Having a portfolio website reflects professionalism towards your work and it is also seen as a CV or online resume. 

Photographers, tattoo artists, painters, artists, developers, designers, cinematographers, or any other experts can create a portfolio website.

For example, you can check out Leo Messi’s portfolio website.

The portfolio website is simple and presentable having a few pages and a logo in it. It has a gallery for high-quality images, testimonials, and details of services that you provide. It should also have an about section that includes your contact details, about, social media accounts, past works, etc.

If you want to create a portfolio website, then you can look at alluring designs from the web. We recommend you use WordPress to get a lot of options on designs and features.

Take a look at some of the portfolio websites that we have listed below.

• Tony D’Orio
• Tristan Harris
• Natsai Audrey
• JK Rowling
• Verena Michelisth
• Leo Messi

An eCommerce website is a channel for buying and selling products online. A single business can own it or it can be a gateway where multiple vendors showcase their products in a digital store. For example, take a look at Walmart.com.

An eCommerce store provides customers with a huge degree of buying convenience. That’s because it contains a model to search, filter, add, pay for products and decide shipping methods through the site itself.

An eCommerce website usually includes the following important features: 

• Product search and filter 
• Product carts
• Integrated payment method
• Integrated shipping method

You may probably have used an eCommerce website before. Some of the most popular eCommerce sites are: 

• Amazon
• Alibaba
• Walmart
• eBay
• Tmall
• Elegant Themes

If you also have things to sell, then you can create an eCommerce website of your own. There, you get to easily sell your products and services online. 

Multivendor Marketplace vs Single Vendor eCommerce Site

eCommerce sites are divided into 2 types. And that’s based on the number of vendors selling their products on a site. So, let’s see what they are:

• Multi-vendor marketplace.
• Single vendor eCommerce site.

If you’ve got a multi-vendor marketplace, then multiple vendors will sell their products on your site. So, customers get a chance to buy products from various sellers or brands. While you’ll earn a certain percentage of commission on their sales. For example, Amazon.

Whereas, as the name says, a single vendor eCommerce site contains only 1 vendor. When you build such a site, then that 1 vendor will only sell its products on your site. So, customers have the option to buy the items only from that vendor.

When comparing both of them, multi-vendor sites are relatively difficult to manage. But having multiple vendors is less risky and financially beneficial. Thus, both cases have their pros and cons.

Should You Create an eCommerce Website?

It’s a great idea to start your eCommerce store now because the global online shopping market is getting bigger day by day. According to a report, eCommerce sales accounted for 18% of all retail sales worldwide in 2020 and it’s expected to reach 21.8% in 2024.   

A blog is an informational website that is owned by an individual or a group of people. The content in a blog is called a “blog post” and the act of adding a blog post is called "blogging". 

Blogs have a highly informal and conversational style of writing and user-friendly navigation designs to engage the readers. Moreover, a blog is regularly updated by adding new blog posts timely. Here, the newly added posts appear at the top of others (in reverse chronological order).

For example, Copyblogger is a popular blog about digital marketing.

When blogging just started, people used it as journals or diaries. But nowadays, it’s a lot more than that.

Many organizations and businesses create blogs to promote their products and reach potential customers. While many use it for sharing entertaining and interesting content.

But that’s not all! Blogging is also popular as a great way to make money online. Once your blog reaches a considerable number of audiences, you can include ads in your blog posts. With that, you generate revenue from it.

Some of the famous blog sites are:

• CopyBlogger (Digital marketing blog)
• TechCrunch (Startup and technology blog)
• GatesNotes (Personal blog of Bill Gates)
• SiteSaga (Technology blog about website-building)

You can explore more blog types and examples.

Want to Start a Blog?

If you are thinking of starting a blog yourself, then we recommend you try WordPress. It’s an excellent blogging platform with a beginner-friendly interface and plenty of features to grow your blog and make money.

WordPress is available in two different flavours; WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.com is a fully hosted platform where you can sign up and build a blog. Whereas WordPress.org is a self-hosted platform which means you have to buy hosting, and domain, and set up a site yourself. 

As the name suggests, educational websites are websites for providing educational information and materials to students. They are either the online presence of an educational institution or the portals for providing online courses. 

For example, you can check out the website of Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

Educational institutions like schools, colleges, and universities provide their information through their website. Such as institution details, courses, notices, routines, results, staff, etc. Students or visitors can check into the website to get the required information.

Almost every educational institute these days has a website. Here are some of the educational institutes with the best websites.

• George Washington University
• Smith School
• University of Chicago
• Ashoka University
• University of Toronto
• Kathmandu University

News and magazine websites are the portals for publishing news online. They have been a faster way of delivering local or world news to the readers.

News websites primarily focus on covering stories related to politics, weather, current affairs, events, sports, etc. And not like entertainment websites that cover purely entertaining events. However, there may be an overlap between entertainment websites and news websites sometimes.

For example, Time.com is a popular news website.

Famous media organizations like newspapers, TV channels, and FM radios create news and magazine websites. This works as an expansion of their service. While some of them are on their own.

Paid subscription models and advertisements are the sources of income for these sites.

Here are some of the popular news broadcasters with their websites.

• The Washington Post
• BBC
• The Daily Telegraph
• Time
• CNN
• Fox News

A landing page website (or just a landing page) is a website comprising a few well-designed marketing pages. Such sites are generally for a marketing or advertising campaign. 

To be clearer, it’s the place where your visitors land when they click on a link in an email. Or can be via ads from Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc., and other digital platforms on the web.

Other sites contain pages that focus on several goals. But when it comes to landing page sites, they have a single goal. And that’s for the call to action (in short CTA) with the end goal: more sales.

So, if the users are on a landing page site, then they are encouraged to take action. Like buying a product, registering an account, etc.

Therefore, it’s the best option for increasing the conversion rate of your marketing campaigns.

Let’s take the example of the landing page of Shopify. Here, you can see a free trial option to create an online store to sell your products and run your business.

This is a list of examples for landing page websites. So, you can check them out.

• Shopify
• WPAstra.com
• Webflow
• Conversion Lab
• Great Jones

A brochure website is a simple layout of a small business that they upload on the web. The main purpose of such websites is to advertise their products and services.

With a brochure website, you can just indicate the online presence of your business. And it doesn’t conduct business like business or eCommerce websites. So, it rather acts as a catalog that gives basic information about your company. It includes info about the owner, registration details, address, phone number, email, etc.

For example, Bed & Breakfast Nationwide is a small interior designing company with a brochure website. This site informs their services along with other information like contact info, address, team members, etc.

A brochure website has a basic and simple layout with only a few pages. The website contents can be either static or dynamic, depending upon the needs of the agency. It can also act as a foundation if you want to upgrade your website to a business or an eCommerce website.

Non-profit or charity sites don’t sell products/services for profit. They’re built by non-profit or charity organizations or anyone that wants to convince people to support their cause. The cause can be anything for the public or social benefit. And depending on the cause, there can be different kinds of non-profit sites. Such as:

• Health
• Animal
• Environmental
• Education, etc.

For example, Save The Children is a non-profit/charity website. It’s an amazing site with the cause to build a better world for and with children.

Having a charity website plays a primary role for those organizations to connect with their potential audience. That’s why these sites generally outline what the cause is about, and how the visitors can get involved, donate, or support it. 

Also, there’s a function to collect email addresses and store them in a database. So that the organization can keep in touch with interested people via newsletters. Here we provide you with a list of such beautiful non-profit websites with their cause.

• Save The Children (Children)
• Cancer Research Foundation (Cancer patients)
• Charity: Water (Clean water)
• World Wildlife Fund (Wildlife animals)

Each non-profit or charity organization should have its unique work shared on its sites. So, if you’ve such an organization or community, then you need to build an engaging charity site. For that, your non-profit website needs to be well-organized and easy to navigate. Overall, it should be visually appealing and give a positive vibe to your visitors.

LMS (Learning Management System) websites are a popular type of membership website. They focus on providing education to their members through online means.

Such online course sites may be run by formal academic institutions, training institutes, or individual teachers. Anyways, they provide online courses, tutorials, tips, tricks, videos, etc. on a single topic or a variety of topics. For example, Coursera.org is a leading LMS site offering flexible, affordable, and job-relevant online learning. And that’s for individuals and organizations across the globe.

You can find some LMS sites that provide free courses while others charge you money. However, some premium online course sites are generous enough to provide some free trials. As a result, a remarkable number of students are found to be benefitted from such e-learning sites. And that’s because you can easily access them from anywhere to learn what you’re interested in.

Some of the best LMS websites you can find are:

• Coursera.org
• W3Schools.com
• edX.org
• Open Yale Courses

If you want to run an LMS website, then you can easily do that by using WordPress. There are multiple WordPress LMS plugins and LMS themes. Using them, you’re able to quickly build your dream e-learning site. As a result, you get to inspire people to learn online.

Online job websites are a type of directory site that offers a list of jobs. On such websites, you can find available jobs in our area or niche. Some websites function as a meeting point for employers and employees. Now, employers can post jobs and find capable employees to get their work done. Then, the employee works from a remote location and submits the completed task through email or other media. 

These sites have payment methods integrated into them which enables paying and receiving cash through them. Works like data entry, writing, designing, web development, editing, etc. are usually carried out from these websites.

For example, Fiverr.com is an online job website.

And, some websites post job descriptions on their website. The visitors get to browse and select an appropriate job and apply for it. These websites are only to give visitors information about the jobs but do not encourage remote working.

Some of the popular online job websites are listed below.

• Freelancer
• Fiverr
• Merojob
• GoTranscript
• Upwork

A directory website is a type of website that plays a major role in web promotion. It’s a site that collects, stores, and shows the top provider names for a certain niche in one place. This enables the potential clients to easily search for what they are looking for. And one can search either by using keywords or certain parameters. Parameters can be company ratings, kind of product/service, location, etc. 

There are multiple kinds of directory sites that one can build on different niches. For example:

• Restaurant
• Travel
• Wedding
• Online job
• Real estate
• Automotive
• Events, etc.

For example, Zomato is a restaurant directory website. Here, customers can search and discover restaurants. Also, they can read/write customer reviews, book a table, order food, and more.

The following list shows some of the popular directory websites with their niche.

• Airbnb (Real estate)
• Zomato (Restaurant)
• YouTube (Video)
• ThemeForest (WordPress Themes)

Thus, you can also list your business on a directory site. That’ll help you grow the visibility of your products/services to various kinds of audiences. While making a directory site, it’s important to add a few options. It includes advanced filtering options and autosuggestion abilities. By keeping them, your target audience can easily find what they are looking for. Plus, they’ll like to stay connected to your site.

A membership website is a type of website that is created by businesses, organizations, universities, or companies for internal purposes. It’s can be also called a web portal. You can also use it for sharing personal information among its members. Only related members have the authority to access stored information through a subscription model. Also, they need to log in to the websites to access that information. The subscriptions can be free or paid depending upon the website itself.

For example, Dunbar Academy is a membership website where registered users can find free and paid courses.

The different levels of membership declare what kind of information they can access. For example, in a university, students can access less course-related information like classes, routines, results, programs, etc. Whereas; faculty members can access information related to administration and management. Like students’ performance, records, teaching strategies, etc. on the same portal.

Membership websites have a more complex structure than other types of websites. Most online website builders seem unfit for developing a membership website fulfilling all the requirements. For example, you can find membership plugins for WordPress.

Here is a list of some of the best membership websites.

• Dunbar Academy
• Smart Passive Income Courses
• Kid Explorer
• Lasater yoga
• Olive Knits
• Birchbox
• Netflix

Another type of website on this list is government websites. The motive of a government site is to inform the public about the government business and services. And such sites can be of different levels of government. Like:

• Department
• Local
• State

Moreover, they give multiple kinds of information and services to save everyone’s time. Such as a local government website can also be about helping to promote tourism.

Now, let’s take the example of www.USA.gov. It’s the official website of the government of the United States. Here, they provide the people with information regarding various government programs. It includes health, passport, education, and more.

For your information, the government site of the United States has the domain suffix ‘.gov’. Whereas in the case of the United Kingdom, it’s ‘.gov.uk’. Have a look at some of the state-level government websites of different countries below.

• www.USA.gov
• www.australia.gov.au
• www.India.gov.in
• www.gov.uk

Now, here’s a list of other types of government sites within a country. For example, in America.

• www.ed.gov (Education)
• www.hss.gov (Health)

Wiki website is like a knowledge base for a particular subject. It includes articles about basic things on a particular subject.

A well-known wiki website out there that all of us know is Wikipedia. It has an extensive collection of encyclopaedic knowledge for free and about almost everything.

On the other hand, some wiki sites are in particular niches. Such as:

• Games
• Celebrities
• Books
• Movies
• Travel, etc.

Actually, these wikis can be for fan communities or business resources. If not, then just for collecting some important information. Check out the list below to know some of the wiki websites in different niches.

• Wikitravel (Travel)
• Wikibooks (Books)
• Wiktionary (Dictionary)
• Fandom (TV series, movies, etc.)

A podcast site presents a collection of digital audio files that users can download to their devices for easy listening. If you make podcasts, then you need to have a podcast website to improve your brand. Thus, a podcast website is a place where listeners get to learn about you and your show. And these sites are getting quite popular nowadays. As there are lots of people who want to learn new things, hear the latest news, etc.

In addition to that, users also get to meet like-minded people with the same interests. So, fans can gather and search for all that they want to know from a podcast site.

The content of such sites differs as per their target audience. And for creating a new podcast site, you must choose a podcast format to work accordingly. Some of them include:

• Interview: An interview shows with a new guest of certain expertise in each episode.
• Solo/Monolog: A single person talks on a mic to share info about any content.
• Conversational: Here, 2 hosts have discussions on a specific topic in each episode, etc.

An example of a podcast website is 99% Invisible. Here, multiple narratives release episodes and articles. And that also on various topics like technology, history, infrastructure, architecture, etc.

To find inspiration on starting a podcast site, here’s a list of some of the popular podcast sites.

• 99% Invisible
• The Beerists
• Talking Sopranos
• The Smarter Sales Show
• The Athletic Perspective

An entertainment website is a portal for conveying entertaining news to visitors. These websites upload fun and interesting content like the latest celebrity news, Hollywood gossips, trends, art, humour, music videos, and other trending news. All of these are engaging and entertaining to readers.

For example, Spotify is an entertainment site where you can find a huge collection of songs.

Entertainment websites have user-friendly designs, easy to use, and navigate, and are updated from time to time. Web magazines, comics, humour websites, fun facts, etc. are some types of websites for purely entertainment purposes. Other entertainment websites include gaming portals, video streaming hubs, movie downloading websites, music websites, etc. And they are also engaging users by providing entertainment.

Here are some of the entertainment websites that people love.

• IMDb
• YouTube
• Spotify
• Rolling Stone
• ESPN
• TMZ

These websites also aim to make money like any other business and eCommerce site. However, their source of earning is through subscriptions and advertisements.

The browsing pattern of internet users also shows that they are most likely to use the internet for entertainment. Thus, if you have some genuine ideas for great, intriguing content that you think people will find interesting, then the entertainment website is for you.

A social forum is a platform that allows visitors to have a discussion on various topics and share views, knowledge, and experience. It consists of a model for posting a question where multiple users can contribute by answering the posted question.

For example, Warrior Forum is a forum website.

Web forums can be found on different topics like tech, IT, politics, health, education, wealth, property, parenting, gaming, etc. 

Here is a list of some popular forum websites.

• Quora
• Stack Overflow
• Warrior Forum
• GameFAQs

When it comes to social media or social networking sites, they are for online communication. Or for building a network of people. Also, it includes online community websites. Overall, such sites allow you to build social networks with other people. And it can be people with similar personal or career content, backgrounds, interests, activities, or anything.

On a social media or networking site, you can share your information with a huge audience. And everyone gets an opportunity to create things and then share them. For example, Facebook is a popular social media website where you can create a public profile. And then interact with your friends.

There are various kinds of social media or networking sites to share different kinds of content. Some of them along with their examples are:

• Socializing with your existing friends. Eg: Facebook, Instagram, etc.
• Non-social interpersonal communication. Eg: Linkedin, etc.
• Sharing images. Eg: Snapchat, etc.
• Community blogs. Eg: Medium, Tumblr, etc.

These kinds of websites are growing in popularity for every generation. So, you can also come up with a unique idea for making a social media site. Some important features to include in a social media site are:

• Simple yet intuitive and user-friendly user interface.
• Secure registration and login.
• Real-time communication via chats or video calls.
• Media sharing, etc.

In the type of website, we cannot forget the Search Engines.

A search engine is also a website that is used to search for information on the web. It discovers information according to users’ search queries and displays related information. The search engine shows a list of results that matches the users’ search.

The searching process in search engines is composed of 3 parts: crawling, indexing, and ranking.

• Crawling is the process in which so-called ‘bots’ or ‘spiders’ of search engines reach billions of web pages on the internet.
• Indexing is the process of storing the result of crawling into indexes. Indexes are basically the database for storing web pages.
• When a search is carried out, the search engine matches the searched keyword against the web pages in their indexes. And then tries to find the best results. The most relevant results are shown at the top, which is called ranking.

Google is the most dominant and popular search engine. More than 92% of the searches are carried out on Google.com. 

Here are some other search engines besides Google.

• Google.com
• Bing
• Yahoo
• Baidu
• Yandex Search
• DuckDuckGo

Finally, we hope this article has helped you learn about the most popular types of websites in 2023. And we hope that you’re now able to pick an appropriate type of website for your business, office, or yourself. 

But if you still find it hard to decide which type of website is suitable for you, then please Contact Us. We’ll be more than happy to help you.

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