Let’s start our discussion with the basics first: “what is a web portal?”
A web portal is a website serving as a single collective source for all kinds of information on a specific web domain. It deals with a wide variety of information in a way that is convenient for most users to handle no matter whether they are of a technical background or not.
Now, in this article, I have collected a comprehensive list of the latest tips and tricks to designing a business web portal in 2018. But before delving deep into it, I would like you to take a closer look at the different types of web portals in use today. So here you go.
The Different Types Of Web Portals
- Knowledge Portals
Knowledge portals are commonly found on the business intranet.
These portals help to enhance the efficiency of employees by providing convenient access to any professional information inside the workplace.
- Vertical Web Portals (Also known as VORTALS)
VORTALS or vertical web portals are designed to focus solely on a particular web domain or an industry.
VORTALS generally come in two forms:
- Commerce portals: These are purely made to support B2B and B2C e-commercial operations.
- Corporate portals: These are made for employee access to selected information of a particular company.
- Horizontal Web Portals
These portals stress on a variety of topics and interests and hence, target the entire internet community, as a whole.
Horizontal web portals are popularly known as “mega portals.” They also provide a perfect search engine functionality to the community for an impeccable user experience.
- Market Space Web Portals
These are made mainly for B2C and B2B e-commercial companies. Some of their significant functionalities include:
- Appropriate software support for online transactions.
- Unique ability to browse and access product information on the internet.
- Unique ability to share product listings with vendors in groups.
- Enterprise Web Portals
Similar to corporate VORTALS, enterprise web portals provide personalized and secured access to a whole range of data about a particular company.
So that concludes our “types of web portal” discussion. Let’s move on to the tips now.
Proven tips to designing a flawless business web portal in 2018
- Know your goals and your area of interest
Perhaps the first important step that you are going to take is to decide on the niche of your business (based on which your web portal’s going to work).
Try to come up with an answer to these questions ASAP:
- What kind of business web portal do you want?
- Do you think it has enough potential to survive the market competition?
- Will your portal be personal (like Yahoo!), regional, or just a hobby portal?
Proceed to the next step only after getting a clear answer to all of the questions highlighted above.
- Determine the common features of a general business web portal
Different web portals come with different features based on their requirements and functionalities.
So, do you even know the features that your business web portal need; ones that can turn it into a massive success in the long run? If you don’t, know it ASAP.
Note: Some of the most common web portal features are inclusive of things like:
- Chats
- Classifieds
- Photo galleries
- Personal profiles, and much more.
So what’s your choice going to be? Decide wisely.
- Identify your customer requirements and cater to their needs
By now, you should have a clear idea of your business goals and web portal features that you are going have on your website.
Your next step is to identify your targeted customer requirements and cater to their needs.
Remember, personalization always plays a crucial role in driving people to your website. So, if you can personalize your website to your customer needs and tastes, they will keep coming back to you again and again in the long run.
- Decide your web portal software
I prefer open-source web portal scripts for web portal development, and I would advise you to go for the same because of their zero price and faultless functionality.
As far as business web portal scripts are concerned, your options are certainly not limited in any possible manner. Here are a few examples for your reference:
- Dolphin,
- LifeRay,
- Osclass,
- DotNetNuke,
- UPortal, etc.
- Upload your portal software on your business website
Once you have decided on your web portal software, upload the same on your business platform.
Installation won’t be much of a problem because certain script-specific directions can help you reach your goal in no time.
Web portal uploads also require a good knowledge of MySQL because they usually run entirely on databases.
- Your web portal design should be made solely on the idea of generating maximum revenue in the long term
Let’s be honest. Why are you building a web portal? For business purposes and for earning revenues, as simple as that; right?
Do not ever waver from this reality.
I would, therefore, advise you to focus firmly on the frontend of your website and ensure that it is optimized in the best possible manner to simultaneously reduce bounce rate, and maximize profits, on the whole.
- Go for the feels; not just the looks
Modern website designing is all about user experience.
Your portal may have decent looks, but if there’s a problem with its accessibility, it’s going to suffer badly in the long run.
Therefore, I would advise you to simultaneously focus on the feels and the looks of your business website. Remember responsive web designing? Apply the same principle here, and you will be sorted for sure.
- Last but not the least, market your business portal
You must promote your portal on the World Wide Web via content marketing, Google Adwords, social media marketing, and several other SEO practices to gain more and more over time.
The entire process is time-consuming; but if you can do it the right way, you will be benefitted for sure.
So that essentially sums up our discussion for now. Hope the tips and tricks mentioned above come in helpful for your purpose. Goodbye and good luck!
Image Courtesy: Pixabay.com
