Website
•Website is a collection of related web pages that may contain text, images, audio, and video, etc.
•The first page of a website is called a home page.
•Each website has a specific internet address (URL) that we enter in browser to access a website.
•A website is hosted on one or more servers and can be accessed by visiting its homepage using a computer network.
•A website is managed by its owner that can be an individual, company, or organization.
•The first website was introduced on 6 August 1991.
•It was developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN.
•As of January 2018, there were around 1.7 billion websites on the internet.
What is the need for a website?
•A website is the first thing that appears on the screen of your Desktop/Laptop when we search for a product or service, or any other information online.
•So, it is very important to have a website whether a businessman, organization, online store, etc.
•Let us understand how a website can help us to grow any business!
The benefits of having a website are as follows:
1.Cost-effective:
•The marketing of products and services through a website is less costly than print advertising, TV, and radio advertising.
•It also allows to make changes related to any products and services such as can be edited products’ specifications, features, discount offers, etc.
2. Broder demographic reach:
•A website can help the business reach people with diverse backgrounds throughout the world.
3. Business credibility:
•Having a website that is user-friendly and professional looking for your business makes people consider your business more credible than others who don’t have a website to represent their businesses online.
4. 24/7 availability:
•You can keep your products available for sale around the clock through a website, customers can buy anytime, and thus earning more profits than a traditional storefront.
5. Consumer convenience:
•It improves the shopping experience of customers; they can buy the products from their home anytime or anywhere.
6. Build customer rapport:
•Online presence helps to build and maintain a rapport with customers. We can also give special offers or discounts for the loyal customers.
7. Improves productivity:
•It saves time as don’t need to explain the products or services to each customer separately, as all the information is already available on the website.
8. Educate your customers:
•We can educate people about the benefits of our products and can show them how they are betters than the competitors’ products.
9. Change location:
•We can move our business to another location without affecting the sales as customers still can find through our website.
10. Grow manpower:
•We can post job and vacant positions and allow applicants to check job descriptions and apply online.
11: Personalized email address:
•It allows us to set up personalized email addresses for employees, companies, partners, etc.
•We can receive mails on these mail ids and reply accordingly. Furthermore, you can share offers, happy hours, updates, and can get feedback through email.
12. Improve customer service:
•It allows us to improve customer services such as sharing phone numbers to contact us, and display other relevant information such as order status, delivery status, refund or replacement procedure, etc.
Types of Websites:
•A website can be of two types based on the type of webpages:
•Static Website
•Dynamic Website
Static website
•A static website, as the name suggests, is a website in which pages do not change or remain the same.
•It is the basic type of website that is easy to create, maintain, and host.
•You don’t need web programming and database design to create a static website.
•Its web pages are coded in HTML.
•The codes are fixed for each page, so the information contained in the page does not change, and it looks like a printed page.
•However, changes can be made by changing the codes if required.
•You can think of it as a brochure for a business that has the same information for every user.
•So, all users see the same information irrespective of their location, interests, etc., when they open a particular page of a static website.
•In the case of a static website, the content or web page is taken directly form the file stored in the server without requiring any interpreter (application software) to interact with a database to fetch data from the database.
•So, database and server-site scripting are not required in static websites.
Benefits of a Static Website:
•It takes less time to create a static website.
•It is less costly to develop this website.
•The web pages are delivered at high speed by the servers.
•Hosting through dedicated servers is available at a low price.
•It is more secure than dynamic sites as it does not rely on CMS plugins and server-side scripting.
Dynamic website
•A dynamic website is a collection of dynamic web pages whose content changes dynamically.
•It accesses content from a database or Content Management System (CMS).
•Therefore, when we alter or update the content of the database, the content of the website is also altered or updated.
•A dynamic website uses client-side scripting or server-side scripting, or both to generate the dynamic content.
•For example, a Facebook page may appear different to different users as per their friends’ list, interests, location, etc.
Benefits of a Dynamic Website:
- It is very quick and easy to make changes in a dynamic website as it is integrated with high-end programming.
2. The webpages are easier to maintain despite of being full of information and graphics.
3. E-commerce sites are dynamic as they need to be impressive and have easy navigation from one page to other pages.
4. It makes your site look professional.
5. The users can get customized information as per their interests, needs, and profile, etc. For example, facebook.com, flipkart.com, etc.
Types of Websites (based on their purpose, target audience, etc.)
1.Blog:
•It is a type of website that provides information or in which posts are added regularly, latest post or entries on top of the main page, and old ones towards the bottom.
•A blog is usually owned by a single person or a small group of people.
•The content in a blog is written in an informal style and can be focused on one subject or a wide range of related subjects.
•Furthermore, the posts are organized into categories if required, e.g., posts that provide similar information can be kept in a separate category.
•The information is regularly updated in a blog, e.g., articles, photos, and videos are added on a daily basis to keep readers engaged and increase the traffic to the blog.
•It also allows readers to leave a comment about the posts.
2. E-commerce:
•These types of websites are like online shops where people can buy products through online payment from the comfort of their home, office, etc.
•Anyone who wants to sell products online can create an E-commerce site instead of investing in setting up a traditional shop.
3. Informational:
•These websites are created to provide free online information to users, e.g., tutorials, news, general knowledge-based sites.
•Today, we don’t need to visit libraries to read a book, newspaper, novel, etc. owing to the presence of lots of informational sites.
4. Online Community:
•These sites offer a platform to interact and share ideas with others through internet.
•We can find people with similar interests and backgrounds and interact with them to fulfil your objectives that may include promoting a product or service, taking feedback about your products, or asking questions related to a survey.
5. Social Media:
•These sites are created to provide users a platform where they can build their personal profiles with a lot of features such as creating a friend list, sending and accepting friend requests, sending messages, creating and joining groups, and share information with others users, comment on others’ post, pictures, videos, etc.
6. Brochure:
•It is the simplest type of website which comprises few pages.
•It is used by small businesses to have a simple online presence or to provide an overview of their business.
•Such websites are generally static where the content does not change, i.e., the same information is displayed to all users.
7. Non-profit:
•The sites are created to raise money for social causes such as to provide free medical treatment to poor, free basic education to children, free food to children to prevent malnutrition, etc.
