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Web Site Types - Site design is driven by site scope and purpose

Why try to make your web site like Dell if you are not Dell?

It is not unusual for businesses that are working on their first web site to want to pattern their site after the "big guys". After all, the big guys obviously know what they are doing, so why not just copy their efforts that they probably spent millions of dollars on? There is some merit to this argument, but when looking at an overall site design it might make more sense to look at companies that are more similar to your own. Remember, there is a reason that those sites cost millions of dollars, and you might not have that high of a budget for your web site. This discussion will provide a more realistic view of what could or should be achieved, and certainly will make much more sense financially.

The "big guys" - thousands of pages, database driven, millions of dollars

Let's start with the big guys. You can take your pick of any big corporation: Microsoft, Dell, IBM, General Motors, Ford, etc. If you look at the web sites of these big companies, you will see that the general layout and design is somewhat similar. But it does not necessarily make sense to copy that for every company. These are huge companies with all sorts of products and services so their home page effectively becomes a portal to a huge mass of information about what they offer. If you just offer a handful of products and services, there are probably more simple and effective ways for you to get your message across.

These web sites are truly gigantic, and they are highly likely to be database-driven. In other words, the individual web pages are not designed and produced one at a time as individual entities, they are virtually created on-the-fly through the magic of database programming. The bottom line is that these web sites are produced by huge teams of programmers, and the investment is in the millions of dollars. The web presence may be run from within the company or through an outside agency. Either way, if you fall into that category, you are highly unlikely to be reading this page!

The "medium guys" - hundreds of pages, not so much money

Take a step down to a smaller-size company. Maybe this company has enough products and services to generate a hundred or even a few hundred web pages showing the features, benefits, and technical information that their customers want to see. This type of web site has the possibility of being entirely created "flat", in other words, one web page at a time. This doesn't mean that every single page is built from scratch, it means that the site is not database-driven. The site designer would most likely create a template for the web pages and then fill them in with the required content: text, pictures, even animation and videos. If you fall into this category, you have a good chance to build a nice-looking, effective web presence at a reasonable price - something in the thousands of dollars. The general look and feel of the site might look somewhat similar to the big guys, but the underlying structure will be much simpler.

The "small guys" - a handful of pages, very little money

Another step smaller is an even smaller company. Examples would be restaurants (non-chain), specialty stores, barber shops, independent consultants, etc. There are literally thousands upon thousands of such companies in the United States. A basic web presence can be valuable to such companies so their customers can easily locate important information such as services offered, physical location/directions, phone numbers, operating hours etc. It is possible to design and host a site for a company of this size for a few hundred dollars. Again, an effective and interesting design is possible without all of the expense and overhead that the larger sites might have.

The "others" - artsy, crazy, personal

There are many other kinds of websites in the huge world of the internet. These include movie sites, art sites, fan sites, blogs, and of course the personal web site of practically anyone with an internet connection and a desire to place themselves there. There are virtually no rules for these sites - anything goes and anything and everything is tried. Since most of these sites are not directly business-driven, they are more free to try different designs.

If you need to build a web site, build it to your own size

If you take this simple point of view, it should make sense that you should invest in a web presence that makes sense to your own size. If you are trying to find a company to do the work for you, you may get discouraged when they confuse you with lots of complicated web-programming lingo and price quotations that seem far out of reach. But there are many different companies and web programmers that are available to you, so shop around and find someone that you are comfortable with, and you will come out ahead.

References

For more information about types of web sites and the business of having a web presence for your business, these two books are highly recommended.

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