In marketing real estate, a business’s website is one of the largest assets. It is necessary as it brings a significant amount of legitimacy and marketing power to a company. There are many options for building a website. So many that it can overwhelm a person that doesn’t speak web talk. Choosing the platform the website uses to function is essential, as is a company’s domain name and hosting. The wrong platform can cost business owners time and money. Not to worry, though! We will break it down all here over the next couple of issues.
First, let’s briefly discuss the difference between a domain, hosting, and web platform.
If your website were a house, your domain would be the street address, and the hosting would be the lot it sits on. Your web platform is made up of two parts within the house.
1. The structure Codes, plugins, and scripts that make the website function. They are the plumbing and electrical of your home.
2. The aesthetics Colors, fonts, graphics, and layout.
Once you carefully choose a domain befitting your company that is easy to remember and type, you will want to buy your hosting, so the website has a place to live. However, this is where choosing a platform starts to become important. Some platforms include hosting, and some do not. There are three categories that most websites fall into. It will be the functionality needed and budget available that will ultimately make this decision for you. None are wrong. They are just all different. Part of a good user experience plan is knowing which platform will satisfy your goals without overloading your operations team or breaking the budget.
We’ll start with an overview this month for a comparison that can help you decide which category your website may feel good in.
While considering the above chart, list the functions you may need to help find a good fit. What’s the primary purpose of your site? Is it primarily a portfolio site? Or do you need a shop? Is a blog vital to you? Are you selling services? Do you have an email platform like Klavio or Constant Contact that needs integration into the website?
Before you make your decision, check out our next piece, where we talk about how a good design pro (like us–humble brag) can work within the constraints of modular and semi-custom websites to get a branded custom feel so you aren’t locked into the blocky cookie-cutter look that comes out of the box.
Author and Editor: Jennifer Hart