The 12 types of Websites

We all know it. The Internet is packed with hundreds of thousands of websites. Some of them we visit every day and some others have content we cannot even think about. However, 99% percent of all the pages we will ever visit while surfing, can be labelled under one of these twelve types of websites that I am going to briefly describe today.

1. Portfolio Website

Portfolio websites are one of the simplest types of websites. They are conformed by just 1-5 pages and they tend to showcase information about the company or the person in a very attractive way. It is mostly used by people in the creative field. A lot of visuals are utilized to display what we could call a online resume and the goal is to get familiar with the works and experience of the represented entity. Whilst it is true that all websites try to align and represent the ideas and style of the creator, in this specific case we can feel that more openly.

2. Personal Website

Personal websites are often mistaken for portfolio websites and there's a good reason for it. They contain very similar content, except in this type of place, the owner can also share things such as blog posts, thoughts, articles or basically anything he desires. It is literally his personal space and it doesn't have the manifest intention of attracting the eye of an employer or possible business partner.

3. Blog

Websites that are constantly updated with new content in the form of posts or articles, belong to the 'blog' category. These sites can be managed by one or many people. Sometimes even companies. They tend to specify on a certain topic (e.g. news, sports, history, music, geography...). A good management system and their simplicity in their use are main characteristics of blogs. Blogs can also be a small part within a larger website, as we can observe in many big companies sites.

4. Businesses

A business is doomed to fail unless it has a website. It is becoming less and less usual that a company doesn't have a web. These types of sites contain all the necessary information where a business can share what they offer, awards, past examples of work, reviews, explain in detail what is their product or service about and just about anything that helps tell the story of what the business does and how it helps people.

5. E-Commerce

An e-commerce is nothing more and nothing else than an online shop. Like in any shop, here you can buy products or services. Regardless of if the business has already an off-line presence or not, the aim of the e-commerce is the same: to reach a bigger number of potential customers. These websites are very secure and focus on making your journey from first contact to check out very smooth and simple.

6. Social Media

We all are in some sort of social media website. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are just a few examples of this type of places. These sites allow people to upload posts, videos, pictures and foments all kinds of interactions within people. They're also used by companies and businesses to update their followers with news, promotions or anything with short notice in a fast way.

7. Membership

When we offer any content to the user that requires to pay or to have some kind of special registration, we are facing a membership website. Places with online courses are a very simple example of these websites. They normally look professional and stylish to provoke a FOMO feeling in the user which doesn't have access to the content.

8. Wiki or forum

The internet wouldn't be the internet without the Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the top 1 place for obtaining knowledge. This kind of website differentiates itself from the others because it's content is built in a collaborative way with many other users. It's like a repository of knowledge, made and curated by the community. Because of the open nature of this websites, their designs tend to be very plain and inconsistent.

9. Magazine and news

A news site is very similar to a blog site, with the difference that they are, in theory, objective and not based on personal likes or opinions. They are properly organized by categories and topics and are updated very very often, as in this case they have many competitors and the one with the freshest content (or the biggest clickbait) tends to get the visitors.

10. Video Streaming

A hybrid between a social media and a news website. As its name reveals, this place is focused on video content and other websites refer to this ones to embed audiovisual content. They're sometimes the membership type as some of the content in them can be premium.

11. Web portals

Web portals are usually very big sites with hundreds of pages. They're hard to maintain uniform and consistent due to this fact. They're used mostly but universities, governmental sites and other public sites which contain a lot of information. Users like student or employees can log in and access private resources and files.

12. Landing pages

The most common one-page website is the landing page. They're totally focused on making you perform a certain action, be it subscribe to a newsletter, purchase a product or download a new app. They're basically a huge advertisement which try to catch your attention by explaining you why you need what they offer. They tend to have very nice designs.

So that was it, in the eyes of the industry experts these are the categories in which you can put almost all websites you encounter every day. Then, of course, you have places like Jetpunk.com. Into which category do you think this website would fall? Let me know in the comments!