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Table of Content
Blog Summary:
This post covers complete information regarding Web Portal Development to help you accomplish your project hassle-free. Whether you wish to explore web portal development steps, costs, challenges, or best practices, you can find everything here. We have also covered the types, needs, and benefits of web portals. So, let’s start now!
Table of Content
As per Statista, the total number of smartphone users worldwide was 4.25 billion in 2023, which is projected to reach up to 6 billion in 2027. This figure has encouraged many business owners to go for web portal development to target the increasing number of smartphone users.
Through a custom web portal development, they can deliver a unified digital experience to users.
Another advantage of the web portal is that it helps enterprises automate their business processes and improve productivity and ROI. Meanwhile, developing a web portal requires a proper strategy to complete the project successfully. Here, we will discuss a complete guide to web portal development to make your task easy.
A web portal serves as a one-stop platform for users to gather a variety of information. Apart from crucial information, users can explore services, resources, etc. The web portal uses different sources to extract data, be it applications or search engines. It presents information with a user-friendly interface.
One of the major attributes of a web portal is that it can be personalized based on users’ specific needs. It gives users the flexibility to customize their experience by selecting the type of website content they wish to see and how it should be displayed.
Some of the top web portal examples include Khan Academy (an e-learning portal), IBM W3 (corporate intranets), and Salesforce Service Cloud (a customer service portal).
| Points of Differences | Website | Web Portal |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | A website is a collection of different web pages under a single domain. | A web portal serves as a single access point that offers different information, resources, services, etc., from multiple sources. |
| Key Objective | The major purpose of a website is to provide information and display and promote products and services. | It serves as a personalized gateway and lets users explore a range of services, information, etc. |
| Scope of User Interaction | A website offers limited user interaction as it offers one-way communication. | Endless user interaction by allowing users to personalize, customize, and interact with a range of services. |
| Type of Content | A website can include either static or dynamic content | It gathers information from multiple sources and presents them to users. |
| Scope of Personalization | A website presents content to every user in the same format. | With a portal, users get the flexibility to personalize their interface and content based on their preferences. |
| Access Control | A website can be accessed by every user unless restricted by membership requirements or admin. | To access a portal, users must complete a complete authorization process to access specific information and services. |
A web portal brings vast opportunities for businesses to redefine their operational capability and thus lets them grab a plethora of growth opportunities. Let’s explore many other reasons why you need a web portal for your business.
A perfectly designed web portal accompanied by an intuitive and user-friendly interface helps businesses improve user experience. It allows users, stakeholders, employees, and others to easily find the content that they look for based on their interests, improving user engagement.
Web portals play a vital role in streamlining your business process. They can integrate different databases, systems, tools, etc., into a single platform, thus minimizing manual intervention.
This integration is beneficial for smooth communication between different departments and leads to improved workflow management. It also drives the decision-making process. The integration is crucial to enhance productivity and minimize operational costs.
A web portal functions as a centralized hub for accessing important resources and information. It offers a single access point that ensures the accuracy and consistency of data, whether for internal use by staff or external use by stakeholders and customers.
A web portal can make content management much easier by letting users access the most updated content quickly.
There are different types of web portals available based on content, target audience, functionality, etc. We will explore here some of the most popular types of web portals:
As one of the well-known forms of web portals, horizontal portals serve as a comprehensive platform that includes a wide spectrum of topics. And cater to a wide audience. Be it entertainment, weather, sports, news, or financial information, these portals provide a variety of information.
The main objective of horizontal portals is to entice a diverse range of users by offering something for everyone. The best examples of these portals include Yahoo, MSN, and others. Being versatile, a horizontal portal allows users to customize their experience based on their specific interests.
Vertical portals are just opposite to horizontal portals and include information regarding specific industries or niches. These portals are considered to be highly valuable in their respective fields and cater to users by providing specialized content.
Top examples of these portals include WebMD (healthcare), Educaweb (education), Expedia (travel), and others. These portals feature specific information in their relevant fields. Be it expert opinions, detailed articles, or forums, these portals include everything.
Enterprise web portals are the other most popular types of web portals used by organizations mainly for internal use. These portals offer centralized access to applications, tools, and also corporate information.
Employees, stakeholders, and clients can access enterprise portals for various purposes, including project collaboration, improved workflow, and more.
The major advantage of these portals is they can be integrated with a variety of functions like CRM (customer relationship management), human resources applications, document management, etc.
That’s why these portals are necessary for increasing production within an organization. IBM WebSphere and Microsoft SharePoint are the best examples of these portals.
Marketplace portals play an intermediary role between buyers and sellers. They display products from different vendors and allow buyers to explore, compare, and purchase products. By bringing many products under one roof, these portals allow customers to get everyone under one roof.
On the other hand, it also facilitates sellers’ targeting a broader customer base and generating higher revenue. Marketplace portals allow customers to make payments online for the products that they purchase.
These portals include complete details related to every product, be it ratings, features, user reviews, or images. Some of the best examples of marketplace portals include Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba, and others.
Service-based portals offer online services in a particular field to serve their target audience. They can be either travel booking portals, job searching portals, e-learning portals, or online banking portals.
These portals serve their actual purpose to offer comprehensive solutions for a specific service area, including customer support, resources, etc.
Top examples of these portals include LinkedIn, Zoho Desk, and more. These portals are designed to be user-centric and evolve continuously to match the changing user demands and also technological advancements.
A custom web portal provides numerous advantages and helps organizations grab plenty of growth opportunities. Let’s discuss here each benefit of a custom web portal in detail:
Custom web portals are effective in boosting collaboration among departments, staff, and even stakeholders to streamline the internal process. By centralizing documents, data, and various communication tools; they eliminate the necessity of many processes and different systems.
These portals thus minimize errors and also save time. The integrated environment ensures real-time collaboration and also information sharing, which leads to improved productivity and fast decision-making.
A custom web portal can improve the efficiency of any business in various ways, such as tracking tasks, managing projects, or sharing updates.
One of the major advantages of a custom web portal is its capability to offer a tailored user experience. These portals are designed based on specific user requirements and preferences. They boast an intuitive user interface, which allows staff, buyers, and stakeholders to find exactly the right information they need.
A custom web portal includes many features, such as customized navigation, personalized dashboard, user-specific content, etc., which boost user engagement and satisfaction. These features also improve customer trust and loyalty. By incorporating a responsive design, these portals can offer a seamless experience across multiple devices.
Data is an asset for any organization, so organizations must ensure its security and manage it effectively. The most interesting fact about a custom web portal is that it has enormous capabilities for data management. It can integrate data from different sources into a centralized system. It enhances data accessibility and also maintains data consistency and accuracy.
Custom web portals are packed with cutting-edge security features to cater to business-specific requirements. These features generally include multi-factor authentication, data encryption, role-based access controls, etc. It ensures the complete safety of sensitive information from potential threats.
Another advantage of custom web portals is they open up various new opportunities for revenue generation and foster business growth. These portals are the right platforms for upselling and cross-selling various products since they can offer personalized recommendations based on user behavior and preferences.
With a web portal, customer relationship management can access insight into customer feedback, needs, etc. This helps them draft targeted marketing strategies and thus enhance customer retention.
A custom web portal is effective in improving the buying experience of users with features like order management, payment gateways, inventory tracking, and more. These are effective in increasing the sales and revenue of an organization.
Scalability and flexibility are other great attributes of a custom web portal. As businesses grow, their requirements grow and change. The portal can scale with the growth of an organization. It allows integration of the latest features, functionalities, modules, etc., even without the necessity of changes from scratch.
This flexibility makes a custom web portal relevant and meets the changing needs of users and businesses. Besides, these portals can be integrated with various third-party apps, which makes them versatile. This gives portals the ability to adapt to an organization’s changing ecosystem.
The process of designing and developing a web portal involves a systematic approach and involves numerous steps. Let’s explore all those steps one by one:
The first step of web portal development involves gathering business requirements, understanding target customers, primary goals, etc. During this phase, the development team conducts a meeting with clients and discusses the thing in detail. After this, they identify important features, functionalities, user expectations, etc.
The next phase involves selecting the right technology stack for creating a powerful and scalable web portal. The development team selects the right frameworks, programming languages, hosting platforms, databases, etc., to better align project requirements.
While selecting the technology stack, the development team considers numerous factors, such as team expertise, budget, scalability, and future maintenance.
During this phase, designers craft a user-friendly and luring interface. Proper UI/UX design is necessary to ensure an intuitive layout, smooth navigation, and positive user experience. It involves various activities such as wireframing, prototyping, and designing the layout of the web portal.
The design team focuses on crafting a responsive design that is more accessible. They ensure the web portal design is easy to use across multiple devices and screen sizes.
After the design is completed and approved, the team starts web portal development. This phase involves developing both the front and back end, where functionalities are developed and then integrated.
Front-end developers focus on implementing the complete UI design using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Quite the contrary, back-end development is about developing server-side logic and database integration. It also ensures smooth communication between the front end and back end.
After the development phase, QA experts conduct rigorous testing to ensure its smooth function. Quality assurance is necessary to check and resolve bugs and issues before launching the final product, making it highly secure and reliable.
These professionals conduct a variety of tests, such as usability testing, security testing, performance testing, functionality testing, and compatibility testing. They ensure the web portal functions as expected and is free from bugs.
After testing, it’s time to deploy the newly developed web portal to a real-world environment. The process includes various activities such as setting up the hosting server, configuring the domain, and a smooth launch.
Once deployment is completed successfully, ongoing maintenance becomes vital to keeping the portal secure, updated, and perfectly aligned with emerging business requirements. This includes performance monitoring, regular security updates, user support, etc.
Now, you might be wondering about the cost of developing a custom web portal, right? You need to understand that the cost is not fixed—it varies based on several factors, such as the number of features, the scope of the project, and complexity.
A portal with some basic features costs less than those that boast next-generation features. The cost estimation of web portal development also depends on its type.
If you develop a web portal with basic information, it may cost between $15000 and $30,000. On the other hand, developing a web portal for enterprise or eCommerce may cost between $50,000 and $150,000. The price tends to go up based on custom and scalability needs.
Ongoing maintenance and updates are pivotal for the longevity and smooth functionality of web portals. It includes costs for security updates, server hosting, integrating several new features, bug fixing, and more as the business grows.
Maintenance cost is approximately 20% to 25% of the initial development cost every year. So, one needs to plan well for initial and ongoing support to ensure their web portals are updated and secure.
Web portal development services face various challenges, from security and scalability to integration. Addressing these challenges is vital to developing a powerful and high-performing web portal.
Some of these common challenges are as follows;
Remember that web portals are prone to cyber threats, such as unauthorized access, data breaches, malware attacks, and more. Therefore, you need to implement the top security measures, such as multi-factor authentication and data encryption.
With the growth of the business, web applications and portals must be capable of handling the increased data and traffic even without compromising performance. Developing a scalable architecture from scratch lets the portal scale smoothly.
Integrating with databases, third-party systems, and applications is common. Poor integration leads to operational inefficiencies and data inconsistencies, making secure and smooth data exchange protocols necessary.
Agile methodologies advocate for iterative development, quick adjustment, and continuous feedback. It allows teams to respond to changes and deliver superior-quality web portals.
A user-centric design is crucial for creating an intuitive and smooth user experience. To ensure the portal can match users’ needs and preferences, user research, usability testing, and user personas must be conducted.
It’s good to implement certain effective tips to ensure the success of your web portal development project. Let’s discuss some of these crucial tips;
Discover how a custom web portal can optimize your operations and drive growth. Let’s build the future together.
Web portals have been vital to business operations for several years. In the coming years, web portals in businesses are expected to be redefined by trends such as AI-driven experience, integration with next-generation technologies, improved privacy and security, etc.
Before you start your web portal development project, you must define its key objective, the requirements of your target audience, the market scenario, etc.
You need to understand every step, challenge, and best practice of portal development. It’s advisable to hire an experienced web portal development company that can do justice to your project.
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Jayanti Katariya is the CEO of Moon Technolabs, a fast-growing IT solutions provider, with 18+ years of experience in the industry. Passionate about developing creative apps from a young age, he pursued an engineering degree to further this interest. Under his leadership, Moon Technolabs has helped numerous brands establish their online presence and he has also launched an invoicing software that assists businesses to streamline their financial operations.
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