What Web Portal Development Is
The era of digital transformation has come! Business and technology go hand in hand. The two worlds have got tightly connected recently. Now literally everything has the “web” or “digital” prefix.
You must have heard about web portal development and probably thought it would benefit your business. But do you actually understand what it is and why you need one? We’ve got all the answers you’ve been looking for! Let’s figure it out together.
So first things first. A web portal is a single point of access to a number of features a company provides. In other words, such a digital space allows for serving the ultimate needs of customers, partners, or service users via an easy-to-navigate interface. The information given is well-structured and accessed by certain links.
How businesses benefit from web portals
A web portal makes it possible for your content’s systematic structure and therefore drives user engagement. It optimizes a lot of business operations and solves a number of corporate problems such as:
- Keeping users constantly updated.
- Effective documentation management.
- Targeting specific groups of users.
- Employee training and managing scheduling, workflow, human resources affairs, etc.
- Security issues.
- Complex and pricey maintenance.
As you can see, custom web portal development brings a myriad of gains. Check out the main benefits your enterprise will enjoy with web portal development services:
- Extensive versatility means users can easily access company information across multiple devices.
- Robust security.
- Optimized onboarding and new employee training with the help of a single access point of information.
- Higher retention and MRR (monthly recurring revenue) rates are achieved through streamlined processes. This drives customer loyalty.
- Smooth integration and customization.
- Personalized experience and increased customer satisfaction is the right way to boost your company’s success.
- Quick access to valuable business data. Web portals allow efficient information updates, reviews, and extraction, therefore, enhancing productivity.
Web portal or website: how to not get confused
Web portal and website – many people get confused with the two terms. Aren’t they the same? Well, no. Even though they have similar characteristics, there is a slight difference you should know.
Both website and web portal are online solutions accessed via a unique web address (i.e. URL). However, their purposes differ. That is why, websites and web portals aren’t interchangeable.
We’ve brought together several key features differentiating web portals from websites. Take a look at the following comparison table to get a complete understanding:
| Web Portal | Website |
|---|---|
| A web-based solution that contains information aggregated from multiple sources | A collection of similar web pages under the same domain name |
| Accessed via URL plus login | Accessed via URL |
| Can be modified by any authorized user | Can be modified by the website admin only |
| Created for specific groups of users | Covers broad audience |
| Developed as a single access point for authorized individuals | Designed to create a digital presence for business and this way drive traffic |
| Complex interaction via forms, checkboxes, etc. | Simple communication |
Let’s sum it up. The main purpose of a website lies in raising brand awareness and presenting the business to the world. A website conveys relevant messages to everyone who might be interested in the services or products. At the same time, it does not require any active user participation.
A web portal, in its turn, has a bit more specific goal as it aims to provide a particular group of individuals with some particular information. The content is dynamic and changed as per users’ input.
An Ultimate Guide To The Web Portal Development Process
Web development is currently in very high demand. The global web development market worth is expected to reach $89+ billion by 2027 (Market Growth Reports). These numbers serve as excellent proof, don’t they?
It makes no sense to repeat a thousand times how beneficial web portal development services are. In this section, we invite you to closely explore the web portal development process along with each step.
It always should start with proper planning and preparation. First of all, take enough time to research web portal development service providers and choose your perfect partner. Make sure you trust your ideas to seasoned experts who see eye to eye with you. Making the right decision requires checking numerous portfolios and reviews. For this, go to Clutch, GoodFirms, or similar.
Digiteum is one of the leading custom web portal developers to consider. The studio offers an extensive range of services and delivers secure user-centric web products.
Once a reliable web portal development company is found, you can move on to the most interesting yet challenging processes.
Collecting requirements
It’s essential to grasp all the client requirements clearly in order to deliver a solution as per the expectations. The following facts must be taken into consideration:
- Target audience
- Business strengths, weaknesses, and competitors
- Main tasks and objectives which are supposed to be achieved with the web portal
Every detail must be discussed to avoid potential misunderstandings.
Conceptualizing and planning
This phase involves forming a general idea of what the solution might look like. There are different portal types you should explore to define the option that will work out best for your business. The most common types are:
- B2B and B2C portals
- E-commerce portals
- eLearning portals
- Employee portals
- Membership portals
- Partner portals
- Patient portals
- Real Estate portals
- Community portals
Design and Prototyping
UX and UI designers collaborate to build the user interface and prepare the visual side of the product. A web portal mockup gives the idea of how the project will be implemented and how users will interact with it.
Development
Before you get down to engineering, a proper tech stack and programming language must be selected. And finally, the development starts. Based on the prototype, the idea is brought to life through coding.
Web portal development rests entirely upon software development methodologies. According to Statista, the most common are:
- Agile with Scrum and its variants being the most common methodologies (Knowledgehut)
- DevOps
- Waterfall
Testing
You must never launch a product that hasn’t undergone rigorous testing. Customers are very picky these days. They do not forgive mistakes. After all, critical issues may lead to huge financial losses and reputation damage. Around 82% of professionals are quite reliant on their QA and testing resources with approximately 83% also agreeing these are a must-have for their business (Software Testing News).
The testing phase involves detecting bugs and other weaknesses and fixing them so that the web portal works seamlessly.
Deployment
When all errors are located, reported, and managed, the portal can be deployed and real-time performance evaluation takes place.
Ongoing maintenance
If you think the web portal development team’s work stops once the portal is up and running, you’re mistaken. Ongoing maintenance is crucial. It involves regular performance control and timely updates. This way you can be sure you’re not left behind but rather stay competitive.
Endnotes
It goes without saying that web portals bring a whole pack of significant benefits. They’re gaining momentum right now so we can surely predict them to become the next generation for the desktop environment.
The area of web portal development has been evolving rapidly and this process seems unstoppable. We expect portals to expand their influence in a variety of more sophisticated forms.
Order web portal development services to streamline your business operations and gain a competitive edge!
