Now that you know that you need a website, the next thing to realize, it what type of website will best suite your needs. Believe it or not, there are several options for website types as well as website styles.

The style of your website can adapt to your occupation or your personality; it can define your social connection, or arouse subjective response.

There is however, two main classifications for website types: Static and Dynamic. Basically, Static websites are passive, fixed, and disengaged, while Dynamic websites are inter-active, transformable, convertable, and can function collaboratively.

Standard Static Websites

Standard - in the sense that this type displays information. The Static website's major purpose is to attract attention and interest, either specific or general, and to convey a message to its viewers. Although it's relatively simple, you can add text, images, audio and video, and server-side applications, such as Javascript, Java, Flash, and Ajax applications.

Examples of a Static website include:

• Brochure Websites
• Personal Home Pages
• Splash and Squeeze Pages
• Sales Page Letters
• OTO, One Time Offers
  

Advantages

• Quick and easy to put together, even by someone who doesn't have much experience.
• Ideal for demonstrating how a site will look.
• Cache friendly, one copy can be shown to many people.

Disadvantages

• Difficult to maintain when a site gets large.
• Difficult to keep consistent and up to date.
• Offers little visitor personalization (all would have to be client side).

Although the Static website does not allow collection of information, such as employing a contact form, many sites will either place a dynamic coded page or dynamic coding within an HTML file for this purpose. Another alternative is to use form hosting services such as Foxyform.com. They offer free form editing and hosting.

And to get around the problem of changing and updating your website, we can add class declarations for content management, using the free services of CushyCMS.

Dynamic Programmed Websites

A Dynamic website employs special coding. And the coding comes only from highly experianced (and usually highly paid) programmers. If you were to build a Dynamic website from scratch, just one page could cost over $2,000.

This is why most Dynamic website owners use PHP and "open source software" programs. The term open source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software; hence, it's FREE- see Wikipedia.org for a complete definition.

Even though you may be using these free scripts, a Dynamic website will generally cost more to build (especially an eCommerce site), as there are more variables to consider. And some web applications may need program modifications, leading to more cost considerations.

One alternative is to use JavaScript programs that run on a user's local computer rather than being activated at the website's server, as Dynamic pages are. JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages on the web and one of the easier languages to learn. Visit our Web Apps page to view some of these.

Dynamic websites do not have web pages stored on the server in the same form as the user will view them. Instead, the web page content changes automatically and/or frequently based on certain criteria. It can also generate information on the hop each time a page is requested.

Examples of a Dynamic website include:

• CMS, Content Management Systems
• eCommerce Websites
• Membership Sites
• Traffic Exchanges
• Forums / Message Boards
• Blogs

Advantages

• Easy and fast to change and update, even for a computer novice.
• Offers visitor personalization and collaborative content.
• Provides extra functionality that otherwise cannot be achieved.

Disadvantages

• Time consuming to put together, even by someone who has experience.
• Initially, these are a lot more expensive.
• Can be exploited and hacked into if not done right.

In retrospect, the determination of whether to have a Static site, a Dynamic site, or a combination of the two is determined by the functional requirements of the website and the capabilities of the web server with respect to script execution and processing power.