Website Components
Your Website might consist of the following 'components'.
The Core Website Pages
The core site pages are the body of the website and will convey the information about the products, services and organisation.
A simple five page website might consist of the following pages:
- Home
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Services
- Links
The core site can be further categorised as brochure pages (eg Home, About, Contact, Links) or catalogue pages which normally hold products.
If the website is an e-commerce website then each product will feature a Buy Button which will allow the shopper to add a product from the catalogue to their 'basket'. The basket forms an important part of the shop.
The Shop
The shop pages (sometimes known as checkout pages) allow the shopper to manage their 'basket' and 'checkout'. They can add or remove products, view the shipping and tax charges, pay for them and specify the delivery information.
Usually shoppers are taken to a secure third party to to specify sensitive payment information like credit card details. For more information on payment options see our E-commerce page.
Some websites like Paypal offer website owners, known as merchants, the opportunity to integrate their website with a Paypal shop. In this instance the entire shop is hosted on Paypal's website.
Web Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content Management Systems are software systems which manage content and are usually used in situations where there are many editors. Editors can be assigned 'rights' of access and tasks. Such systems have become very relevant in the context of the world wide web.
Because web content management systems allow for the separation of content from the 'technical' they make it easy for one, or many, to manage a website and publish content. The web content can be anything from product price lists, to news pages, images, movies or directory listings.
Web Content Management Systems are particularly useful in situations where a site needs to be updated frequently, or if there is more than one editor, or simply because the website editor wishes to make changes independantly of the website developers.
The website editor logs in to a password protected area and updates content using a standard web browser such as the one being used to view this page. The content of the site is normally held in a database on the web server which is hosting the website. Websites which use databases are called 'dynamic' websites.
Many of the most high profile websites on the world wide web today, such as the social networking My Space and the video sharing You Tube, rely on web content management systems.
