Web Portal Development: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction

Should we repeat a thousand times that the era of digital transformation has finally come? It’s obvious since the evolution of numerous fields depends largely on the integration of the latest technological innovations. Businesses of different sizes are actively adopting the most buzzing advancements. Their number keeps growing increasingly. 

These days business and technology go hand in hand and literally everything has the “web” or “digital” prefix. 

A digital transformation is no longer an option but a prerequisite. But at first, it seems too complex to comprehend, plan, and conduct. There are so many unknown terms you may come across and get confused. 

If you’re into this topic, you must have heard about web portal development. But do you fully understand what it means and why a business may need one? 

We’ve got all the answers you’ve been searching for! Go on reading and find out all the benefits and challenges associated with web portal development services. Moreover, we’ve outlined the steps of a web portal development process. Join us on this amazing journey!

Web portal VS Website: The principal difference

Before we dive deeper into web portal development, let’s deal with the basics. What is a web portal and isn’t it the same as a website? Let’s take it step by step.

A web portal is often confused with a website because the two have several common characteristics however they are not identical. There’s a slight difference you should know. 

Websites as well as web portals are online solutions that can be accessed via a unique web address (i.e. URL). But they aren’t interchangeable by no means because they are created with different purposes in mind. 

A web portal serves as a gateway or entry point to a variety of resources and services by offering a unified interface that aggregates content and tools from different sources in a single location. Portals are developed for specific audiences or industries with a wide range of features, such as user authentication, content aggregation, collaboration tools, and more.

A website is a collection of related web pages containing various types of content, such as text, images, videos, and links. Websites are meant to be informative, engaging, and user-friendly. 

There are a few more critical features differentiating web portals from websites. take a look at the comparative table to get a broad overview:

Taking all these facts into account, we can conclude the following: a website is supposed to create a digital presence for a business and educate anyone who is interested in a particular product or service. When it comes to portals, these web solutions are designed to convey specific information to a particular category of users. Additionally, the web portal’s content is dynamic and modified based on users’ input.

How businesses benefit from web portal development

Businesses can derive numerous benefits and solve several problems by developing and implementing web portals tailored to their specific needs. See how web portals help to optimize workflows and what gains they bring:

• Advanced customer experience and engagement that leads to an increase in loyalty
• Higher retention rates
• Enhanced personalization
• Fast and user-friendly communication
• Better efficiency through automation
• Centralized access to valuable information that also ensures safety both on the business and consumers’ end
• Meaningful data-driven insights
• Efficient resource management and cost savings
• Revenue growth
• Enhanced documentation management
• Streamlined employee training

This list proceeds to grow as technology is advancing. Your business can benefit significantly and see rapid growth in the case of proper web portal development. 

Get started with web portal development

Web portal development services are currently in high demand due to the advantages they provide. According to the Market Growth Reports, the global web development market worth is expected to reach $89+ billion by 2027.

Now that you have a complete understanding of a web portal, its characteristic features, and the bonuses it comes along with, we can move on to the main part, namely the web portal development process. It consists of several phases which all require close attention. In general, the development cycle does not differ much from any other web-based solution creation process. However, there are some things to point out. Let’s explore everything down to the smallest detail right now!

Collecting requirements

It’s essential to properly grasp the client’s requirements for the portal and understand the key objectives. It takes exploring specific business needs, considering relevant regulatory constraints, and so on in order to make sure the product will be developed as per the expectations. For this, developers have to get as much clarity as possible. At this stage, the following information is taken into account:

• The target audience
• The required features 
• The strengths, weaknesses, and the activity of competitors
• The tasks you plan to complete with the web portal and the objectives you want to achieve
• The web portal type to suit your business model best (horizontal, vertical, employee, customer, partner, community)

Planning and preparation

This phase involves conceptualization, thorough development process planning, and visualizing the future product. Needless to mention that budget and timeline planning must take place too. It always starts with setting the scope of work and choosing the right tech stack. It is effective to divide big tasks into smaller ones and make sure everyone in the team knows their role and responsibilities right from the very beginning. 

Design and prototype

The direct work on the project begins with design and prototyping. It involves crafting the portal architecture design as well as UI and UX designs. Besides, hierarchy and connection between all the pages are also defined. It all proceeds to building a prototype and incorporating significant changes. Consider, that serious modifications must be introduced during this stage only. That is why, the design & prototype level should never be underrated but given enough time and attention. One more important point to mention: every single decision must be made with the target audience in mind.  

Engineering

Finally, the main part comes. It’s high time the idea was brought to life through coding and based on the prototype built earlier. 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 
• DevOps
• Waterfall

The development itself is quite complex. It is conducted in the following steps:

1. Picking a suitable technology stack for the portal’s development (e.g., programming languages, frameworks, databases).
2. Developing the backend, which includes server-side logic, database management, and integration of necessary APIs.
3. Building the frontend, implementing the designs, and ensuring responsiveness across different devices.
4. Implementing user authentication and authorization mechanisms to secure the portal.

Testing

Proper testing must always take place. You cannot release a product without checking it first, identifying weaknesses, and introducing fixes. On this level, a QA department is involved to report and eliminate issues thus verifying that the web portal runs seamlessly as planned and complies with the security regulations. 

You have to always keep in mind that the market now is overcrowded and therefore highly competitive. With such an extensive pool of options, users tend to be very picky. If a service does not meet their needs, they move on to an alternative immediately. people do not want to waste their time waiting for a portal to load or just figuring out how its complex interface works. keep your portal simple but seamlessly operating. 

Implementation

This step involves deployment and setting up so the portal runs in a client’s IT environment in real-time. A team continuously monitors the performance, makes an evaluation, and addresses any issues that arise during the initial launch period.

Continuous maintenance 

You think the development team’s work stops once the web portal is launched? Well, it doesn’t. It goes on in the form of post-release support and maintenance. Bringing regular updates and solving functional issues according to user needs and technological advancements are required to keep your portal ahead of competitors. 

Summing up

A custom web portal will certainly help you unlock new frontiers and conquer new heights. The development process may seem too resource-consuming now but all the investments and effort will eventually pay off. It will result in better customer retention and reduced operational costs. 

Find a reliable company and let seasoned and experienced experts develop a web portal for you. Be sure – there’s a huge selection of candidates. Go to Clutch, GoodFirms, or similar and explore providers. Choosing the right partner who sees eye to eye with you requires checking numerous portfolios and reviews, communicating, and comparing a lot. But should you make the right decision, your project is doomed to success.