5 Steps for Web Portal Development Process

Today businesses are evolving rapidly and moving towards digitization. Business owners realize the impact a website can make on its sustainability and growth. Not only just websites, but web portals are also gaining popularity nowadays due to the benefits it offers to your business.

First, let us understand what a web portal is. A web portal is a web-based platform that allows users to access confidential content and provide a highly personalized experience. While the website is just read-only static content, the web portal delivers you a real-time experience.

There are various web portals, namely B2B, B2C, Community, etc. Based on the type of business, you can choose from the above portals.

After you decide which portal your business demands, there are two ways you can get the portal developed. Hire a team of developers, designers, QA, etc., to get it done, or you can hire a custom portal development company.

Developing a web portal takes a lot of planning and time. Here, we have listed out a few steps you need to follow if you are considering web portal development for your business.

Planning is the Key to Success

Planning is essential when it comes to portal development. The first step is to figure out and have clarity on the aim and purpose of having a portal. The second step is to find who your target audience is. And the third step is to figure out how it will benefit your target audience.

Once you have clarity on these steps, you can decide what features you wish to include in your portal. Here, we have listed a few of them for your reference.

• Interactive UI
• Personalization
• Easy access to information
• Tracking tools
• Self-service tools
• Multi-device accessibility
• Social Media Integration

Design the Flow

The next step is designing. A well-designed customer portal can help users understand your business better and attract more users. The architectural design of your portal must be user-friendly, easy to understand, attractive, engaging, and responsive.

You can hire either a front-end developer or a web portal development company then they will already have it in their team. Here are some points you need to consider while designing your portal flow.

• Multiple contact options
• Search bar in portal
• Same font everywhere
• Easy to understand images
• Eye soothing colors

Get Done With Development

After you are done with designing, backend development is the most complicated part. It can make or break your project. The right team of developers is vital for the project to turn out the way you have designed because navigation is an essential part of the portal. If it is not correctly developed, it will only create confusion and nothing else. So, development is the heart of the project.

Testing and Testing

The next step in portal development is testing. The testing team will perform specific tests to check whether the flow is as per the requirement. After all the testing is done, your portal is ready to go. Here are some points you need to test before making it live.

• Compatibility
• Responsiveness
• Optimization
• UI
• Genuine Content

Web Hosting

The final step of the process is hosting. For hosting your portal, you will need a domain. So basically, the domain is where your portal will reside. Nowadays, most portal development companies provide web hosting services.

You can ask them or purchase it on a monthly or yearly basis. Hence, with this done, your customer portal development is complete.

Lastly, with your web portal ready to use you might need support to learn all the processes; the support team will provide you with the same.

Wrapping Up

Adopting a web portal has transformed the way businesses work. It has become necessary from the marketing point of view.

Thus, if you want your business to achieve new heights, a website is not enough; consider integrating a web portal to your website.

Mr. Maulik Shah is the founder & CEO of CRMJetty, a hub of innovative customer relationship solutions, provides ready to CMS integrate portal solutions for SuiteCRM, Sugar CRM, Salesforce, and Dynamics CRM including WordPress Customer Portal.