It feels like a buzzword in the AOL days and the 1990s. Web portals are still alive today. Web portals serve essential internet functions. They provide several services, including:

• Email
• Search
• Online shopping
• Public services
• Forums

Here, you will understand a web portal and what makes it unique from a website and the popular web portals.

A web portal

A portal (web portal) is a uniquely designed website. It presents and gathers information in personalized or different ways.

You can enrich a portal with tools and services. You can include the search engine APIs for internet or intranet search, news, email, forums, business mashups, or dashboards to assemble apps, tools, and data. A web portal is a gateway to more data, gated services or content, search results, or eCommerce. Portals aim to offer personalized or organized access to huge services or content, as well as connect with your hosted phone systems to deliver customer services.

The Distinction between a web portal and a website

Web portals make data more interactive. A website has a vast depth of information or content. You can narrow it down into tags or categories on one website, for example, blogs. On the other side, a web portal allows users to link or find services or data across several web properties. They interact or input data for custom outputs.

Websites are visually sophisticated. A portal is a web app that enjoys the advantage of modular and more complex designs. It delivers a customized experience to the user. You can make portals behind registration systems though it’s not always the case.

The types/forms of web portals

There are two forms of web portals: horizontal and vertical portals.

Vertical web portal

A vertical web vortal (portal) design is for a specific community. It offers a gateway to particular services or content. Vertical portals range from sites for the common interest. For example, news like car sales and entertainment news target specific industries by function or sector like HR. corporate portals are also examples of vertical portals.

A horizontal web portal targets an entire internet like MSN and Yahoo. It can also target the widest audience like a government portal. It’s the reason it earns the name a mega portal. Horizontal portals can be collections of vertical portals. For instance, the way Yahoo dives into style, entertainment, or sports.

Advantages of web portals

Personalization

They can personalize data based on user inputs. The data can be by location, e.g., the weather. User details or roles can assign portal features to offer customized access levels. It starts before logging in by a user or a user customizing it.

Customized interactions

Web portals can provide alternative communication means with clients. A proper client portal can help you to manage all customer communication and keep your clients updated about projects. They include support emails, forums, dashboards, and calls. They display custom data flow or statistics.

Single sing on

Web portals allow other system types through SSO (single sign-on). The streaming end-user experience also allows access.

Content aggregation

Among the critical features of portals is the ability to total services and content from any source.

Sophisticated features

Portals are web app types, often collections of web applications known as Portlets. Together they support the different interactive components of a comprehensive portal.

User friendly

The ability to organize vast amounts of data and jump off to valuable services is excellent. Most portals turn invaluable as they pay particular attention to user experience. They intuitively deliver valuable, useful, accessible, desirable, and findable data. They exceed expectations.

Agility

The web platforms are modular. It makes it easy to roll out new touch points or features while supporting the experience. You can’t limit web portals by choosing a technology stack or programming language.

To know advantages of web portal you can connect with web portal development company.

When to use a portal 

Why should you use a web portal? The web portals are excellent in dealing with personalization and complexity:

• If you want to offer personalized user experiences, consider the portal benefits.
• If your content is enormous or needs contributions from many people
• When you want to integrate a wide variety of systems and offer the seamless user experience

The famous web portal examples

Vendor portals

The tender (supplier/vendor) portal is an avenue for suppliers to help the procurement processes. It may support approved vendor relationships or bids, including managing orders, payments, invoicing, delivery details, and document sharing.

Patient portals

It’s a portal to aid the interaction between medical professionals and patients. It benefits both sides. These portals streamline appointment management, financial management, HIPPA-compliant, questionnaire intake, and secure health data viewing. Patient portals reduce administrative overheads related to repetitive tasks and improve patient health.

Intranets

Intranet or employee portal is a huge and valuable part of an organization. The portal is a central repository to share data, ease findings, and support self-service IT. It manages teams and provides communication and collaboration tools.

Extranets

They are private network internets with limited access to unauthorized users outside the network. The network includes suppliers, vendors, partners, and trusted clients working with the business. An extranet is a value collaboration tool. It supports projects, confidential data exchange, client self-service resources, and complex logistics.

Government portals 

Governments operate several web portal sites to support specific audiences or government branches. Many portals total data and also integrate services.

Faculty and student portals

Faculty and student portals leverage from low to higher education levels. There is an increase in student portals due to the advancements in digital education. They distribute course materials and manage or post assignments. They make announcements, manage grades, and interact with students. Higher education portals have many advanced features.

Faculty portals offer centralized SSO (single sign) access to more education systems. They also include CRMs, SIS, ERPs, and management systems for learning.

Faculty and students benefit from the personalized dashboards. They provide only relevant data and offer a jump-off point to interact with high services.

Financial portals

They are knowledge hubs based on financial information and data. They have integrated collaboration and communication.

Financial portals get connected with investment firms and banks. The modern portals offer data into financial health at a glance. The data comes from account balances, stocks, and bill balances.

Knowledge management portals

These portals have specialized concentration on data management for the intranet and extranet. The modern knowledge management portals can support advanced community analytics and tools. They understand what is functioning and what isn’t functioning. It’s a vital tool in marketing and training.

How the web portals evolve into digital experience platform

The current consumers don’t look for passive data. They want brands that offer convenience, engagement, and personalization. An organization needs to leverage tools that permit them to understand the market. The organization also needs to understand the clients. The organization has to leverage insights into the new digital experience.

The current web portals are mature valuable DXPs (digital experience platforms). Forrester defines DXPs as solutions that:

• Understand the client with data

• Create an experience with content

• Tailor experience to fit marketing context

• Deliver commerce value

The DXPs provide the following:

• Dynamic, real-time dashboards the offer insights into clients
• AI-driven discoveries and insights
• Ability to make and manage content or to pull in different content areas like CRM
• Powered microservices, modular architecture, and deep capabilities
• SSO capabilities to gauge other apps from the portal environment. The environment should support personalized, targeted marketing and sales experiences.

Conclusion

A modern and scalable web portal is a solution to personalization. It provides rich experiences to employees or clients. With the benefits of microservices, DevOps, and Agile methods, you will be able to create a web portal faster.

Any Queries? Feel free to contact web development company and get a free quote!