Best Platforms For Building Websites

Building a memorable, beautiful website looks great on any device. It is the most dominant tool for communication and a unique way to connect with the world. Nowadays websites have become an essential part of our day to day life. Regardless of what the profession is, there is a website for each to build an image and boost growth. This is the only medium where both seekers and givers come under one roof and the best medium to introduce oneself to the internet and also to improve one's business.

Uses of a website in the business:-

• Represents your business/organization

• Platform to introduce business and services

• Will provide round the clock support

• Improve sales and profit

• Gives quick feedback

• Increased credibility

Care should be taken while choosing a platform to build a website where a platform is a programming language that the site will utilize. A decision should be taken depending on the site's functionality, features, maintenance cost, database, servers etc. Most important among all is to consider the skill of the team who will handle the troubleshooting and maintenance work. Go for the one which gives you a full bang for your buck.

Most popular development platforms include:-

> PHP - PHP scripting language is one of the simple, easiest and widely used language for building websites. This allows the developers to quickly grasp the development environment. While working in PHP if any problem or error occurs that makes you stuck, it provides full support to overcome the situation. It's easy to find the documentation online on PHP for free because PHP is an open source scripting language and does not require a lot of system's resources that results in much faster than any other language.

> ASP.NET - ASP.net framework reduces the amount of coding and is used to build large applications where the same things are developing over and over. It is very useful and reduces the amount of coding. ASP.net enables data caching from the database that makes the website work very fast even after regular visits to the database. This is language independent that enables the developers to select a language which is suitable for the application and offers crash shielding.

> JSP - Java Server Pages is a server-side programming technology that helps in the creation of dynamic, platform-independent web-based applications. It includes Active Server Pages (ASP), pure servlets, Server-Side Includes (SSI), JavaScript and static HTML.

> Magento - Open source technology that provides a flexible shopping cart system, search engine optimization (SEO), powerful marketing, and catalog-management tools. This is one of the best e-commerce platforms. Benefits of using Magneto include:

• Easy to install and add additional layouts

• flexible and scalable

• Effective and cost sensitive

• Offers more than 50 payment gateways

> Joomla - This is an open source Content Management System (CMS) used to build websites and online applications which is free and separated into front-end templates and back-end templates. Joomla is developed by using PHP, Object Oriented Programming, software design patterns, and MySQL.

> Drupal - It is a free and open source Content Management System (CMS) which is reliable and secure that allows organizing, managing and pushing the content. Drupal is built on PHP based environment.

> WordPress - It's easy to learn, use, and update. It makes the website load faster with a catching tool and an easy way for users to sign up for the monthly newsletter. Wordpress provides a lot of support & security and it's great for SEO.

> OpenCart - It is a robust open source shopping cart system with rich in its features and user-friendly. This allows creating a brilliant online business at a very low cost.

> ZenCart - Zencart is free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart software for small and medium-sized enterprises. It supports client status modes and has multiple payment and shipping options. This helps the organizations to grab a foothold in the global market.

> Shopify - It is a fully-featured content management system with a complete control over the website's navigation and design. It's easy to host the entire business website on shopify.

> Prestashop - Prestashop is a powerful, professional, and dynamic e-commerce solution for any business that helps to grab the global marketplace. It offers customization opportunities and a unique interactive interface.

The first step towards any project is to come up with a platform that suits your website requirements. Need to set the website goals and the right choice lies here. The need for business varies from person to person which includes alot like selling a product, post and present content, brand popularity, etc. After focusing on the needs you'd like to use the website with a better scope by figuring which platform to use for your project. Actually, the best platform depends on what you're trying to achieve and there are no such best platforms. It actually depends on your specialization as a web designer and the complexity of websites you're trying to build.