What Kind of Website Do I Need?

If you thought all websites were the same, think again. Not having certain website features or capabilities can make the difference between getting or not getting a job done.

First, probably the most important feature you need to maintain a website is something called FTP (File Transfer Protocol) access. You need FTP to upload and download (publish) your files to and from the web. Without FTP access, you're likely to be stuck in either one of two situations:

1 - You're dependant on the consulting services of your hosting company. The monthly fee for such a combined service will generally be higher than if you hosted your site with one company and had your design work done elsewhere.

2 - You may not have HTML capabilities (explained next paragraph), and are restricted to using some sort of online menu-driven system to publish your website. This will usually give you very limited flexibility on the design and look of your website. Is this a problem? Not necessarily. If you need something very simple, it may serve the purpose.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the language of the web. This is what paints your screen; background color, font size, font color, tables, forms, etc. Without HTML, a web designer is like a painter without a brush; if Picasso found himself in this dilemma, he'd probably have become a cabbie.

For more complex websites, ones needing interactivity -- online order forms, surveys, your own shopping cart, and the like -- even HTML may not be good enough. You'll need something called CGI (Common Gateway Interface) capabilities. Without CGI, you're limited to painting your screen, but you cannot process data in any meaningful manner; a visitor cannot send you things like name, address, etc., which you may need for an order. (Incidentally, "forms" are created with HTML. But without CGI, the input data can only be used in a very limited way, a detailed explanation of which is beyond the technical scope of this article.)

Fortunately, there's a way to circumvent the CGI requirements of a shopping cart by outsourcing your transaction processing and/or order fulfillment.