What is a Content Website?

A content site or simply a website is a collection text, images and videos marked up using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). When a visitor see this site in a web browser like Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer, the web browser interprets the marked up content and displays it in a specified format giving an attractive look and feel to the website.

Static Vs Dynamic Sites

A content site can be classified into the following two categories:

• Static Website
• Dynamic Website

What is a Static Website?

Static sites are mainly used to communicate static information to the targeted users from the web server and the same content is shown to all the users in the same manner every time the web page is loaded. Static sites are generally created as a simple marked up content using HTML. The web browser just interprets the content and display it in the browser window.

What is a Dynamic Website?

Dynamic sites provide more interactive features to users in order to retrieve the customized information from the web server suitable for that particular user. Unlike a static website, dynamic content can be modified on the fly every time it is loaded. Dynamic content is generally stored as a database in the web server and displayed in the browser based on the user’s preference. Generally dynamic sites are created using PHP, previously known as Personal Home Page and currently known as Hyper Text Pre-Processor.

Structure of a Simple Website

A content site or simply a website will have the following elements:

• Header Area – Containing the information to be displayed constantly on each page of the site like Site logo.
• Navigation Menu – Horizontal or Vertical according to site’s layout.
• Content Area – Containing the text, images and multimedia content.
• Footer Area – Containing the information to be displayed constantly on each page of the site like “Contact Form”.

Creating a Content Site

Content sites can be created and managed by Content Management System which can be either installable packages like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla or can be a site builder tools like Weebly, Wix or Yola. These packages offer webmasters to create a free site with limited options as well as a paid service with complete features along with hosting. CMS is also referred as WCMS stands for Web Content Management System and most of the CMS providers also offer the possibility of creating a blog and a forum either directly or through third party plugins.

Features of a Content Site

• Content site contains information on every single web pages.
• A webpage could be a HTML page mostly in case of a static content.
• A webpage could be PHP or ASP page mostly in case of a dynamic content.
• Normally site owner can modify the content any point of time and republish the page.
• Content sites are generally meant for distributing the same content to all the users whereas the dynamic sites are more responsive and interactive.

Learn more about what is a blog, what is an online forum and comparison between content, blog and forum sites.