Everybody Needs a Website

After the dawn of the internet in the mid-90s, companies started scrambling to go online too, initially creating websites just to complement in-person experiences. Over time, digital strategy has moved from the periphery to the forefront—today, it’s hard to overstate the importance of your organization’s website.

Your website isn’t—or shouldn’t be—a glorified advertising mouthpiece, but an authentic and engaging way for you to introduce your products, services, and corporate identity to prospects on your own terms. 

After all, websites influence 97% of buyers before they make a purchase decision. And even if, for instance, you’re operating in the public sector for citizens who won’t be buying from you directly, your web presence should still communicate clearly who you are, what you do, and how to accomplish specific tasks. The most effective websites are those that captivate visitors and serve regular users effectively.

At a base level, most companies, enterprise businesses included, have website software that can handle this premise to a certain extent. But if you’re thinking more deeply about your website in the long-term, your current website development platform may inadequately address three critical elements: security, accessibility, and scalability.

Security: Take a Thorough and Proactive Approach

Every day, around 30,000 websites get hacked. That adds up to almost 1 million websites per month.

Those are sobering numbers given how many industries are protecting sensitive user and business data. And if your website and hosted applications can’t afford unexpected downtime, security should also be top of mind when evaluating the effectiveness of your website software. 

Most website software providers have the basics down, like encrypting web traffic and adding MFA and Federated Authentication. But not all prioritize security adequately.

So what should a truly secure website platform offer? Here are a few key things to look for:

• Certified protection. While you should follow security best practices when building your website, certifications confirm the platform’s secure foundation, allowing you to concentrate on your website’s specific security needs rather than addressing platform vulnerabilities. Key certifications include ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2 (Type 1 & 2) for general security, ISO/IEC 27017 and CSA STAR (Level 1 & 2) for cloud security, and ISO/IEC 27018 and HIPAA for data privacy. (HIPAA only applies to the healthcare industry.)

• Sophisticated user access control. Many businesses may need to go beyond the standard roles basic website software offers and create custom roles that grant highly specific permissions to ensure only the right users access the right content or edit that content. No one should be able make changes without authorization, whether accidentally or maliciously in the case of a cybercriminal. This is important whether you’re a university differentiating between administrators, professors, and students or a manufacturer with a different microsite for each of your dealers.

• Application safeguards. Layers, layers, layers! Secure your web service like a multi-layered vault, with an IP permission layer, authentication layer, service access policy layer, and a user permission layer. These layers strengthen your website’s defenses.

Enhanced Protection Through Cloud Deployment

Hosting with the right cloud provider can actually be more secure than self-hosting. Does your platform vendor enable PaaS or SaaS deployment?

SaaS and PaaS subscription options can include:

• Protection against cyberattacks. Cloud subscriptions may include intrusion detection systems for constant monitoring and identification of possible threats, DDoS technology that absorbs malicious traffic, and anti-malware technology that keeps malware information stored for recognition purposes.

• Effective vulnerability management. The most secure platform vendors proactively monitor and scan their infrastructure for security vulnerabilities. They should alert customers or apply fixes directly depending on the deployment method. SaaS deployments in particular benefit from the platform vendor’s regular DAST and SAST scans that also help test and expose application vulnerabilities.

• Expert help from a SOC team. A platform vendor’s in-house security team dedicates resources to ensuring the security of their software. With SaaS deployments, SOC teams will take on additional security tasks like performance and log monitoring, scans, and updates and patches.

• Assistance if an attack or outage does happen. Sometimes, either through bad actors or an event like a natural disaster, websites still go down. Most SaaS and PaaS subscription options help restore your website using regular backups and disaster recovery strategies to bring you back ASAP. 

This is really only the start of what you should consider regarding security. For a more in-depth look at how to ensure the security of your website, read 6 Best Practices to Strengthen Website Security.

The Accessibility Imperative: Creating a Better Web for All

Nearly two billion people are living with a disability—yet 96% of the top 1 million websites aren’t accessible. And in critical industries like government, news, and ecommerce, for instance, 70% of websites are inaccessible to vision-impaired users.

At a fundamental level, if you want to reach as much of your audience as possible, give all users equal opportunity to visit and perform tasks on your website, and comply with accessibility regulations, meaningful accessibility is non-negotiable. Does your website platform have the right tools to help you meet accessibility requirements, or have you had to develop cumbersome, custom, even expensive workarounds?

The right website platform will:

• Prioritize accessibility features. Built-in tools like color contrast, keyboard navigation support, and alternative text generators for images make accessibility easier to achieve.  Additional elements include screen reader compatibility and resizable text.

• Check accessibility for you. Verify your website’s compliance with different standards like WCAG and WAI-ARIA with the platform itself. WCAG includes many broad recommendations for helping make your websites more accessible, while WAI-ARIA publishes definitions and technical documents to help implement website accessibility. 

• Help scale accessibility. You should be able to create accessible templates and components to maintain consistency throughout your website. Accessible templates and components decrease time to market and expand your audience sooner.

• Be accessible itself. Your website platform should accommodate developers with accessibility needs too—widening your potential talent pool and increasing fairness.

Meaningful accessibility places accessibility at the center of your thinking when designing and building your website, which isn’t a possibility if you’re stuck with the wrong platform.

Scale Your Business—Not Just Your Website

If you haven’t figured out the recipe for digital agility with your website platform, your organization will have trouble growing.

Empower Business Teams Alongside IT

Can your website software handle the challenges of a rapidly evolving market?

If you have a beautiful but static website that requires an MIT degree and ten years of coding experience to know how to update, you’re limited in how you can respond to changing market conditions—and the changes of your business itself.

Website development platforms with low-code tools enable business users to do more than just create and edit content—some even allow you to create new sites and applications without code. With more people in your business able to take on what used to be IT-exclusive tasks, you save time and improve internal efficiency.

Let's say you’re a telecom provider launching a hyper-local campaign for a new fiber rollout in a specific region. With low-code, your regional marketing team could build a dedicated campaign microsite.

Or maybe you’re a manufacturer wanting to create and integrate a parts request app into your website that connects with inventory and supply chain systems. With the right technology, you could build this app with minimal IT involvement.

Add Commerce and Self-Service to Think Beyond a Simple Website Experience

The example we just mentioned may require the integration of additional commerce capabilities, including a parts catalog, real-time inventory checks, automated purchase order generation upon review, and customer notifications for order and shipment dates. Website builders usually lack built-in commerce, a limitation that becomes apparent as digital experience needs grow. These tools will require you to add additional software to your tech stack, which may not integrate smoothly.

Your customers will also need support further along their journey, like self-service options that allow them to act independently when logging in. These authentication experiences can become quite complex in ways that most website development platforms struggle to handle without costly customizations. 

If you want a single platform with a wide range of out-of-the-box capabilities to build your websites and fulfill other digital experience needs as your business grows, look into a Digital Experience Platform (DXP). DXPs empower you to be flexible and agile in creating truly customer-centric experiences. They enable the building of smooth, personalized journeys across websites, portals, and other online and offline touchpoints.

Don’t Settle for a Lackluster Website Platform

Your website can’t be an afterthought just to tick another digital experience box. Websites that act as gateways to critical services must prioritize security, accessibility, and scalability. These elements are crucial for protecting data, reaching all users, and supporting growth. 

Are you interested in comparing website technologies? Read how headless CMSes, DXPs, and Liferay DXP stack up against one another in seven common use cases.