Your Ultimate Guide to Web Portal Development: Best Practices, Tips, and Strategies

A recent report by Salesforce revealed that 72% of customers have used a self-service portal and 61%  prefer self-service for simpler issues. Moreover, 88% of customers are more likely to repurchase given positive service experiences. This underscores the critical role of well-designed web portals in driving business growth. 

Whether you’re an IT manager or a product owner, this guide will provide you with effective strategies for web portal development. With over 19 years of expertise across industries like healthcare and education, we at GoodCore have the experience you need. We’ll offer actionable insights and practical advice to help you create a solution that exceeds user expectations.

What is a Web Portal?

A web portal is a specialised site where users can centrally access information, services, resources, and other information. They can be anyone, from a customer seeking support to an employee managing their leaves. While traditional websites usually deliver more static, basic information, website portals offer more tailored services with access based on user roles and permissions. 

You can think of traditional websites as storefronts, displaying information for anyone to see. Whereas, a web portal is more personalised, with content and services tailored to your user. A key difference is access. Traditional websites are open to the public, but web portals require users to log in to access custom content. 

Types of Web Portals

Such platforms can cater different business needs like enhancing customer interactions, streamlining workflows, or gathering leads. Here are some web portal examples: 

• Customer Portals: Help connect your clients to you, allowing access to your services and support. This way, your customers can track orders, submit tickets, access information and manage their accounts. Customer portals often also include live chatting functionality for real-time assistance.
• Employee Portals: Aid internal resource access and communications. Employees can easily get HR services, payroll information, training resources and news updates. This allows them to manage administrative processes and focus on their work while staying connected.
• B2B Partner Portals: Connect you with partners in your ecosystem. This could include facilitating procurement from vendors by accessing their catalogues or providing your retail vendors with marketing material. Such B2B portals improve collaboration with all external partners covering functions like procurement, logistics and sales. 
• E-commerce Portals: Facilitate online sales and transactions. These can be B2C or B2B portals, with features like product catalogues, reviews, shopping carts, payment gateways and order tracking. They allow businesses to generate sales, often incorporating customer relationship management (CRM systems), and inventory management. 
• Enterprise Portals: Internal portals within organisations that help connect different departments like finance, supply chain and sales. They’re often complex, serving as a central data exchange, allowing process automation across departments and streamlining business workflows. 

Key Benefits of Web Portal Development

A well-designed web portal can offer many advantages to a business: 

• Improved Information Management: Businesses constantly generate data from multiple sources, often leading to redundancy and inconsistency. On the contrary, web portals could help streamline this flow, acting as a central access point for accurate, up-to-date information. For example, a company intranet can act as a centralised knowledge base in one place for respective stakeholders. 
• Enhanced User Experience: Compared to standard websites, portals help personalise content. This means users are served information that is relevant to them – enhancing their experience. For example, a sales associate might see leads assigned to them, while the head of sales can access all clients. 
• Streamlined Communication: With many moving parts in businesses, collaboration can be disrupted through communication breakdowns. Through various tools like chat systems and forums, a web portal acts as a central communication hub. This keeps all users up-to-date, leading to smoother team collaboration and a connected workforce. 
• Increased Operational Efficiency: Website portals help automate manual processes and other mundane tasks. For example, they can streamline data entry, employee onboarding or support ticket routing. This allows employees to spend their time working on higher-value activities. 

Read also: An Easy Guide to Web Application Development

Web Portal Development: Step-by-Step Process

Building a successful web portal requires a clear, structured approach. Here is breakdown of the seven key steps:

Step 1: Identify the Goals and Purpose

Begin by clarifying the exact objectives of your portal. You can ask questions like:

• Is it intended to enhance customer self-service, 
• Improve internal communication, 
• Or strengthen partner collaboration?

Defining clear goals helps you prioritise features and measure your success after the launch. For example, if your goal is to reduce support calls by 30%, you might focus on building an intuitive knowledge base and ticketing system.

Step 2: Conduct Market Research & Competitor Analysis

The next step is to research competitors and industry leaders to identify trends, common features, and areas where you can make your business have a competitive edge. Studying portals in similar industries can reveal opportunities to offer something better, whether it is a more intuitive interface, faster performance, or additional tools.

Step 3: Finalise Features & Functionalities

Once you understand your users and competitors, decide on the features you will offer. You should prioritise features that align closely with your business goals and user needs. A few examples of the features could be:  

• Secure login systems
• Custom dashboards
• Document management
• E-commerce functionality
• ERP/CRM integrations. 

Step 4: Choose the Right Web Development Partner

Your choice of development partner will directly affect your portal’s quality and scalability. Look for proven experience in complex projects and strong technical expertise. If you need help evaluating potential vendors, our list of top web development companies in the UK is a great place to start.

Step 5: Design the Wireframe and Prototype

A wireframe maps out your portal’s structure and layout, while a prototype allows you to simulate user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). Both of these help identify usability issues early on (before the launch) and ensures that all stakeholders are on the same page before the coding begins.

Step 6: Develop the Web Portal

Choose a tech stack that suits your project’s complexity, scalability, and security requirements. Depending on your needs, you may opt for technologies like React, Angular, or Vue.js for the frontend and Node.js, Django, or Laravel for the backend.

If you would like to know more about how it works, see our detailed guides on front-end technologies and the best IDEs for web development.

Step 7: Test and Launch Your Portal

Thorough testing ensures your portal is functional, secure, and user-friendly. This includes four types of testing namely: 

• Functional testing
• Performance testing
• Security testing
• User acceptance testing

Also read: Web App Penetration Testing

Once everything is in place, you can launch your portal, monitor performance, and be ready to fix any post-launch issues promptly. 

Essential Features for a Successful Web Portal Development

To successfully develop an online portal, you need to incorporate the right features:

User Authentication and Authorisation

User access is a key differentiating feature of a web portal, therefore, it should be secure. A robust authentication system serves as the first line of defence against unauthorised access. Here are some secure mechanisms: 

• Single Sign-On (SSO): this enables users to access multiple linked systems with one login, eliminating password fatigue and enhancing user experience.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA enhances security by requiring multiple forms of identification. For instance, users might need a password and fingerprint for access.
• Role-based Access Control (RBAC): RBAC assigns roles with specific permissions to users, streamlining access management. For example, auditors might have view-only access.

Search Functionality

Users should be able to find the information they need, quickly and efficiently. Here are some effective search features that enhance the overall usability of your portal website: 

• Faceted Search: allows users to refine their queries further through filters and tags. When presented with a sea of data, faceted search helps them narrow down search results. This helps users get to exactly what they’re looking for – faster.
• Autocomplete: while users type into search, autocomplete provides relevant query suggestions. Not only does this help speed up the search, but it also guides users towards popular or relevant content they might not have considered.
• Relevance Ranking: this algorithm determines the order of search results based on how closely they match the user’s search query. In essence, content that corresponds the most will be served to them. Search results can also consider other factors like user roles, location or past activities. Moreover, you can apply machine learning techniques to improve search accuracy over time. 

Customisable Dashboard

Personalisation based on user roles and preferences is a foundational element of web portals. A customisable dashboard empowers users to focus on information most relevant to them. Here are some its key features: 

• Widget-based customisation: These components display specific information or actions. Users can personalise their dashboards by selecting which widgets to include.
• User-specific content delivery: Users want to see content that interests them. Therefore, user-specific content delivery ensures that they see only relevant tools and information, which helps them find what they need more easily. Content delivery is personalised based on user roles, interests and past activities – ensuring relevance. 

Content Management System (CMS)

A robust CMS simplifies creating, publishing, editing and organising content efficiently. It allows you to easily dispense information across your web portal effectively. Here’s a summary of popular CMS platforms that facilitate easy content updates, workflow management and collaboration: 

Integration with Other Systems

To achieve complete automation of business workflows, it’s essential to integrate your online web portal with other systems. Interconnection with ERPs or CRMs provides your portal with real-time access to data from across your organisation. This helps streamline workflows, improves data consistency, and provides a holistic view of your operations. 

For example, integrating your portal with your CRM system like Salesforce can help your sales team access customer information in real time. Similarly, integrating with ERP systems like SAP and Microsoft Dynamics can help offer insights into finance and operations data. 

Analytics and Reporting

The key to a well-designed web portal is understanding and incorporating user behaviour into your design. Therefore, it’s important to set up tools like Google Analytics to track portal and user performance. 

• User Behavior Analysis: By tracking user engagement, and how they interact with your portal, you can identify popular features and areas for improvement. This helps optimise content delivery and the user experience.
• Custom Reports: Customisable tools help users generate reports tailored to their needs. This helps them visualise and turn data generated on the web portal into insights. Organisations can also keep track of various resources like staff and make informed decisions. 

If you are interested in knowing more about the costs associated with developing a web app, check out our blog on: web app development costs.

GoodCore’s Case Study: Developing an IT Support Portal 

VaporVM, a global IT consulting and services provider, approached us as it faced significant challenges in managing its complex service offerings and interacting with their extensive customer base – which included Fortune 500 companies. They needed a streamlined solution for clients to easily place orders and a backend for staff to effectively manage multiple projects. The existing process was cumbersome, disjointed and failed to provide a seamless customer experience. 

To address these issues, we developed ManageX, a dual-component solution for customers and clients. This customer-facing portal simplified the ordering process for technology services, providing instant quotations and an intuitive project dashboard. Clients were able to get instant support by using real-time chat and video call features for direct communication with their support teams.

The administrative backend equipped VaporVM staff with tools to manage projects, allocate resources, and oversee customer interactions. It includes features for project tracking, user management, and payment processing, all integrated with Jira for synchronised project details. This helped ensure streamlined operations and improved coordination between teams and clients.

The development process for ManageX involved a thorough discovery phase, UI/UX design approval, and development using React and Laravel. After extensive testing, the platform was successfully handed over to VaporVM’s technically proficient staff. Through our clear documentation process, the team was well-equipped to handle maintenance and updates independently. 

Read full case study

Future Trends in Web Portal Development

Since emerging technologies are constantly highlighting new use cases and scenarios surrounding web portals, here are some of the future trends reshaping them: 

• AI Integration: AI is transforming user interactions by automating processes, intelligent recommendations and providing personalised experiences. Support staff can also off-load customer queries with an AI-assistant layer by training AI models on company knowledge bases. This can help save man hours, while support staff focus on answering more complex requests. 
• Personalised User Experiences: By leveraging data analytics to study user behaviour and preferences, you can offer personalised experiences and recommendations. Users are then able to view custom interfaces with more relevant information which increases engagement. 
• Mobile-First Design: With increasing mobile usage, web portals should be fully responsive across all devices. This helps users access information and services on the go. By designing a portal with a mobile-first approach, you can unlock an important touchpoint which improves reach and accessibility. 
• Cloud-Based Solutions: Cloud computing platforms like AWS and Microsoft Azure can help businesses scale portal operations cost-effectively. Compared to intranets, they offer high availability, reliability and easy expansion. 

Conclusion

A well-designed web portal is an excellent tool for businesses to service their customers, streamline operations and drive growth. But developing a successful solution requires careful planning, design, development, execution and ongoing maintenance. Implementing best practices like user-centric design, robust security measures and continuous optimisation can help you build an effective web portal that drives business growth. 

If you’re facing challenges building your portal, consider partnering with experienced companies like Goodcore. With over 19 years of experience, we have a proven track of creating high-performance portals across diverse industries.

FAQs

How do I choose the right technology stack for my web portal?

To choose the right technology stack, consider factors such as your project requirements, scalability needs, security standards, and integration goals. For example, React or Angular for frontend, Node.js, .NET, or Django for backend, and MySQL or MongoDB for databases are popular choices. Ensure the stack aligns with your team’s expertise, supports future growth, and fits within your budget and maintenance capabilities.

What are some open-source solutions for web portal development?

Popular open-source solutions for web portal development include Drupal for highly customisable and secure portals, WordPress for content-driven sites with extensive plugin support, Liferay for enterprise-grade portals with strong integration capabilities, and Joomla for flexible, user-friendly portals. These platforms offer scalability, community support, and cost-effectiveness, making them suitable for various business and industry needs.

What is the cost breakdown for web portal development based on different features?

The cost of web portal development varies by features: basic portals with standard user authentication and content management may start from £10,000–£20,000, while adding advanced functionalities like personalised dashboards, CRM integration, payment gateways, and real-time analytics can raise costs to £30,000–£70,000 or more. Complex enterprise portals with multi-user roles, high security, and third-party integrations can exceed £100,000, depending on technical requirements and scalability needs.

What are the best practices for web portal user experience (UX)?

Some best practices for UX include creating a clean, intuitive interface with clear navigation, ensuring responsive design for all devices, and optimising page load speeds. It’s also important to personalise user journeys where possible, maintain consistency in design elements, provide accessible features for all users, and gather user feedback regularly to refine and enhance the portal experience.

What are the top features of a successful web portal?

A successful web portal includes features such as intuitive user interface, responsive design, secure authentication and access control, personalised user experiences, robust search functionality, and easy content management. Additional features like integration with third-party systems, real-time notifications, analytics dashboards, and scalability ensure the portal effectively meets user needs and supports business growth.

What are the best practices for secure web portal development?

Best practices for secure web portal development include implementing strong authentication and authorisation protocols, encrypting data in transit and at rest, and regularly updating software and dependencies. It’s also essential to validate and sanitise all user inputs to prevent injection attacks, follow secure coding standards, conduct regular security audits and penetration testing, and ensure compliance with relevant data protection regulations such as GDPR.