Last Updated on February 21, 2024 by Team Experts

People either use online sites to navigate through a brand or operate using their own applications, commonly known as portals. Although appearance doesn’t matter much in terms of work prospects, giving your customers an enhanced user experience matters a lot. A partner portal in these terms can prove a great alternative, but sometimes it is confused for a website rather than a complete application-based business solution.

The quick thing to understand here is that a partner portal, and why businesses need partner portal? Isn’t any random site but an enterprise-based digital source of overall operational centralization, streamlining, and work collaboration.

Here we will let you know the key differences between the portal and website aspects of a partner business.

What is a Partner portal?

When defining a partner portal, it is usually an encrypted business site for enterprises to showcase a better representation of their brand in front of their target audience. It is a form of business application and not a marketing site; hence, the vital driving factors of this portal are fundamentally different.

Partner Portal is a closed-interface online environment, not meant for the outside world. Only the team, partners, and stakeholders will have access to the portal to look at their respective tasks and their relevant updates.

What is a website?

A random company’s website is a business representative that operates online and is made for marketing purposes. It is the first digital impression of a brand and a signature official resource for the audience, partners, and businesses to contact the company whenever needed. It is intended to serve the customers by letting them know more about the overall brand’s interests, services provided, news and updates, solutions, and office details.

Partner portal v/s website: Major differences

#1           Intranet vs. Internet

First, a partner portal is for people you already know and do business with! It’s for the people with whom you work closely on the business projects you’re active in. With the partner portal, the goal is to make your corresponding business more productive and use the centralized platform for active work collaboration.

The website is for the world to analyze their business perspectives, what they can benefit from your brand for use, and how they will get help from it. Anyone can access the website and login using their personal ID and other details as required. With a website, the goal is to build more and more web traffic to increase the number of visitors, preferably active ones.

#2          Targeted information vs Collective information

In a partner portal, the target is to increase sales, and this can only be done with the right kind of information and regular updates. Over the portal, the Knowledge base is comprised of specific, in-depth details about the subject and gives precise information regarding the project, with all the required details, not missing the smallest ones, and on point, what the partners need to know to represent the brand in a better way. whereas for the website, it is certainly not required to showcase every single detail related to the brand, its influence, and its symbols; it is just meant for the public to understand and show the capabilities of the brand for their services.

#3           Multi-layered vs. thematic content

A partner portal is a multi-layered web product that contains information related to a broader range of topics. With a portal, you can offer more content for a better understanding of your partners. It includes many interactive elements, such as application forms, documents, video contents, calculators, images, etc., and to access all this relevant information, you will need to use your credentials.

A website, on the other hand, works more from a thematic perspective. Its focus relies on being informative rather than giving deep knowledge about the topic. Also, the respondents will be easily able to access the relevant information without any credential authorization or other complex verifications.

#4           The Design Difference

There are a lot of differences between a company’s website and a personal website in terms of design. Business applications such as partner portals need to have an easy-to-use but attractive, intuitive design. They are built on a focus on finding and using resources in a much easier manner. The goal of the partner portal is to increase partner engagement, and hence everything from the dashboard to pop-ups, notifications, and approval is made to look systematic, robust, and quickly assist.

Websites may not require a very detailed design structure; however, a simple yet attractive design is preferred there as well. Since it needs very little maintenance for design, it can be created even overnight! If you want a straight-forward approach, like launching a landing page or redirecting a site, it’s easier than ever to make it look awesome.

#5           Rules, Regulations, and Security

Digital security and abiding by rules and regulations are a must for both website creation and partner portal implementation. If a brand is found to be non-obedient in keeping their customers’ personal data safe, they may become liable for serious allegations and penalties as well. Unlike the website, the partner portals are dedicated to much deeper efforts to keep their customers’ privacy uncompromised. A portal can be made using specified technological security measures, ensuring robust procedural compliance and a multi-layer access policy for audit path analysis. Data security, another big aspect of the portal, prevents the loss and hacking of data with strong encryption methods, data recovery, and automation-based techniques.

Choosing the right solution with Aixtor!

A website and a partner portal both serve the best cause of their businesses. but it depends on the business requirements and your attitude towards brand building. With a website, you can reach out to millions of people, whereas with a portal, you can reach out to people who are already yours. Strategic thinking and the right implementation are a must in both aspects. From all the points mentioned above and even more, Aixtor is always ready to help you out with prompt website or partner portal solutions.

You can just let us know either of the business requirements, and we will be happy to assist you with the best of the technical aspects, including the latest ones out on the market. Our team of skilled professionals will investigate everything to give you the most suitable solution for your business needs!