Website Development Process : A Step-by-Step Guide

Gillian Harper By Gillian Harper  |  Jul 22, 2022  |  Web Development
Website Development Process

Summary: A website is the face of business. In recent years, it has become more of a necessity than a luxury for a business to develop a website and keep customers posted about a number of things. From the about us page to what’s new in the business, a website enumerates multiple aspects. As much as the business should focus on communicating about its operation in this digitized space, it must also consider keeping the back-end and the front-end of the website intact. It all begins with the web development process. Now, what web development is, how it is designed and maintained, everything is explained in this blog. So, read through carefully.

Are you considering building a website? Or explore the best web development agencies to build your website? No doubt, they are important things to have, though understanding the web development process should be the first on your priority list apart from selecting the perfect web development companies for your project.

Despite what the conventional wisdom says about a website, it is the online representation or identity of your business. More than the web content, UX Design, or your ultimate goals, the development process of your website remains crucial. To give you the gist of it, the website development process involves the creation of your website and its maintenance.

However, we will get into the details of its definition, but understand that this process is something you cannot compromise on. Think that your business’s life depends on it, for starters.

Now, without wasting much of our time overviewing the concept, let’s get into the details.

What Is Web Development?

The term website development refers to the process of developing a website. Even kids know that, right? But, what amateurs know is that a website consists of details of a website, whereas, experts or educated guessers will coin a website as “a collection of web pages.” It includes everything from the business to its services and even the eCommerce facility where buying and selling happens! Now, this digital space is created to provide a complete insight into the business to the customers.

Not to interrupt, but did you know that as of 2022, more than 29.7% of businesses globally, have already established their online presence through websites?

Percentage of Business Conducted Online website

That was an interesting stat! Well, let’s come back to where we left off.

Looking from the perspective of the business owner, your website must have:

  • Headline and sub-headline
  • Images
  • Features
  • Navigation
  • Primary Call-to-Action
  • Social proof
  • Web content
  • Contact us information
  • Other resources

All of these are made to attract, retain, and engage with customers. But, have you thought about who will create your website or how it is made? If you don’t, let’s learn more about it in further sections.

Types of Website

Your professional web development team may put up the question, “what type of website do you want?” The type here refers to whether you need a static or dynamic website. What exactly they mean and how they are different is explained in the below lines:

1. Static website

In static websites, you cannot change the web pages as frequently as you wish to. If you want to change the whole content or just a small part of it, manual editing of the code is required. The edited pages are then sent to the server.

Developers build static websites using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are also called script languages. The good part about statics websites? They load faster, require a low budget, and less time to develop.

2. Dynamic website

Dynamic websites rapidly adopt server changes. New pages are generated every time web pages load. Compared to static websites, dynamic ones are created using PHP, Node.js, JSP, and ASP.NET. These are also called server-side languages. These are much more efficient than static websites, thus, they are expensive and follow a time-consuming development process.

So, when you are trying to figure out which type of website you should choose, consider your business needs first.

PRO TIP: Create a static website if you are concerned about brand awareness and the online presence of your business.

Types of Web Development

1. Server Side

The Server-side is the backend of the website. Think of it as the behind the scene of a website where databases and servers are managed and the logical component plays the main role. The website users cannot see it. Also, just to remind you, without a skilled backend development team, your website will be a collection of empty web pages that cannot function.

2. Client-Side

It is called the frontend of the website where things are visible to the user’s eyes. The design of the website is visually represented here. CSS, HTML, and JavaScript are the primary languages developers use to create an exceptional user experience via responsive web pages. Remember, without a good UI/UX design, you will not be able to attract or retain customers.

3. Full Stack

Full-stack is the combination of frontend and backend development. It is here that the entire web development process is defined! You get to deal with the combined tasks and technologies used in the website development cycle in full-stack.

Need a PRO TIP? Hire a website developer or full-stack engineer who is skilled in UI/UX design, server hosting, browser coding, and also manipulating the database. You may explore our previously written article on why hire dedicated developers for websites to understand the significant of having a qualified dev team.

What is a Web Development Life Cycle?

A website development life cycle is a standard that regulates or rather guides you towards building a perfect and high-quality web design or website. It can also be referred to as the outline of what should be done to complete the web development on time!

Moving on here’s the complete website development process that you were looking for this entire time.

Stages of the Website Development Process

Before getting into the development process details, one crucial thing that remains is – the website development timeline. Since you are kick-starting development, you should wrap your thoughts around web development cost and time. It is best to create a website development timeline just to be on the hook with your time to market. To create a timeline, add the tasks and establish milestones.

PRO TIP: Try to create a Gantt chart for better visualization of the project planning. For your understanding, here is a reference image of what your Gantt chart would look like.

website development timeline
Source: XB Software

Considering that you have already found the perfect web development company for your project, ensure that all of these steps are defined on their development process roadmap!

1. Know Your Requirement

This is practically an information-gathering step. The professional web design companiesteam will ask you a few questions to learn in-depth about your business needs. The client’s requirements are carefully studied, the site’s purpose is defined, and the goals of the website are determined.

2. Research Your Market

This step involves researching the target audience. Learning about your audience’s demographics, interests, and habits helps to design the best website. Also, the designers like to acquaint themselves with the web content you’re expecting to put up on the website as the content and designs are interconnected!

3. Planning

Using the information gathered in the first and second steps, it is time to put together the details and create a website development plan. Here, a site map is developed that states the key topics of the website. A site map looks like this:

website development planning site map

This map clarified what content goes where plus the navigation structure of the website.

4. Designing

Designing is one of the crucial stages of the website development process. At this stage, logo and brand colors are applied to the website to make it unique to the business and strengthen the brand identity. One or more prototypes are created to keep the options open for final selection. The prototype is usually a static image to represent the final look of the entire website.

It is here that your web development company will start communicating more frequently via emails, collaborations, sharing documents, etc. Remember, exchanging ideas is crucial here and so does finding a good web design company. So, start brainstorming as quickly as you can.

Modern Web Design Trends to influence you in 2023

5. Content creation

Content is written and compiled at this stage. Content creation usually overlaps with other tasks but no matter what, no compromises can be made here! The essence of your business is presented in words. Therefore, you have to communicate to your audience through well-formatted text, call-to-action, and so on. Creating catchy headlines, editing the text, and compiling everything take time and effort. Therefore, it is your responsibility to provide the developers with complete website content so that they can easily migrate it to the website.

6. Development

The design and content are ready at this point. And so, to bring your static images to life, website development using HTML/CSS begins here! The languages are chosen depending on the need and complexity of the website. However, first things first, the homepage is developed. It is then followed by the development of a “shell” for the interior web pages.

Shell is the template that contains the content and the main menu of the website. Once the web development is complete, the entire process shifts to the key concluding steps – testing and deployment!

7. Testing and Bug Fixing

Testing begins once the content and the visuals are in place. Every web page is tested to ensure that the links are working and the website is optimized so that it shows up correctly on different browsers or devices. Titles and descriptions of the web pages are also tested to ensure that they perform incredibly and show a higher impact on the search engines.

Once everything seems to be in place and you (client) approve the website, it is time to launch the app or simply make it live!

8. Support & Maintenance

Once the website goes live on the world wide web, regular maintenance is performed. User testing is done on new content and features. Regular maintenance is done to test the usability of the website and to keep it up and running smoothly like a freshly oiled machine! Also, new doors for improvement and development open up!

Why Outsourcing Website Maintenance Can Help Your Website

Conclusion:

On the whole, website development is tedious! Undoubtedly, one with no or less knowledge about the entire process can end up being the victim of false guidance. Ultimately, that would show up in the long term and end up destroying your business. We are saying this not to scare you but to tell you how important it is to find correct web developers for your project.

In our experience, it is best to outsource web design and development! Take your project a curve ahead of the peers by outsourcing the best talent when it comes to developing your website. Psst! Outsourcing will also save your ample time and money so that you can build a better brand and rake millions!

Gillian Harper Gillian Harper   |  Jul 22, 2022

A professionally engaged blogger, an entertainer, dancer, tech critic, movie buff and a quick learner with an impressive personality! I work as a Senior Process Specialist at Topdevelopers.co as I can readily solve business problems by analyzing the overall process. I’m also good at building a better rapport with people!

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