The website of your company is crucial to customers’ perceptions and interactions with it. Your company’s website should be treated with the same care as a retail space or office. There are six stages to website development, regardless of whether you hire a web developer or create your website yourself. This website development process will help you move in the right direction. We’ll be discussing each phase of website development in this article.
The phases of website development
Let’s now discuss each phase of website development.
Phase 1: Information Gathering
This is the most crucial phase in website development. This phase can also be the most time-consuming. This might be called the Discovery phase. Understanding your purpose behind creating a website is crucial. It is important to know what your goals are with your website. You also need to know who your target audience is and what type of content they want.
Understanding your company’s needs is the first step in website development. How will your website help you achieve your business goals? A web designer will ask many questions to get a complete understanding of your business goals. The purpose of your website is another important thing to think about. Do you want to give information? Promoting a service Promote a service?
Next, what are your website’s goals? Many websites are designed to make money and share information.
Is there anyone you feel will be able to help you achieve your goals? Imagine your ideal website visitor. How old are they? What do their interests and occupations look like?
What kind of information do people want to find on your site? Do they want general information? Are they looking for a specific product or service? How to place an order online This requires you to analyze your client’s requirements and needs.
Phase 2: Planning
This phase of website development is where you prioritize the tasks required to complete the website. This phase will see you create a sitemap. Sitemaps are a list of all major topics on the site. This is essential for creating a navigable system. During this phase, it is important to keep the end user in mind. Good user interface design is essential to reaching the goals that you have set for your website. You will also need to determine the menus, contents, as well as navigation system. The website designer can help you decide which technologies should be used on your site. This could include a CMS (content management system), such as WordPress, or contact forms.
Phase 3: Designing
This is the most creative phase in website development. This is where a designer can add your company’s personal touch to it. This phase requires communication, especially if an outside consultant is involved in the web development process. Your website should reflect your business’s tastes and needs. This is what your web designer will need to know. Your designer should be able to communicate with you and help you to create the final design. Your target audience and you must communicate with the designer what you expect from the website.
Your target audience is crucial to the design of your website. Websites aimed at teenagers will be very different from those aimed at baby boomers. This is the phase where the logo and colors of the company are incorporated into your website to help strengthen your brand’s image. The web designer will most likely make several prototype designs for your website for you to choose from.
Phase 4: Development
This is also known as the implementing phase in website development. This is the creation of the actual site. The web designer will use each graphic element taken from the prototypes to create the final usable website. The process usually begins with the creation of the homepage, then the “shell” to create the interior pages. Once the shell is created, the designer will distribute your content in the appropriate places throughout the site. During this phase, the technology and elements (CMS, contact form) that were identified in phase two will be made operational. During this phase, your designer must ensure that your website is accessible for viewing at all times. This allows you to make any changes you would like.
Phase 5: Delivery and Testing
Testing is another important aspect of website development. To ensure that your website is functioning properly, there are many tests you can run. Content testing and functional testing are two of the most popular types of testing.
Usability testing is also known by the term content testing. It’s the process of determining whether your website’s written content is suitable and appropriate for your audience. It is also the process of assessing whether your audience can understand and comprehend the content. This testing will ensure that your information is clear, readable, and entertaining for your target audience.
Functional testing is the process of ensuring that software functions as intended. Before you make the site available to the public, you will need to verify that each function works as it should. It will be tested on various devices so that it can be viewed on all devices.
After the website is tested, files are uploaded to the server. It is then tested again to make sure that every file has been uploaded correctly and is ready for use. Your designer must validate all code on your website. Valid code indicates that your website meets current web development standards. During this phase, other details such as plugin installation or search engine optimization (SEO), may also be double-checked. In SEO, code validation is important. Many WordPress plugins can help you improve your SEO. Your site can now be viewed by the public after this stage of website development.
Phase 6: Maintenance
Your website may be accessible to the public, but that does not mean the website development process has ended. Maintenance is the final stage in the website development process. Maintenance involves updating the website’s content and design. Many web designers are willing to work together to provide the best website possible for your company. Some businesses might prefer to handle the maintenance themselves. You can decide how comfortable you are updating your website. Site backups, WordPress upgrades, and the installation of additional plugins are all examples of additional maintenance.
Why you should invest in website design and development
You might be asking yourself if hiring someone to design and build your website is worthwhile. These are the top four reasons why your website design investment is worthwhile.
The First Impressions
Your website is the first impression consumers have of your company. Your website is the first impression that consumers have of your business. Your audience will associate your website with a site that is unappealing and outdated. Your website could turn off potential leads and sales. Your website’s first impression can make or break a potential lead or sales prospect.
SEO Strategy
Website design and development have many influences on how content is published. These factors have a direct impact on how search engine crawlers index and index your website. Your overall SEO strategy will be severely affected if your on-page SEO strategies aren’t up to standard. If you don’t know much about website design, it can be very complicated. This is why you need an expert to assist you. A professional web designer is the best way to ensure that your web design is successful.
Building Trust
Poorly designed websites are simply not trusted. A site that is not up to date looks suspicious and untrustworthy.
Keep up with your competitors
If you are still unsure why you should invest in your website development, here is the bottom line: Your competitors are doing it. You must create a high-quality website if you want to remain competitive. A website should not only be competitive with the competition but also stand out from it. An updated website will rank lower than a well-designed one. You will lose customers to your competitors if you rank lower.
Are you ready to design (or re-design) your website?
SEO Design Chicago offers web developers and UI designers who are available to help you create high-quality websites. SEO Design Chicago is committed to providing the best possible user experience and ranking well in search engines. Our experience includes Shopify websites and Magento websites. Everything from front-end development to JavaScript or jQuery can be done by us. For more information on how we can help you design your website, contact us today.
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