The internet has become integral and central to the working of any type of business. Commercial or financial activities due to the number of advantages it offers and the ease of access, as well as transactions, it provides. This has led to more and more people relying almost entirely on the web to conduct. All types of business activities and for monetary purposes, giving it importance.
But how can you and your business take advantage of this new boom taking place online? Well, it is simple, you simply have to create a presence online and advertise or market yourself so a lot many people flock to your website. Thus increasing your sales and boosting your profits. This, however, is easier said than done as it is quite hard to make a website and then make it popular.
Luckily, many web development companies that specialize in doing this and so can be hired for planning, creating, and then maintaining a website for you and your business however you would like it to be. They can also help you market and advertise while also offering some help with getting your website closer to the top of the many search engine results.
What are the 10 different phases or steps involved in the process of web development?
Web development has many different phases and even some sub-phases but for clarity and brevity. We are only going to look at the major parts or steps in detail here in this very article. So, the 10 different steps involved in the long and difficult but rewarding and important process of online website development are:-
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Gathering information and identifying goals
This first and most basic step in the process. You sit down with company executives and talk about their requirements, expectations, demands, needs, and wants. Then you can decide what is feasible and what is not while also talking about costs and realistic achievements. Finally, all the fine details are agreed upon, and so, can confidently start
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Planning and strategizing
Then comes the phase where you plan how to translate the needs and wants into the actual website itself. Here you will have to make decisions regarding what is to be prioritized and what is not while also deciding what goes where. The strategy will have to be concerning how exactly you will go about putting into practice all your decisions.
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Designing
In this stage, you have to decide all the design elements that will make up the website. What colors, what fonts, what layouts, what backgrounds, where will the text, videos, gifs, pictures be as well as what audio to choose. All these will be to create a certain mood and feeling for the potential customers. That visit and then browse your website.
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Development
This brings us to the most important and central part, the development of the website. In this, the developers start writing code to make the website run smoothly and efficiently. First comes the homepage or the landing page and then the other pages for all different products or services. Followed by the hierarchy as well as the sitemap, rounding it all up.
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Content creation and writing
Here you have to fill the website with all the relevant pictures, images, videos, GIFs, audio, and text. Together they will make up all the content contained within the website. This is exactly what the visitors and potential customers will see so great care needs to be taken to ensure that it is relevant, appropriate, interesting, informative, and just fun.
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Testing and checking
After filling up all parts of the website and finishing up all the design and development, you can go to the phase in which you test different parts of the website in different ways to see if anything breaks, what errors pop up, and just how functional everything is. You can even canvass opinions from beta users to see how they feel too.
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Going online and running the website
After finishing up with the testing phase, you can move on to the phase in which you prepare to launch the website and then finally do go online. This is the most important part as the initial success and adoption of the website by the masses hinges upon this very part and you have to make sure everything is perfect before you go on with this.
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Choosing the most appropriate Content Management System (CMS)
Generally speaking, WordPress is the most reliable, easy-to-use, and convenient content management system out. There so it is a leading candidate for one, but of course, the ultimate choice lies with you. Cms is used to keep the website responsive, fast, quick, simple, and easy to use. It performs all the basic functions of a website.
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Maintenance and security
After everything is done, you have to make sure to keep the website safe and secure from viruses, errors, problems and will need to maintain the website in its perfectly functioning state with no or minimal downtime to ensure a steady experience for all visitors and customers alike. This means being on call 24/7 and keeping the site security updated.
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Support services
After all the services are done and dusted, the final one remains in which you will have to be always ready to answer questions about the state and function of the website. Help in troubleshooting for visitors or even the owners of the business who administer the website. Be prepared to see unique and completely new problems pop up at random.
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Marketing, Advertising, and SEO
This is an optional and extra part of web development in which, if contracted to do so. The web development company can help you market your website and its products or services efficiently to people wherever you want. They can also help in advertising your site and also in the important task of search engine optimization, depending on you.
