Ways to Effectively Develop Your Website
Many things go into the website development process. It is not just about coding, using HTML and JavaScript, as a web designer, you have to take your time in web design development to ensure everything turns out great.
Now more than ever, websites are important for brands and business owners.
Good websites help them attract audiences and customers through the content they post and the offers like products or services that they make available. This makes it important for web designers to pay attention to the website development process to ensure that the website has enough traffic.
Apart from getting traffic, it should help the audience to easily access pages and view offers easily. Therefore, this article will be talking about the steps in web design development.
What is a Website Development Process?
A website development process includes the process that goes into the functionality of a website and its design. The reason that this process focuses solely on the functionality and design of a website is that a website has to be beautiful and functional for visitors or the target audience to access easily what they need without stress.
So, below are the steps to consider in your web development process:
Discovery
The discovery stage is the first and most important part of the website development process. It also influences how web design development will turn out. At this initial stage, the web designer has to gather all the necessary information that will make designing the website easier. Web designers usually ask the client the purpose of the website to know exactly how to design and develop the website.
Some website serves an information-sharing purpose, for others, it may be to make money by selling products and services, in other cases; it may be for both purposes.
Knowing the purpose of the website will make it easier during the web development process to create a website that fits the need.
In the discovery stage, the target audience of the website is also important. A website that will attract people in their 20s to 30s may not necessarily be the one that will attract audiences in their 40s and upwards.
This makes it important for the web design development to be done according to the target audience.
Therefore, information regarding interests, age, and habits will help you create a user persona for the website development process. This makes the discovery stage an important aspect of web design development.
Information Architecture
When working on the information architecture in your web design development, you must structure information on the website in a way that users will be able to easily access and understand.
This makes knowing your user or target audience, their needs, and what they are looking for on your website very important. So, when structuring your website present information in a way that is easy for your readers to use.
Wireframes
In web design development, wireframes have to do with the visual representation of the user interface of the intended website.
When creating wireframes you can use mock-up tools like Figma to create them. This helps create the data for how an intended user or target audience will be able to interact well with the website.
In creating wireframes during the website development process, you do not necessarily have to worry about the colour, logo, or fonts.
The major area of concern is how navigable the website will be for the intended user.
When looking at the navigation of the website and the user interface, the pages and elements of the website are important and that is why during your web design development you have to include wireframes.
Design
During the web design development process, creating prototypes will help your client have a clear picture of how the website will look once you finish developing it.
Prototypes are clickable images that represent the final look and feel of a website. If your client is not okay with the proposed final look, you can easily make changes.
Designing the website development process includes many things. The logo for the website or brand, font colour, style, etc. all has to be included in the website.
The reason is that the brand identity has to be fully represented here. The kind of images and videos that are necessary for the brand or website is also included in the web design development.
While designing, focus or think about the target audience that you want to reach with the website.
A website that will appeal to a young audience may not necessarily appeal to an older audience. So, make sure that the design is flawless and easy enough for a great user experience.
Content
No one can underestimate the importance of content on a website, which is why during the website development process, content has to be ready to be uploaded or migrated to the website. It is through content that you are able to communicate effectively with your target audience.
Content can help you attract an audience or customers to your brand or business, which means that the kind of content you put out on your website, can either bring about an increase or decline in audience. This makes the first step important in web design development.
You must know who your target audience is, their pain points, what you wish to share with them, and your brand voice or identity so that you will create effective content. While putting out content, include a call to action that is important.
Development
The development stage of the website development process requires a lot of work. After a successful web design development, what is required is translating the static images that were designed into HTML/CSS.
The complexity of the website is usually considered if as the web designer you want to add JavaScript or include animations on the website.
While developing the website, the homepage, menu, submenu, categories, and other things must be fully developed. Content also has to be added at this point in the website development process. Elements like shopping carts, chat boxes, and other important things on the website have to be taken care of.
QA
Your website development process needs website quality assurance better known as QA. you have to ensure that everything on your website works the way it is supposed to, and it looks the way it is supposed to.
You are able to do this by compiling a list of what you expect or hope that your website is able to achieve and how you want it to function. This will help you evaluate the way a website functions, its layout, security, etc. You know at this point if it matches your quality assurance checks.
Web developers at this point in web design development often ensure that on all devices, the website functions or operates the way it is supposed to. It is generally agreed that most of your website visitors will be using their mobile devices to access your website.
Therefore, you must ensure that not only does a website looks and feels well on a desktop device but also on a mobile device or tablet.
Security
In your website development process, you cannot neglect the importance of fully securing your website. Using secure socket layer (SSL) protection on your website is extremely important. You can also easily buy an SSL certificate and enable or install it on your website.
An SSL certificate protects your website from being vulnerable to cyber security hacks, it also helps to encrypt the information that your target audience will be sharing with you especially if your web design development relates to an e-commerce website. It is needless to put effort into the website without securing it because your audience will be scared of visiting or will not stay long on a website that does not have security.
Launch
The launching part of the website development process is one of the most exciting parts. After multiple test runs of the website, you finally upload it to a server which is usually an FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
After doing this, the website is accessible and viewable by the public. While running tests on the website, ensure that all links are working to prevent any broken links issues, ensure you have no typo errors, and ensure that everything is exactly how you want it to be.
Monitoring and updates
Your web design development does not just end when you have successfully launched your website. You also have to frequently monitor and update the website.
Mistakes can come up, links can get broken, etc. so, you must frequently check the website to ensure that nothing is amiss and if any problem comes up you can quickly fix it.
Final Thoughts
Launching a successful website involves putting a lot of effort into the website development process.
Considering that you probably want to bring brand recognition, make sales, and attract your target audience, you need to put a good effort into ensuring that you follow all the steps listed here to successfully launch and maintain your website well.