Website Design and Development

A website goes through several phases of development. From gathering initial information to the creation of your web site, and finally, its uploading and maintenance, you need to closely co-ordinate with your designer to get the best out of your efforts.

Developing a website is a serious thing, demanding plenty of investment and planning. You expect it to serve as a round-the-clock advertising and sales medium of your products or services. For ensuring that it serves the objective effectively, you need to hire a skillful web designer, and then co-ordinate with him through every phase of development.

Phase 1: Collection of Information

Gathering information is the first step while designing any website. While putting up a plan regarding development of a website, many factors have to be taken into consideration. It involves a good understanding of the company, its business objectives, target audience etc. Purpose of the site has to be well-defined. It should be clear whether one wants to provide information, sell a product, promote a service etc. You also have to be clear about age, education, background etc. of your target audience. You also need to make out what kind of information will the target audience be looking for on your site.

Phase Two: Planning

When you have all the information at your disposal, it is time to chalk out a plan for your website. Make a detailed sitemap including all main topic areas of your site as well as sub-topics. It would serve as a guide as to what content would be on the site and help to develop an easy-to-comprehend navigational system. It is during this stage when the web designer decides about the technologies to be implemented.

Phase Three: Design

It is time now to determine the look and feel of your website. Your field and target audience are key factors to be taken into consideration. For instance, a dental design website needs a sober look and to-the-point approach. In design phase, you also need to incorporate elements such as the company logo or colors to strengthen the identity of your business. In this phase, communication between the client and designer is crucial to ensure that the final website suits your needs and taste.

Phase Four: Development

The actual development of website begins at this stage. The designer takes all the individual graphic elements from the prototype and uses them to create a functional website. Home page is the first one to be developed, followed by the interior pages. The design and navigation contains all the elements previously decided on. On the technical front, code needed for front-end and back-end web development is written at this stage.

Phase Five: Testing and Delivery

This stage involves giving the website final touch and testing it on different parameters. A website has to be tested for the complete functionality of forms or other scripts, as well as for compatibility with different web browsers. As part of testing, the designer must ensure that the code written for your website validates. Valid code means that the website meets the current web development standards. Once the testing is done, the website is uploaded using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program to your server. Most designers offer domain name registration and web hosting services as well. Once you set up these accounts, and the web site uploaded to the server, it becomes public.

Phase Six: Maintenance

Your task is not done once the site is uploaded. A site has to be well-maintained to keep it on good search engine rankings and bring visitors. You need to provide fresh content, products or services on a regular basis to preserve user interest. You also have to work consistently to promote your site on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Most visitors will reach you through these search engines. Hence it is imperative to ensure that your site ranks well on the selected keywords. You also need to promote your interests in social media and do proper networking.

Choosing the right web designer is of critical importance in this regard. You must hire a designer who has got relevant experience of designing the sites in your niche. For instance, if you are a dentist and need a website to promote your services online, choose a developer who has proper experience of web design for dentists. Every field requires certain kind of web design skills. Choosing a web designer with the required skill set would ensure that the site you get is exactly as you required.

In business and in life, presentation is everything. The web is no exception. Poorly designed and unattractive sites are easily forgotten by visitors and the professional and fresh appearance of a well designed website is remembered effortlessly. From the perspective of a website owner, there are two major choices that are involved when dealing with the design of a site. One choice involves using website templates with the alternative of developing a custom website design. Both offer benefits and disadvantages that must be taken into account before a decision is made.

Website Templates: Easy to use, Prepackaged, and Inexpensive

For a fast and simple solution to the issue of web design and development, the option of using a web template can provide a multitude of benefits. Templates are ready to go upon download and are quickly uploaded to the server, on which your site is hosted. Configuration is straight forward with the instructions that are sent along with the web template files. The ability to rapidly add a prepackaged and fully developed template to a server can mean that updates and modifications can be made in a short period of time, often within a day or two. The downside of utilizing a template is that other sites may have an identical or similar appearance to your site, leaving you without the advantage of individuality on the web.

There are many designers and developers that are offering their work through website templates. The marketplace is highly competitive and full of very talented individuals and groups. From the perspective of a website owner this means one thing; quality web templates can be purchased at a low-cost. Custom design work is an expensive and lengthy process full of potential complications and risks. Web templates can offer the similar quality work at a lower price. To keep costs down and to benefit from the rich marketplace, purchasing templates is an intelligent choice.

Custom Design: Flexible, Adaptable, and High Quality

Uniqueness is a valuable asset. In an environment that is full of similar looking sites, a custom and original look can be something that can make your site stand out from the crowd. A fresh and different look can be the difference between losing and retaining visitors and customers. Custom web design is one way that an individual site can break out of the mob and look good.

Custom web development takes place between a client and a developer. Through a series of questions and conversations, the foundations of a site can begin to take root. After this initial phase, a cycle of revisions and modifications eventually leads to the client signing off on the site and purchasing it. This process is very intimate as each detail of design and development is communicated between the client and developer. Along the way changes can be made to the original design and integrated quickly. This option involves high cost, long and intensive development time, and potential for communication errors and other issues. If all goes well, however, the result can be a fantastic web site that is owned exclusively by you.

Conclusion
Both approaches offer competitive advantages and disadvantages. The choice must be made by identifying the needs of the website and the ability to meet those needs. For a quick, simple, and low-cost solution that might leave you looking similar to others, web templates are the way to go. Where individuality and originality matter, custom web design is the superior choice.