Development

There are numerous steps involved when you create a website. I like to break the web development process into different phases, so next time you hire a web developer or a company make sure they follow a similar process.

This will ensure that every life cycle of web development is covered.

7 Phases of Web Development

Analysis or information gathering

This is a very important step. Its very important that your web designer/developer listens to every minute detail you say about your business. It helps them in the next phases of web development. Make sure your designer ask you a lot of questions about your business. I have seen a lot of web developers who will just concentrate on development phase. Let your designers know your business goal, sample sites similar to your business, preferred colours (although i would leave this option for the designer, competitors, market audience and everything about your business that will help them to design and develop an awesome website.

Planning - Sitemap or Architecture

Using the information from phase 1, a plan is created for your website. This is where a sitemap is created which helps in putting in all the information that will help to build an easy to use navigational system for the site. Customers who will be using your website to find out about your products or services should be able to find these information easily. Remember if a cusomer cannot find what he is looking for in your website, there is very little chance he will visit your website again.

Design

Once the sitemap is finalised, the design process is started. A skeleton of your website architecture needs to be produced. This should identify where the different modules such as menus, login, banners etc will be placed on the website. This process is much similar to building a house. The developer shows you the house plan drawing your attention to where your lounge room, balcony etc will be constructed when the house is completed. Once the skeleton is completed, the designer will then present you with the first draft of the look and feel of your website. This is sometimes followed by different revisions until the look and feel is finalised for the website.

Development or Coding

Once the look and feel is finalised along with the sitemap, the process for the development now begins. All the different modules are now created. The homepage is normally what gets developed first, a template is then created for the inner pages.

Content Writing

A good content is a key to a good website. Make sure you have a very good content writer who knows "SEO Content Writing". This will help your website to achieve top rankings in google. A good content writer captures the important keywords of your different pages and constructs the contents based on the keywords.

Beta Testing and Delivery

Before you sign off any completion of a website, make sure it has been tested for bugs. Although sometimes some bugs are found after the site is live. 95% of the bugs can be resolved before the website goes live. Find some good testers who can test your website and find any bugs. Once you are happy with this phase, you move to the last phase. 

Promotion

Your website is now live and you are ready to start marketing about your business. Although i do believe that promotion can be done way before the website is completed.