The Website Development Cycle

Any web developer will tell you that website development is a tedious and intricate process. All the coding, the copy and pasting, all the rendering of images and making sure the colors and the fonts and the designs look good together on the page, all that is just a small part of the website development cycle. Designing a website from scratch takes a lot of effort if you want to do a good job of it.

Similar to other projects, website development begins with research.

Some of this research should be done with the client around to get an understanding of what he or she is looking forward to seeing on the finished website. Discuss possible designs and layouts, all the while developing an outline based on the information at hand. The final design should of course reflect on the client's available budget for the project.

Next up is deciding on the technical requirements. Both web developer and client needs to make a decision early on since it's going to affect the time frame, budget, and overall feel of the website. What software is used and what system is going to make the website work is also very important.
Some options are:

*Basic HTML - Standard HTML is the most basic form of website development. It makes for quick website development, but offers limited flexibility and lots of ongoing maintenance.

*Content Management System - CMS allows the designer to control the look and feel of the website while the client takes care of the content updates.

*Flash - Flash offers a rich animated online experience, an important aspect of modern websites. The process is complicated and time-consuming, but you can be rest assured the end product is going to be something else.
The next step is to design the website.
Most web developers use Photoshop for creating the initial designs. After getting approval from the client, coding takes place. Make sure to stick to layouts that are easy on the eyes and even easier to navigate. This is a general rule that applies to most, if not all, websites.

The last thing the web developer needs to worry about is making the website accessible to search engines, other websites, etc.

The integration of an assigned IP address and the produced document results in moderate accessibility. But if you want to keep up with the competition, then SEO (search engine optimization) is a must. It's normal for a web developer to integrate SEO techniques into a website in development especially if that website forms a significant portion of the company's sales.

From here on out, the job rests on the client's hands to post regular content updates on the website to keep it fresh. For the web developer, this is where the website development cycle ends.

By:
Don Varner
Marketing Staff
http://websitedevelopment.org