Websites are one of the main reasons why people use the internet to find information they require, sell or buy products, complete transactions. The term website may be used for websites of different complexities,ranging from a simple static website with few pages, to extremely large and complex websites like Facebook or Amazon. However, the basic steps in creating a website remain the same. While most businesses in Singapore will hire a website developer for designing their website, a website design Singapore price can be costly. It is important that the business staff is aware of the steps involved in developing a website. The 4 steps involved in developing a website are described below and will also help individuals who are developing their own website.
Planning the website
The first step in developing the website involves planning the website. For this the web designer should find out how the website will be used, the profile of the customer. Most business websites are promoting the product or service which is being sold by the business. These websites allow the customers to directly purchase the product or service, and should have suitable security features There are many fan sites for TV shows, celebrities and movies which allow the fans to interact with each other on forums. Many non-profit organizations or charities also have their websites highlighting their services, and also allowing people to donate to them.
Usually it is also advisable to check the websites of similar businesses or organizations, before deciding on the content of the website. Many businesses spend a lot of money on developing and promoting their website, so it is important to engage with the visitors so that the business can generate leads and orders. Often the website has a mailing list or offers coupons to visitors who register with the website. In other cases registration forms or forums may be included. The design should also consider the audience profile, if the users do not use the internet extensively, a simpler web design will be preferred.
Designing the website
The next step in website development is finalizing the website layout and how it will look. This involves deciding the aesthetics of the website, usability to create a mockup of the website. The website developer will finalize the color scheme for the home page and the other pages of the website, the font which will be used and the layout of the pages. This mockup is usually submitted to the customer for approval especially for business websites. Many businesses have a logo, company colors, and they want these incorporated in their website. The web developer will also make a content sitemap , finalizing the content and pages for the website.
Creating the website
The mockup of the website is then converted into the website, a digital product either hand coding or using a content management system (CMS). Hypertext markup language (HTML) is the most widely used language for hand coding a website. The HTML code is understood by all the web browsers like Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, which interpret it and display the website. HTML is used to define the various parts of the website like the heading, meta tags, body, paragraphs, forms, embedded images and videos. Cascading style sheets (CSS) are used to specify the style of each page, color, font which is used. Javascript is also widely used to make web pages interactive, with slideshows, ads
Increasingly most web developers are using a CMS for developing a website, with WordPress being the most popular CMS worldwide. One of the main advantages of using a CMS is that the web developer only has to add content to the website, after choosing a particular theme. He does not have to spend time hand coding the website in HTML, which can sometimes lead to errors. However, one of the main limitations of using a CMS is that there are only a limited number of templates which are available for most CMSes. If he requires any changes in the templates, he will have to do some coding.
Hosting the website
The final step is hosting the website online, so that internet users can access it. For this a suitable domain name has to be selected based on the business or organization profile, paying a small fee to the domain registrar. Then the web developer will also purchase web hosting, where he will upload all the files for the website using file transfer protocol (FTP).