What stages does web site development consist of?

You have chosen web development company, filled in the Company Survey. Web development company has developed Technical requirements for a website development for you, you have approved these requirements. When all this is done, development company starts developing your site.

Advice: We recommend you to ask representatives of development company to show you web development requirements example or workflow. Also take time to read our article How to create a correct web site navigation menu? 

1. Domain name registration

This stage may be accomplished either by customer or by development company.

Customer should provide: Domain name variants, for example, http://site_name.com.

Developers should: Register domain name.

2. Choosing hosting-server

You can choose hosting-server where your site will be allocated only on the basis of Technical requirements for a website development. The cost of hosting plan will directly depend on the technology chosen: PHP, .NET, PERL or HTML.

Customer should: Do nothing.

Developers should: Choose hosting-server and hosting plan and approve it with customer.

Advice: We recommend you to read article What is the difference between HTML and PHP, ASP or C?

3. Web site templates development

This stage will let you explore how your site will look like. In Technical requirements you should indicate "look and feel" requirements, on the basis of which web designer will create pictures of your site.

Customer should provide: Logotype, slogan, images which you want to see at your site. You should provide logotype in vector formats: *.cdr (CorelDraw), *.ai (Adobe Illustrator) or as a last resort in raster formats: *.png, *.gif, *.jpg.

What is the difference between vector and raster formats? This difference consists in the possibility to scale images without worsening the quality. Vector format is reflecting an image in curves, raster format is reflecting an image in the form of large quantity of points (pixels). An image made by digital camera is in raster format. It is very important to have logotype of the company in vector format; this will allow using it in big format without worsening the quality, for example, for advertisement hoarding.

Developers should: Developers should make templates of your site on the basis of materials you provided. You should get templates in *.png, *.gif, *.jpg formats. But developers also should keep initial templates, for example, in *.psd (Adobe Photoshop) format, you can get these templates for further use.

Advice: What number of templates should customer get? The list of pages to be designed, for example, Home page, Catalog with "product card" sample, should be indicated in Technical requirements for a website. Developers should create website menu in templates. For example, if your site will have two-level navigational menu, you should see that in templates.

4. HTML-coding

When site design is approved, developers create HTML-templates, CSS-file of the site.

Customer should: Do nothing. You need only to test the work done by web development company.

Developers should: Do HTML-coding of your site all primary pages. Customer should see the files, for example, index.html, news.html, etc. In case site will have CMS (Content Management System), pages may have different extension, for example, news.php or news.asp, depending on the technology chosen.

5. Programming, Testing and Upload on the hosting server

Usually, depending on the project complexity, this stage is divided into three independent stages following each other.  

Customer should: You have to test the work done. If your site works the very way it is described in Technical requirements for a website you should accept the work.

Developers should: Develop and test all the functions and modules of the web site. Upload on the hosting server. Provide customer with CMS (Content Management System) access, for example:
http://site_name.com — this is the address where you should see your site.
http://site_name.com/admin/ — this is the address where you can enter Content Management System

Advice: All of the CMS functions and modules should be described in Technical requirements. We recommend you to read article Do we really need Web Site Content Management System?

6. Filling site

with content With the help of CMS (Content Management System) customer (or web development company) fills site with content.

Advice: We recommend you to read article 7 simple rules of creating a text for a web site.

By Development for the Masses, your Internet business solution company.