Website development

Today website is a necessity of any company. Website creates the first impression, provides a lot of information and can greatly determine whether the potential client will call you or your competitor. Website development has begun since the year of 1991, but there still can be found a great number of websites, which apparently have been designed without a purpose and any idea. If you do not want to join the mentioned websites – before your website’s development you should take under consideration the following two points:

• Objective (why do you need a website, from our working experience – the most difficult task is to work with people, who do not know what do they want)
• Target audience (who will be interested in visiting your website)

Only then when you know your goal and approximate target audience – website development can begin.

Preparatory phase

This, as in any other project, is one of the most important steps because the mistakes in this stage may ultimately lead to a complete or partial failure of the whole project. It is important to understand the client’s wishes, to be able to foresee a couple of steps ahead, notice underwater rocks and warn about them client.

During the first phase of website development we find out:

• Development objectives and target audience
• Wishes and website features (image gallery, blog, content management system, e-mails, e commerce module, checkout systems, statistics, etc.)
• Number of languages
• Color and style preferences

Design development

If a website is compared with a car, then its functionality can be regarded as the engine, but the design – the bodywork. With poor bodywork or none at all no one is going to take a look at the car and nobody will want to get inside of it. Similarly it is with website design – if it is unattractive, difficult to understand or difficult to use, then just a few of visitors will get into the website’s functionality.

Working on a design of a website, we take into account:

• Website development objectives and target audience
• Previously approved colors and styles
• Website functionality, usability and understandability
• Website navigation (it should be easy to see, understandable and user should always be aware of where he is)
• Typography (font sizes, types, spacing between lines, etc.)
• Empty spaces and the amount of them (the spacing between elements in order to highlight and emphasize the desired information)
• The overall compatibility of elements

Website development – HTML/CSS

This phase will largely determine whether the website will be a fast, dynamic, easily expandable and W3C standards consistent. During this stage it is important to find the most rational and the best solution for each HTML/CSS element.

Your benefits from Streamline HTML/CSS cutting:

• Website development is done by writing each HTML/CSS code line by hand. This ensures clean code and the fact that the website loads quickly
• Website development is not based on tables, this ensures that search engine robots can crawl the website with ease. Information that is stored in tables is harder to access and as a result your website could have a lower page rank than your competitor’s website
• Developed website meets W3C standards, which confirms that contains correct code and the search engines will not be challenged in the process of indexing;
• Websites are cross browser compatible because the HTML/CSS code is optimized for all major web browsers (Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari), and therefore there is no need to worry about whether or not all visitors will be pleased with the sites performance and quality

Programming

In this phase of website development a website being prepared for operation. A database is created and functions such as e-mail sending, comment insertion, deleting and editing, calendar, image/video galleries, website statistics are developed and tested. Website content management system (CMS) is implemented for the website to be easy to manage. Programming languages that are used: PHP, SQL, JavaScript, Actionscript, Ajax, etc.

Testing

Testing should be performed throughout all stages of website development. Very important is to detect all errors during the early stages of website development, because those later might interfere with successful project completion. At the end of the website development a complete website testing in carried out, which includes testing of all developed functions, languages, performance and behavior in various browsers.

Launching the website

After the testing phase we need a domain name and hosting service. Domain selection is an important part of the launching stage, because it will affect search engine results and it will then determine the number of website visitors from search engines. Website hosting service selection is the next step after a domain name has been chosen.

Some of the things that should be taken into account when selecting a hosting service:

• Price
• Availability (server uptime or downtime
• Hard drive size
• Server speed
• Location
• Security

* Throughout the whole website development process a regular communication with client is conducted about the current state of the project, which helps rapidly eliminate errors, any confusions and to timely introduce new ideas in the website development process.

Benefits of having a website:

• Free advertising 24/7, 365 days a year
• Website is accessible from any area of the world
• Creates the first impression
• Possibility to very quickly communicate news
• Cheap, effective and interactive advertising
• Opportunity to receive feedback (comments)