What is web development. Website development stages
Web development is the procedure for creating a WEB-application or website.
Website development has the following stages:
Elaboration of the idea. At this stage, you need to determine what you need the site for. It will be a landing page, a personal blog, a business card site, a small online store, etc. To understand how the site will look visually, you need to analyze competitors. See how they implement the functionality in order to adopt all the best to yourself.
Choosing a web hosting. Someone buys a separate domain and hosting, and then combines everything together – this is an unnecessary waste of time. Many modern hosting companies provide an all-inclusive service. That is, in the personal hosting account you can buy a domain, configure an SSL certificate, install a CMS, etc. Hosting is chosen on the principle of “closer to the client”. This means that if the potential visitor of your site is from Switzerland, then the hosting server should be located in Switzerland, if from USA – then in US, if from Europe – then in Europe, etc. For example. You are going to sell cases for smartphones in China, then you do not need to rent hosting from Europe. The closer the hosting servers are to potential visitors, the faster your site will work.
Select a domain. The domain can be registered directly from the personal account of personal hosting. There are many recommendations for choosing a domain. The main ones are: the domain should be easy to remember and easy to read, and the domain zone should correspond to your site. For example, the site should work in Russia, then the domain zone should be “.ru” or “.рф”. If it’s all over the world, then you can choose “.com”. You can choose a domain zone according to the subject of the site, since there are a lot of domain zones and there are many to choose from.
Choosing a CMS. A CMS is a website management platform. Installed directly from the personal hosting account. There are also a lot of them, there are both paid and free, easy and more complicated. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. If you have zero knowledge in website building, then it is better to opt for WordPress. It is the most popular, easy to learn and free platform. It has many free and paid plugins with which you can expand the functionality of your resource. On WordPress, you can create a site of any kind: landing page, blog, online store, etc. For example, a landing page can be created in a bunch of WordPress + Elementor plugin + free template. An online store can be created in conjunction with WordPress + Woocommerce plugin + free template.
Theme and Template selection. Once you’ve chosen and installed the WordPress CMS, it’s time to take care of the look and feel of your future website design. To do this, inside WordPress from the platform store, choose the appropriate templates for the site. For each subject of the site, you can find a specialized template: for a landing page, an online store, medical services, a news site, a game site, etc.
Selection of plugins. After installing the template, it’s time to choose the necessary plugins. Installing too many of them is not recommended, however there are a number of plugins that you will need. For example, if you are creating an online store, then you need Woocommerce. If you want to create your own design of your site, then you will need plugins-constructors such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, etc. You will also need security plugins, optimizers, SEO, etc. You may need specific plugins for unique functions for your site. No need to add everything at once – you will add them as needed.
The creation processes. With the help of themes and plugins, the site is created without knowledge of programming. Usually, the whole process, from registering a hosting to publishing a site, takes several days. At first, everything may seem very complicated, however, having understood, you will understand that everything is very easy and simple. Creating a site with the help of designers is dragging the necessary blocks to the right place and configuring them. A simple website can be done in 1 day.
Once you’ve installed everything, all you have to do is set up your site. There are a lot of books, courses, articles, videos on the topic “Creating a site on WordPress”. Don’t be afraid to use “search” when difficulties arise. You can get free training on this topic.
The beauty of creating a site on WordPress is that it can be modified as much as you want. But for this you need to know a little programming, especially HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript. Therefore, many do this: first, they create a site without programming knowledge with the help of plugins, and then gradually study the technologies described above and modify the site at their own discretion.
If you do not want to bother with hosting, domain and WordPress, you can go an even easier way – to create a site on platforms-builders such as Wix, Tilda, Setup, Ucoz, etc. But be prepared for the fact that most of the interesting functions for your site will be paid, and you will not be able to modify the site to your taste, since there are a lot of restrictions on such platforms. Therefore, they are used for short-term projects, when you need to create a website for a month or two, for example, to test sales. If you choose a technology for the future, then it is better to host + WordPress – it will be cheaper, more reliable, more professional, although a little more difficult.
