Owners of businesses experience a continuous learning curve with the technology in our world today. It is usually not enough to only a business leader, having a good understanding regarding the landscape of social media that is surrounding the ever-growing opportunities – to be able to reach out and attract new clients – are now considered to be more important than ever before. It now appears that you are now required to jump on board this trend or else you will be left out.
With that in mind, it is best to know the extents that you should go to understand and learn more about the technology that is building your website when it comes to web presence. Unfortunately, most business owners are confused and are not familiar with the technologies that are used on their websites.
It is important that you understand the basics so that you will know exactly what you want when you are planning to invest in the re-development of the website of your business in the future.
The Basic Processes in Building A Website
Building a new website requires a lot of processes. You should at least have an idea about them so that you will be able to work with your designer during the process of developing your website. It will be a huge advantage on your part if you will be able to let your designer know what your vision for your website is.
Listed below are the processes that are involved when building a website.
1. Wireframe
A wireframe is a blank canvas that is laying out boxes to indicate where you would want the various content and images on your website to appear. The layout is essential as this will dictate the progress of the development.
2. Design
The Photoshop (PSD) design does not only involve where the punchy images will go as it will also include designs for text colour, font, link colours, background colours, layout, and heading styles and sizes.
It is also best to note that the same layout will not be applied to all of the pages of your website. For example, the design of your homepage will always be different from the pages that are intended for the content. Therefore, different layouts will be required for every page.
3. UX (User Experience)
In the web world of today, one of the most crucial aspects of web design is designing a website or a webpage from the point of view of the user. You must make sure that your design is clean and easy to read. Navigation must also be easy on your website. Most of all, you must ensure that your website will deliver an excellent user experience. You would want people to come back and re-visit your website and recommend your site to other people. That is why user experience is considered as the most important aspect of web design.
4. Platform
The software that is utilised for the development of your website is called the “platform.” Platforms are used to make it easier for the owners to update the content on their websites by themselves instead of being required to ask for the assistance of their web designer every time they have to change or add something to their websites.
Various “open source” platforms are available for use. An open source is when software has been developed by a community of developers. It is available to download for free to the server that will host the website. Drupal, Magento, Joomla, and WordPress are some of the most well-known platforms that are used by the majority of web designers.
5. Development
After creating a wireframe and reaching an agreement on the design, you can now proceed to have your website be converted to a real and live site. This process will involve development work such as CSS, Java, and PHP, HTML 5 – the language that the programmers develop code in to make your website deliver the things that you want and look the way that you want it to appear. However, some bugs that are needed to be fixed can be discovered from time to time despite the skills and expertise that are required from your developer in building your website. This process usually takes some time.
The development must be tested after it has been completed. It is important that your website will be able to work across all the browsers. Your website must also be viewable on mobile devices. You and your developer must make sure that you have checked off all of these prior to agreeing that your site is already ready to go live.
6. Value for money
When you ask for a quotation for your new website, and the quote may be higher than you thought, they must be a good reason for the price. You must follow due diligence and ask for at least three (3) quotes from different web design companies so that you can compare their prices. However, you must make sure to get a quotation for packages that are “like for like” so you can have a better comparison between the quotations.
You will likely discover that web companies may have different approached and use different software which may make it difficult to compare one package against the other. However, it would be easier for you to make that decision if you understand and know what you require for your website.
Nowadays, websites are considered to be important for companies especially when it comes to marketing. That is why you must make sure that your website will be beneficial for your company and will give present your company and its products and/or services in the best way possible. Being able to know and understand the basics of the design of the website of your company will help you do just that as it will make it easier for you to propose some improvements on your website. It will also be easier for you and your web designer to come up with the best possible website that is aligned with your vision for the site.
