Gather Information

This is where a good understanding of the company or organization needs to be acquired.  Here are some questions to think about. What is the purpose of the site: provide information, promote a service, sell a product, advertising? What do you hope to accomplish with the web site: make money share information? What is your target audience? What kind of information will your target audience be looking for? Is there a particular online service that you want to provide? Detailed feature requests: interactive forms, flipbook catalogs, photo galleries, content management system (CMS),green screen?

 

 

Domain Name Selection

A domain name should reflect your business or organization. Your domain name preferably should be your website name, brand name, business name, organization name. When people think of your website they think of it by name. It makes it easier for people to remember your website. The length of the domain name can be up to 63 characters. However, the maximum length should be kept at 20 characters or slightly higher if needed. Stay away from hyphens. When verbally giving someone your website name having hyphens in your domain can lead to potential errors. When people enter domain names into browsers they default to .com. The .com extension should be your first choice. Non-profit organizations should choose .org. Before thinking about changing your domain name if it is not available with a .com, you can choice another extension such as .net.

 

Site Map

Using the information that was gathered, a list is formed with all of the main topics and sub topics of the site. This will serve as a guide in how the website is structured with regard to content, appearance, functionality and navigation system. Good usability with your target audience is a very important. They must be able to easily navigate through your website to find what they are looking for.

 

 

 

Design

Templates are used to develop the websites. The templates are from design professionals. From the information I gathered I will search for a template that best suits the category that your website falls under. The template will be customized and optimized to fit your requirements. Through the customization process the website will be transformed into a site that will represent your business or organization. Using templates reduces the design time and cost. More time can be spent on the development of the site.

 

 

Development

This is the point in the process that the website gains its functionality. Graphics are added to fit the content. They add to the message that you want to bring across to your audience. The home page is typically the first to be developed. The home page should be eye catching. The site navigation is built at this stage in the process. Elements are added to bring functionality to the site, such as interactive forms, flash animation, photo galleries, flipbook presentations and tool tips to help the user to find their way through the site. The client will be given access to a draft of the site so that they can give feedback about any changes that need to be made or content that needs to be added. During the development phase, the website undergoes extensive testing. The links are verified and functionality is checked. Cross browser compatibility is tested with IExplore, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. The pages are validated through the W3C validation markup service.

Launch

The launch phase of the website development process is to prepare the website for public viewing. I provide web hosting service through Hostgator. Your hosting account will be set using your registered domain. Once you give your final approval, the website can be uploaded to the server. The website will be tested again to make sure it is functioning properly and there are no broken links. The Search Engine Submission (SES) process is initiated at this time. A sitemap will be generated and submitted directly to the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing).

 

Maintenance

Websites need to be maintained. Once they are launched it is important to make sure there are no broken links. Another thing that can happen is scripts may fail to work properly as new versions of browsers are released. It is important to keep the website up to date, not only with content but also with functionality. There is a great need to keep up with the changing world of technology. Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process to ensure keywords, titles , descriptions and sitemaps are up to date.