One of the essential requirements for any business is a website designing and development is a must. This is something that most people take as a given, but many businesses have been around for years without one. In this world of smartphones and social media, it’s more important than ever to have your own site, with content that speaks to your customers about your company.
Why Do I Need a Website?
A website is a necessity for any business involved in e-commerce since it gives customers an online presence where they can find out about your products and services, but it’s also good for all businesses. Having a website presents your business to the public in a more professional light, and the content you include on the site (in addition to any information or promotions that you post on social networks) can help develop your brand image.
A good website not only helps your business stand out from the crowd, but it can also help improve your search engine rankings since a well-designed site is easily recognizable in search results.
Who Does It?
When trying to determine what type of site you need to create, you have a few basic options:
You can have someone else do it for you. If the experience you need is professional design and development and programming work, then hiring a full-service web design agency will usually be the best option. Their services include everything you need to start a website and make it look as professional as possible.
You can do it yourself. Although you’ll need some technical experience, getting your own site up and running is rather easy, which is why it’s not a bad idea to follow along in this book and try your hand at it yourself. Keep in mind that the process has to be planned ahead of time so that you don’t leave anything out or do something wrong.
You can hire someone else for a small project. If you’re a company that’s just starting out, or you want to get a simple website up and running quickly, hiring someone for a one-time project may be your best option. You can contact a freelancer who specializes in web development and get your site up in no time.
How Do I Choose My Developer?
If you decide to hire an outside developer, there are plenty of places to look for one. But before you start looking, it’s important to know what kind of developer you need.
The first thing to do is to look at the developer’s portfolio. What types of websites does he or she create? Is there a good balance between business and personal sites? (If the answer is yes, that’s good.) Does the portfolio include examples of their work for big businesses? Sometimes an agency will have assembled a team of people who do a wide range of things on the same projects. This can be good or bad, but it can give you a better idea of what the overall experience is like.
When evaluating the resume, it’s important to look at the size and scope of projects that each developer worked on. You want someone who has experience in website designing and development sites on a large scale, rather than working on smaller personal sites. (You also want to make sure that any references given for design and development are current.)
Front End vs. Back End
When it comes to writing code, there are two different types of programming that can be done: frontend development and backend development. Frontend development is the part of a project that includes the markup, CSS, and JavaScript code that your page will use to display itself on a browser. The back end is all coding done in PHP or Java that runs on the server; it’s what you interact with when submitting information from a form.
If you’re a developer yourself, you may want to handle both types of development, but if you’re short on time or just need someone to build out a site for you, it’s important to understand which one (if either) you want your developer to focus on. (The choice may be made for you by the technology that’s already been chosen by the website. For instance, if the CMS you want to use is Posts, then your developer will need to know CSS coding.)
Some developers work mainly on back-end development, and in this case, it’s important that you have someone who is familiar with the database management system you’re using (or are planning to use). Remember that the language of a database system can be totally different from other languages your developer might already be familiar with.
What about WordPress?
WordPress is a great option for website designing and development, but it’s not always the best one. In fact, it’s best to use WordPress only if you have a simple site that needs to be maintained over time or you want the content management convenience of using a blogging platform. If your site has complex functionality or is used for e-commerce, then you should probably stick with traditional programming languages like PHP and MySQL.
Another thing to consider is the type of website you want. If you’re simply building a blog, then WordPress can be a great solution. However, if you need something more robust, a better choice is likely to be a CMS like Drupal or Joomla.
WordPress Etiquette
WordPress has become increasingly popular over the last few years as the go-to tool for website designing and development by those who don’t have time to learn full-blown programming languages.
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