Despite conventional wisdom, the core part of website development and design is

not necessary for the coding process. Indeed, such technologies as HTML, CSS,
and JavaScript give the web we know its shape and define the way we interact with
the information. But what usually stays behind the scenes and, at the same time,
remains the crucial part of the website development life cycle are the stages of
preliminary information gathering, detailed planning, and post-launch maintenance.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how the general website development process may
look like. The overall number of development stages usually varies from five to eight,
but every time the whole picture stays pretty much the same. Let’s choose the
average value.
So, here are seven main steps of web development:
1) Information Gathering,
2) Planning,
3) Design,
4) Content Writing and Assembly,
5) Coding,
6) Testing, Review and Launch,
7) Maintenance.

Website Development Timeline

When you think of building a website, your thoughts rotate around two main issues –
price and time. These two values depend largely on the size and scope of the
project. To outline the whole development process, you can create a website
development timeline, adding tasks, and establishing milestones for your project. It is
the best way to track your project implementation to make sure you keep up with the
deadline.
For this purpose, we prefer to use GanttPRO – a convenient, intuitive Gantt chart for
online project planning. See the screenshot below:
Website Development Life Cycle
Step 1. Gathering Information: Purpose, Main Goals, and Target
Audience
This stage, the stage of discovering and researching, determines how the
subsequent steps will look like. The most important task at this point is to get a clear
understanding of your future website purposes, the main goals you wish to get, and
the target audience you want to attract to your site. Such kind of a website
development questionnaire helps to develop the best strategy for further project
management.
News portal differs from the entertainment websites, and online resources for
teenagers look different than sites for adults. Different types of websites provide
visitors with different functionality, which means that different technologies should be
used according to purposes. A well-described and detailed plan based on this pre-
development data can protect you from spending extra resources on solving the
unexpected issues such as design changing or adding the functionality that wasn’t
initially planned.
Estimated time: from 1 to 2 weeks

Step 2. Planning: Sitemap and Wireframe Creation

At this stage of the website development cycle, the developer creates the data that
allows a customer to judge how the entire site will look like.
Based on the information that was gathered together in the previous phase,
the sitemap is created. Here is the sitemap of the XB Software website:
The sitemap should describe the relations between the main areas of your website.
Such representation could help understand how usable the final product will be. It
can show you the “relationship” between the different pages of a website, so you can
judge how easy it will be for the end-user to find the required information or service if
he starts from the main page. The main reason behind the sitemap creation is to
build a user-friendly and easy to navigate website.
The sitemap allows you to understand how the inner structure of a website looks like
but doesn’t describe the user interface. Sometimes, before you start to code or even
work on a design, there’s a necessity to get approval from a customer that
everything looks fine so you can begin the next phase of developing. In this case,
a wireframe or mock-up is created. A wireframe is a visual representation of the user
interface that you’re going to create. But it doesn’t contain any design elements such
as colors, logos, etc. It only describes the elements that will be added to the page
and their location. It’s artless and cheap in production sketch.
Estimated time: from 2 to 6 weeks

Step 3. Design: Page Layouts, Review, and Approval Cycle

During the design phase, your website takes shape. All the visual content, such as
images, photos, and videos is created at this step. Once again, all the info that was
gathered through the first phase is crucial. The customer and target audience must
be kept in mind while you work on a design.
The website layout is the result of a designer’s work. It can be a graphic sketch or an
actual graphic design. The primary function of the layout is to represent the
information structure, visualize the content, and demonstrate the basic functionality.
Layouts contain colors, logos, images and can give a general understanding of the
future product.
After that, the customer can review the layout and send you his feedback. If the
client is not sure about some aspects of your design, you should change the layout
and send it back to him. This cycle should be repeated until the customer is
completely satisfied.
Estimated time: from 4 to 12 weeks
Step 4. Content Writing and Assembly
Content writing and compiling usually overlaps with other stages of website creation,
and its role can’t be underestimated. At this step, it is necessary to put in writing the
very essence you’d like to communicate to the audience of your website and add
calls-to-action. Content writing also involves the creation of catching headlines, text
editing, writing new text, compiling the existing text, etc., which takes time and effort.
As a rule, the client undertakes to provide website content ready to migrate to the
site. It is better when all website content is provided before or during website coding.
Estimated time: from 5 to 15 weeks
X
Step 5. Coding
At this step, you can finally start creating the website itself. Graphic elements that
have been designed during the previous stages should be used to create an actual
website. Usually, the home page is created first, and then all sub-pages are added,
according to the website hierarchy that was previously created in the form of a
sitemap. Frameworks and CMS should be implemented to make sure that the server
can handle the installation and set-up smoothly.
All static web page elements that were designed during the mock-up and layout
creation should be created and tested. Then, special features and interactivity should
be added. A deep understanding of every website development technology that
you’re going to use is crucial at this phase.
When you use CMS for site creation, you can also install CMS plugins at this step if
there’s a need. The other important step is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO
is the optimization of website elements ( e.g., title, description, keyword) that can
help your site achieve higher rankings in the search engines. And, once again, valid
code is pretty important for SEO.
Estimated time: from 6 to 15 weeks

Step 6. Testing, Review, and Launch

Testing is probably the most routine part of a process. Every single link should be
tested to make sure that there are no broken ones among them. You should check
every form, every script, run a spell-checking software to find possible typos. Use
code validators to check if your code follows the current web standards. Valid code is
necessary, for example, if cross-browser compatibility is crucial for you.
After you check and re-check your website, it’s time to upload it to a server. An FTP
(File Transfer Protocol) software is used for that purpose. After you deployed the
files, you should run yet another, final test to be sure that all your files have been
installed correctly.
Estimated time: from 2 to 4 weeks
Step 7. Maintenance: Opinion Monitoring and Regular Updating
What’s important to remember is that a website is more of a service than a product.
It’s not enough to “deliver” a website to a user. You should also make sure that
everything works fine, and everybody is satisfied and always be prepared to make
changes in another case.
The feedback system added to the site will allow you to detect possible problems the
end-users face. The highest priority task, in this case, is to fix the problem as fast as
you can. If you won’t, you may find one day that your users prefer to use another
website rather than put up with the inconvenience.
The other important thing is keeping your website up to date. If you use a CMS,
regular updates will prevent you from bugs and decrease security risks.