The development of a new website comes with many benefits. But, for this to be achieved you need to ensure the development process is in check. Ensure that the designers, front-end developers, backend developers, and content creators do their job well. The good thing is that all this is doable with a good collaborative development team.

In this article, we will look at the development process of a website. This will help you prepare well for your next website project. Moreover, to ensure you get a cool website that when hosting you will be happy. Let’s journey together in the process of designing a new website.

Preparation for the development process for a website

A good business, company, enterprise, or development team should always sit down and prepare for the development process. Doing this at the initial stage always makes the whole process to be professional. Thus, coming up with great web solutions. This is what you want, right? 

Read also How to create a Work Breakdown Structure for the development process.

Hence, let’s look at how you need to prepare for the development process.

Know the Website Purpose

This should be one thing you need to know beforehand. The purpose of the website should be at the back of your mind. This makes it simple to decide the other things. For example, the choice of the color to use is primarily based on the purpose of the website. Thus, you need to know the purpose of creating a website.

The purpose of the website in most cases is the objective and the goal of the business. This is unless you are creating a website for a campaign or a promotion. Ensure you don’t start before you decide on the purposes.

Set clear Timelines

The timelines are important for any development process. This is especially software development. This is why you need to come up with a clear schedule for everything. This will ensure the hosting process and the launch of the website is done on time. Moreover, it gives a clear direction to the development team. Consequently, this ensures you allocate time accordingly to every phase.

There are many ways to do this. But the best one is to consider the final product you want and approximately how long it will take to design it. You can learn more about how to Estimate a Custom WordPress Project.

Know the Target Audience

The best websites in the world are the ones that meet the needs of their target audience. Consequently, this means that whenever site visitors come to your site for a product they get it. If they come for answers they get them. To achieve this, you need to know your target audience. This entails a lot of information like:

• Their age
• The niche that interests them
• The gender
• The country and location

When you have these details, it will help customize a cool site that will be perfect for the audience. For example, if your business is an international one then you have to blend in all the needs of the audience. This involves things like language. If it’s a regional company you must give the target audience a platform something they resonate with.

Site Accessibility

As you prepare for the development process of a website you need to look at the way the site will be accessible. A site can be private, public, or limited to a given region. All this needs to be considered before the development starts. For example, if you are seeking to find new customers through the site you can consider making the site for a specific objective. Consequently, is unlike when you offer membership to a predetermined audience.

When you know the type of accessibility it will help you during the design and hosting. Especially in the hosting part to limit the access to the URL.

The Development Team

The last but most important thing to do when you prepare you are designing a new website is the development team. You need to have an all-rounded development team to work with. You can check the following website design services for the best team of designers and developers.

It’s not a requirement to have your full-time development team. This is because you can consider outsourcing for a distributed team to work on your project. 

The process of designing a website from start to Hosting

Now that we have learned what to do to prepare for the development process of a website. Let’s now journey into the process of designing from the start to the hosting stage. These steps will give you a good view to manage your team. Moreover, it will help you know what the agency services you ordered entail.

Step 1: Choose the right Framework/ website platform

Depending on your plan choose a good framework to use for your website. There are many frameworks to use for developing cool websites. Frameworks help you to build custom websites. But you can save on time, cost, and other resources by choosing a website platform. Many such platforms help you build websites faster. Examples are: 

1. WordPress – Perfect for online stores with WordPress, especially if you want to migrate Shopify to WooCommerce.
2. Wix – Perfect for small business startups
3. Shopify – Good for online shops
4. WooCommerce – Perfect for online stores with WordPress

Step 2: Sign up for the services

The next important step is to sign up for the specific services. For more information, you can visit the official websites or go through their documentation. This will help you learn how to sign up. The majority of these platforms offer both paid and free plans. But, WordPress and WooCommerce are open-source sites that are free to use. Nevertheless, you will need a hosting site to install the WordPress files and start working on your website.

In the development process of a website always ensure you consider all the costs beforehand. Check for reviews and enquire with professional agencies on the best platforms. This is to avoid hidden charges. Moreover, to ensure professionalism.

Step 3: Choose a unique and relevant domain name.

The domain name is a vital component of any website design. It is the name, the title, the identity, and the link (and many more) to the website. You need to ensure you choose a perfect domain name. In the article Things, you need to know about Hosting a website. For example, we learned more about domain names. The domain name is a unique easily remembered name to represent your site. The domain names make part of the URL.

Therefore, you need to choose a cool domain. There are many domain name service providers out there. The good thing is that with some website outsourcing services the agencies will do all this. additionally

Step 4: Pick a design template you love.

The next thing is to pick a website template. Like the domain name, the template is a great identity for your site. You want to be sure your site stands out to the audience. It is a key element for any good website to have a cool template. This helps it to convert site visitors to customers. The platforms above have thousands of themes that you can use. 

Ensure you choose the themes that have a design for your Niche. Moreover, consider up-to-date themes. If you want a website built from scratch ensure you get to know the Programming Languages you will need. You can use the prototyping tools available to simulate how you want the site. This will help you choose the best theme.

Step 5: Upload and format the content.

After choosing the template you are now ready to format the website. Add the pages you will need and the relevant content. Ensure you include every detail that will help the audience learn about your business, services, or products. At least you should have enough content to prompt the site visitor to the call to action.

Consequently, as you progress add and update the content. This will ensure the information about your company/ enterprise is the correct one. Moreover, our agency can help you choose the website integration tools you will need.

Step 6: Preview, Host and Publish your website

After doing all the developments from the designing, development, and coding for the site. You now need to preview your site and ensure everything is working right. Preview all the components and features to ascertain that they are working well. Consequently, the best way to do this is to visit the site like a visitor and rate your experience. If it’s good you can now proceed to host the website.

Hosting a website requires you to choose a good web hosting provider. Then after that, you can now publish your site. After publishing, share it on your social platforms to start getting visitors. Good website management is key after the development process of a website.

Conclusion

Designing a new website is a great deal that will bring a lot of benefits to your business. Nevertheless, it is vital to ensure you do this in the right way. This will ensure you tap into all the benefits. The development process of the website above will help you do this. Contact us for more information and great website solutions.

The post The development process of a website | From the Start to Hosting appeared first on Web Help Agency.

Hosting a website is the most vital step of the web development process. This is because it entails a lot including security, SSL certificates, domain, sub-domains, URL, etc. All these need to be understood to undertake the hosting process. After everything is done through the right process you are sure the site will not encounter problems any time soon.

Hosting is something you can do with your own sets of hardware (servers) and software. But this requires a lot of configurations and may end up taking time. This is not what we want because the site needs to live sooner. Hence, we get hosting service providers that offer hosting platforms and storage for your website files. Now, with this in mind let’s look at what you need to know about hosting a website. 

The Ways of Hosting a website

There are multiple ways to host your site. These are for use by small websites to the large web applications that occupy huge databases. The type of hosting depends on a lot of factors like resources, expertise, website usage, budget, etc. All this when evaluated helps to determine the best type of hosting to go with.

It’s good to know these ways to host your site so that you choose the best one for your site. Here is the common way to do this:

1 Shared Web Hosting Services

This is where a website is on one server with many other websites. As many as the server can manage to host. All these website domains share the same features and resources from the server. Thus, the website functions almost in the same ways in matters of speed and loading time. This is a good option for beginners. If it is the first site you are hosting this is a good idea. Moreover, for a low budget, you will get some basic features for a start.

2 Managed Hosting Service

In this case, a user gets to have a web server for their website. But they are not allowed full control. This includes limitations to accessing the administrator configuration page and the settings. Nevertheless, the other features are easily accessible and the users have more control over their website hosting. In basic terms managed hosting services is like leasing a website server and not owning the server.

3 Virtual Dedicated Server

This is when the server resources are broken down into multiple virtual servers. This way of hosting is also known as a virtual private server (VPS). The allocation of the resources to the virtual server is done without considering the hardware. A server will have many VPS. This is good to have more freedom and control of the files. A user can decide to undertake the tasks or let the service provider undertake the admin tasks.

4. Dedicated Hosting Service

This is where a single server is dedicated to a specific customer. The single customer has full control of the machine. They can customize and configure different settings. The management of the performance metrics and the security is the role of the specific business user. This is a good one to host your site after getting the WordPress services and the WooCommerce development hosting needs. In this case, the user has access to administrator privileges.

5 Cloud Hosting

This is the newest technology in the field of web hosting. It is from cloud computing technology. The tech allows website and business owners to access scalable, reliable, and powerful servers. This is under utility billing commonly known as pay as you go. Cloud web hosting is a good option to avoid physical destruction. Thus, guaranteeing full-time web services to your customers and clients. When one server goes down the site will remain online through the other alternative servers available. Moreover, it is affordable because you only pay for the resource you use. A good example is Amazon Web Services.

6 Home Server

This is the most basic way for hosting a website. This is where a computer acting as a server is placed in a residential home. Then the owner can use it to host several sites. It is mostly useful for testing websites but not for commercial purposes. Huge traffic can slow down the host thus, not recommended for commercial purposes.

Examples of hosting Service Provides for Website Hosting

Web development is a booming industry with many frameworks and technologies. This shows the increase in hosting services. There are many platforms to create websites like WooCommerce, Wix, WordPress, and many more. This shows the number of websites is increasing. Thus, there needs to be an equal rise of service providers for hosting packages. Luckily, there has also been an increase in service providers in the market. This gives developers and web development teams a variety of options. Moreover, it makes the services cheaper and allows the customer to choose their best.

See also: How to hire a dedicated development team?

Some of the common hosting service providers you can consider are:

• Bluehost Web Hosting
• HostGator Hosting Provider
• Hostinger web host
• Dreamhost Web Hosting 
• GreenGeeks Website Hosting Services.
• SiteGround – Best for WordPress websites

Things You Should Know About Hosting a website

Now that you are a website, blog, or online shop owner there are things you should know about hosting a website. This will help you in the subsequent days, months, and years. This will keep you out of trouble and give you the best services. Thus, ensuring convenient website services to your site visitors and customers. 

The hosting process as we have seen starts from the completion of the website development phase. Subsequently, this goes on till when the website will stop being live. Therefore, many things are involved. In this section, we will highlight the vital ones that you need to know.

Domains and Ip addresses

A domain is a unique name given to your website. This is used for the website URL and it is like the name of your business. But this depends on the availability of the domain name. You need to choose a domain name that is easy for people to remember and can easily associate with the business. 

Note that you need to update your domain subscription based on the terms with your domain name provider. This is to avoid losing it.

The IP address is simply the location of your business website on the server. This address remains there until you move your website from the server. For example, WordPress website Migration will change the website’s IP address.

Email Addresses with the Domain

You can easily obtain Email addresses using your domain name. This is not only necessary but also professional. It ensures when you send emails they are not taken for a scam. Furthermore, to ensure the emails don’t end up in the spam folder. Instead of the common @gmail.com, you can have your email ending with @yournicedomain.com. This part of the email is known as the host. Depending on your hosting service provider you have the option to create several emails.

Website Backup

In cloud web hosting you need to backup your website. This is vital to avoid any data loss. Moreover, it assures data recovery in case your site encounters issues. The web host has to provide an option for you to back up the site. At times this comes at an extra cost. 

Data Storage

This is the amount of space available on your website. You need to know that data storage has limits. You will rarely find service providers offering unlimited storage. Thus, you need to economize on the space by avoiding uploading large files.

Pricing and Services

There are different pricing for hosting that come with different services. The more you spend, the higher the services. Knowing the service you want is vital to help you choose the pricing plan you will choose. Knowing this is important to ensure satisfaction.

Bandwidth

The bandwidth is the amount of data a site can transfer. This term confuses many people, most think it is data storage. This causes them to end up transferring more data than the indicated limits. This ends up incurring additional costs.

Bonus Tips

SSL Certificates – It is short for Secure Sockets Layer. This is an important concept in cloud web hosting. The certificates are useful to avoid data interception of important information like credit cards and personal data.

Avoid Hosting your Site of Free Platforms – Free platforms can cause your brand to be affected. In the elements of a great business website security, user experience and web designs are important. This is not a priority for free hosting sites.

Conclusion

Hosting a website is an important step that will ensure people can access your website. The better the hosting provider the more the user experience is high. To achieve business objectives, you need to know some fundamentals of website hosting. The above is the thing you should know. Reach out to us for the website services that you are looking for.

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What Types of Website Hosting Services are Available?

In the modern world, owning and running a successful website is a plus for any business. The reason is that these platforms provide a broad reach to customers across the globe, thanks to the Internet. So with the growing demand for websites, the number of hosting services/packages has also skyrocketed. What this means is that there’s a wide variety of such services in the market today, ranging from those that can break your bank to pocket-friendly ones. It‘s safe to say what you get depends on your budget or what you can afford.

Away from the price, different hosting providers package their services differently. Some companies may include extra services such as backups into their hosting package. Others may also offer such services at an additional cost. Therefore, you must understand what you will be getting from the hosting provider you choose.

• Shared Hosting

This type of website hosting is one of the cost-friendly options available on the market today. In this case, a hosting provider leverages a single server to host numerous sites, and the number can hit thousands. Since shared hosting is considered an entry-level hosting solution, what you can or cannot do using this service is limited. This factor rules out this option as an ideal hosting solution for any website with a considerable level of resources or content.

Shared hosting services also pose a risk to your website, as you may lack knowledge regarding the other emails or websites hosted on the same server. It may limit your website’s performance, particularly if other users are overworking the server. These qualities make shared hosting unsuitable for eCommerce sites.

• VPS Hosting

VPS or otherwise known as Virtual Private Server hosting entails a mid-level type of website hosting package that is somewhat more exclusive compared to shared web hosting. The beauty of going for this package as opposed to shared hosting is that the traffic and actions of other customers do not severely interfere with the performance of your site. Furthermore, using VPS hosting allows faster load times. This is among the leading hosting packages we offer to our clients.

• Managed or Dedicated Hosting

Tired of sharing a server with other websites? Then, managed/dedicated hosting is the right option for you. It involves renting or leasing a dedicated server and other related hardware. Although managed hosting typically means you have to part with some extra money, you’ll be able to achieve full control as well as avoid other hidden costs associated with unmanaged hosting options. It also enables you to get rid of the need to recruit system admins, database admins, and other people to assist you in managing your servers.

• Cloud Hosting

VPS hosting and cloud hosting are similar. Nevertheless, the difference between the two is that the former devotes one server to your website, whereas the latter spreads out your website files across numerous servers that work together. Since this new type of web hosting service leverages shared resources to ensure the proper functioning of websites, it can be relatively costly compared to the other options mentioned above.

How do you Pick the Ideal Hosting Provider or Service?

When you are considering getting hosting services, you need to make the right choice for the success of your website. To eliminate the burden that comes with making this decision, here are several pointers to help land the best hosting service or provider.

1. When starting small with massive ambitions of expanding shortly, make sure that you don’t rapidly outgrow the hosting service you purchase. Go for a package that will support you when starting, and as you expand.
2. Pick a hosting provider with the necessary software to meet your website’s needs, for instance, a WordPress site calls for a mod-rewrite facility, an MYSQL database, and a PHP-based server. Make sure the software your provider offers you is appropriate from the start.
3. Make sure your hosting provider addresses all your security concerns- security is a vital aspect, primarily when your site is operating on a shared server. Asking questions will help you understand the security measures put in place to safeguard your site and visitor information from being compromised by other users on the same server.
4. Customer service and support– What happens when you encounter an issue after purchasing hosting services from your preferred provider? You need to deal with a company that delivers excellent customer support services in case of need. Look at the reviews left on a hosting provider’s website by past or existing customers to assess their credibility. Furthermore, ensure the provider you deal with can answer your questions or pick up your phone whenever you call.
5. Price – If you consider going for cheap hosting services, make sure you know what you’ll be getting. Maybe the reason could be that you cannot shift to a different hosting provider or the price increases annually. Bear in mind that free or cheap website hosting comes with limited reliability.

By now, it’s our sincere hope that the above information has helped you in one way or the other to make the right choice regarding website hosting. In case you have additional questions that have not been adequately addressed here, kindly feel free to contact us.

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