Web Design or Web Development

Since we started our agency in 1999, we often get asked if there is a difference between web design or web development. For most people, they probably mean the same thing – the designing and building of a website. To us in the industry, they are two different processes that produce a quality website.

 

Web Design

We consider Web Design the process of planning the keywords to be used, establishing the Sitemap, creating a wireframe, preparing the visual design and setting goals for the user experience. This is much like the work an architect would do in designing a house. They take into account all of the features, goals and personality of the clients and create a blueprint. All of the detailed specifications are contained in the blueprint. That plan is then turned over to the builders who are specialists in their area of expertise to complete the build.

 

Web Development

Web development is the assembling of code that makes up a website. While most sites these days have a highly visual experience, it is all delivered to your computer, tablet or smartphone through extensive code behind the scenes. If you right-click on any page and select the View Source option, you will see the code behind a page. The quality of the code has a lot to do with the performance of the website. Good, clean and efficient code will render a fast loading page that the search engines will favor. Many Content Management Systems produce bloated code that can adversely affect the performance of the website.

 

Internet Marketing or Social Media

Finally, after the site has been designed, and the programmers have created fast efficient code, there are specialists that come in and optimize the content so that the search engines will consider each page relevant. This process, called SEO is where content managers write relevant content and optimize each page according to the specifications published by the major search engines. These specialists are writers with a skill in analytics. They understand how to write for humans as well as the search engines. With the major search engines making major updates to their algorithms on a quarterly basis and minor changes monthly, this is a constant and continuous process.

 

Summary

To most people Web Design or Web Development mean the same thing – they want more leads coming to them on a regular basis. To digital agencies like i360 Group, we break the process down into a series of disciplines perform by experienced specialists in order to achieve the best results.