With the advent of website building software using drag and drop technology website design and development has become easy. Or has it? Well, it depends what you want from your website. If it’s for personal use then maybe an untrained do-it-yourself developer could developer a half decent personal website. But only the professionals can design professional websites.
Professional website design and development requires industry knowledge about web standards. Different web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome can display web content differently. Especially Internet Explorer. So various hacks must be integrated into the website code.
Professional web design requires proper Information Architecture. This defines the way that a visitor navigates the website. Pages should flow. A top-down approach must be taken.
Professional web development requires Search Marketing experience to have an impact on Google and Yahoo rankings (SERPs). This is either done by a specialist who deals only in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) or the web development themselves. This is usually best done by a professional who specialises in SEO.
Proper website designers have years of experience in developing websites. A do-it-yourself developer only has their own eye for design and a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) package which writes to code behind it. The amateur usually does not know how to go into the underlying HTML code and make changes. This makes the design package somewhat limited.
Web development requires the following:
1.Information Architecture
2.Graphic Design
3.Coding
4.Possible backend database programming and frontend scripting
5.Optimising images for performance
6.Knowledge of Usability standards to aid comprehensive navigation
7.Know of Accessibility to ensure the disabled and elderly are not disadvantaged by the website
8.Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experience to get the website ranked well in search engines such as Google and Yahoo
If you think that you can design a professional business website that can go head to head with your competitor’s websites (assuming that your competitor’s website is up to standard) go ensure that you have all of the skills listed above.
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