Website Development Process Overview

Study Notes

Website Functionality includes purpose, deliverability, competitor research, and homepage design tips/tools.
Content Management Systems (CMS) include WordPress, Wix, and Blogger, along with blogs and pages.
Theme Functions & Features allow customization of themes, posts, and pages.
A case study examines GoDaddy, Walt Disney, and Mr. Porter.

Stages include Strategy, Planning, Build, and Promote.
Strategy involves a design brief, initial meeting, market research, competitor analysis, and keyword research.
Planning involves sitemaps, wireframes, design concepts, and design review.
Build entails site production, web hosting, CMS setup, database setup, and website testing.
Promote comprises online marketing plan, SEO injection, page optimization, link building, and social media setup.

Define Your Project: Clarifying project goals and objectives. Key elements include defining business details, business goals, target audience, and competitive analysis.
Planning Your Website: Creating a sitemap, developing wireframes, and outlining content placement and functionality.
Design: Converting plans into visual elements by designing layouts, integrating branding elements, and considering user experience (UX).
Content Creation: Defining content types and creating a content calendar, including when and how often content will be published.
Development: Constructing the website based on designs and content, involving coding, feature integration, and interactive elements like forms or e-commerce.
Testing: Ensuring functionality across devices, including quality assurance (QA) and performance testing, checking broken links, and responsiveness.
Launch and Maintenance: Launching the website, fixing bugs, updating content, and enhancing features as needed, as well as monitoring performance using analytics.

Purpose and Deliverability: Features enabling a website to effectively serve its target audience and achieve its goals. Key purposes include user engagement and a positive user experience.
Research about Competitor: Understanding competitors is essential for website positioning.
Homepage Designing Tips and Tools: Clear navigation, compelling visuals, appropriate calls to action (CTAs) and choosing the right tools for the design process.

Competitor website analysis: examining competitor websites to gain insights into design elements, functionality, and user engagement strategies.
Identifying key features: recognizing unique functions and content presentation in competitor offerings to understand user needs.
Benchmarking performance: establishing benchmarks based on competitor metrics to identify areas for improvement.

Clear Navigation: Implementing intuitive menus helping users quickly find information.
Compelling Visuals: Using high-quality images or videos that align with the brand message.
Effective CTAs: Placing clear CTAs to guide users towards desired actions.
Tools: Using tools like Figma, Adobe XD, WordPress with Elementor, or Canva for effective design.

Overview of popular CMS platforms, like WordPress and Wix, covering their types, features, and use cases.
Features of web content management systems: including automated templates, access control, editing tools, workflow management, collaboration, document management, and version control.

Blogs: Used for dynamic content updates, often articles, news, or opinion pieces, organized chronologically, and typically include options for comments and social sharing.
Pages: Generally static content covering website information like About Us or Contact, designed to remain unchanged over time.

User-friendly interface: simplifying content creation; crucial for varying technical skills.
SEO capabilities: including tools to optimize content for search engines.

Customization of themes, posts, and pages. Understanding theme functions and features is crucial for effective website customization.
WordPress Customizer: allows real-time changes to website appearance via Appearance -> Customize.
Site Editor/Block-Based Themes: providing visual customization through blocks—often associated with ease of use and customization.
Theme File Editor: used by advanced users but can potentially break the site or lose changes if not used correctly.

GoDaddy: A web hosting and domain registration company offering a website builder and CMS options.
Walt Disney: Utilizing robust CMS for multimedia content management across platforms, including video streaming, merchandise sales, and promotions.
Mr. Porter: A luxury men's fashion retailer utilizing a sophisticated CMS to manage its e-commerce platform, including user experience, content and integration with other services.

E-commerce features: product listings, shopping carts, secure payment processing, inventory management.
Content-rich experience: combining product sales with content like style guides and articles on topics of interest.
Responsive design: crucial for adapting to different devices (mobile-friendly).