What is Web Development and How Can It Benefit Your Business

What is Web Development?

Web development is the entire process of creating, designing, testing, and maintaining websites and web applications. It includes all the work aimed at making a web application look great, perform well, and be user-friendly: web design, web content development, client-side/server-side scripting, network security configuration, and sometimes SEO optimization.

In most cases, full-stack web developers create such products by typing long strings of code in a text editor, styling them with CSS, and then assembling all the elements together. However, today they can also use programs like Adobe Dreamweaver or content management systems to create a new site without writing everything from scratch.

Web developers are typically divided into front-end developers, back-end developers, and full-stack developers. Front-end developers are responsible for all visual components of the site (layout, navigation bar, etc.). Front-end developers also handle its functionality and interactivity.

Back-end developers deal with less visible tasks and development topics, such as managing web application services, databases, and applications. To solve server-side problems during development, back-end developers may need additional server-side languages like Python, Ruby, Java, or PHP. Full-stack developers, on the other hand, are capable of handling both front-end and back-end tasks.

What Tools Do Web Developers Use?

Typically, when talking about web development tools, people refer to the programs and languages that allow developers to write and debug code for web applications—HTML, Java, and CSS. But as the digital world evolves, the role of the web developer changes as well.

Today, they need to do more than just write snippets of code. They must be familiar with visual aspects, UI/UX, responsive design, prototyping, wireframing, cybersecurity, SEO, and much more. The good news is that there are many web development tools available today that help developers tackle these tasks without starting from scratch—from design platforms like Sketch and Invision to testing tools like Postman and collaboration software like Slack and Asana.

Obviously, the tools developers use depend on the type of work they do. For example, front-end developers use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, as well as frameworks like React, Bootstrap, Backbone, AngularJS, and EmberJS.

Meanwhile, back-end developers typically use server-side languages including PHP, Ruby, and Python, along with tools like MySQL, Oracle, and Git.

What Does the Web Application Development Process Look Like?

Creating a full-featured web application with a development company is more complex than building an app with WordPress or Joomla, because developers need to complete several steps before the web application goes live. However, in return, you can be assured that your web application will be visually appealing, fully optimized, and user-friendly. What steps do developers need to take to create a fully functional website?

Information Gathering: First, developers must collect all the information needed for the project. At this stage, they analyze the client's needs, define the main goals of the web application, and learn more about the target audience. Additionally, designers should become familiar with the future types of content, as this will help them determine the basic layout of the web application.
Planning: Based on the information gathered in the first step, developers create a detailed action plan and a site map describing all major sections of the web application. A well-thought-out and detailed plan, based on preliminary development data, can save you from spending extra resources on unforeseen issues, such as design changes or adding important features that were not originally planned.
Designing: During the design phase, the web application begins to take shape as all visual content—such as images, photos, and videos—is created. The team will also create one or more static prototypes of the site, describing what the final version will look like and clarifying the core functionality of the web application.
Development: After the preparatory work is complete, developers can start building the web application itself based on the graphics developed in the previous stage. Typically, the home page is created first, followed by all subpages according to the web application's hierarchy. Finally, features and interactive elements are added.
Testing: Testing is perhaps the most routine but also one of the most important parts of web application development. Developers check every link to ensure there are no broken ones and confirm that all scripts and functions work correctly. They also verify the code using code validators to ensure it meets current web standards.
Launch: After receiving final approval from the client, it is time to launch the web application. But before that, the site must be run one last time to ensure all files are uploaded correctly and the site is fully functional.
Maintenance: After the web application goes live, the team—for example, full-stack developers—needs to monitor it to prevent new errors and perform server maintenance from time to time.

How long does it take to launch new development projects? It's hard to say, because creating a web application from scratch takes time even for simple applications. And if it involves building a custom web application with specific features, the timeline could be several months.

Where Can You Learn More About Web Application Development?

Do you want to learn more about coding and development? Online resources make it easier than ever. Thousands of books, articles, webinars, guides, and tutorials are available right now—just type "web development learning resources" into a search engine, and you'll get 7,570,000,000 results!

However, when browsing online, be careful because not all courses and blogs are valuable—you can find a lot of outdated or outright useless information from various so-called "experts." What resources can you use to learn more about building web applications?

Course websites, such as Udemy, Coursera, Codecademy, or TutorialsPoint
Online communities, such as freeCodeCamp, Stack Overflow, Roadmap, DevChallenges, or just forums and social media groups dedicated to web development.
Online learning platforms, such as Treehouse, Scrimba, or W3Schools
Industry blogs, such as A List Apart, Codrops, CSS Author, or the CrustLab blog.
Newsletters, such as JavaScript Weekly, HTML5 Weekly, SitePoint Versioning, or Code Project.

Joining groups and forums can be a particularly useful way to learn more about web application development. In these groups, you can meet people with similar interests, find mentors to help you solve a problem, or gain access to many free resources available only to group members.

web development

What Are the Different Types of Web Applications?

In the early days of the internet, web applications were exclusively "static." Content was coded in HTML and could not be changed unless edited by a webmaster. Today, static web applications are still used, but they have largely lost popularity in development projects due to their inability to adapt to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

As more people use mobile devices to access the internet, companies are trying to find ways to ensure a good user experience on both their desktop and mobile sites. That's when they start considering alternatives to static sites, such as dynamic or responsive pages. How are they different?

Static web applications: Static pages are one of the simplest types of web applications because they consist of a fixed number of pre-rendered pages with hardcoded, predetermined content and structure. This means every user sees exactly the same content regardless of their location, browser, or device. While such web applications are cheaper and easier to build, they are not very convenient for modern users, especially those on mobile devices. However, for companies that need a simple web application with a few pages, a static application can still work well.
Dynamic web applications: Unlike static web applications, the content of dynamic web applications can be customized for each user based on information stored in the web application's database. This makes them much more popular with users, as the web application can provide relevant content, responsive design, and suggestions based on what users have done previously in the app. Dynamic pages are also easier to update because a webmaster only needs to change a database record to modify content.
Hybrid web applications: Hybrid web applications offer "the best of both worlds," as they can include both static and dynamic elements in a single unified design for desktop development or other projects.
Mobile web applications: Although a mobile web application may look like a scaled-down version of a desktop site, that is not exactly the case. Since mobile device screens are much smaller and our fingers are not as precise as mouse cursors, opening a desktop site on a mobile device can be difficult (or even impossible). A good mobile site adapts content and navigation to the screen size so that mobile visitors can find the information they need or perform an action as quickly as possible. Additionally, images, videos, and animations are often removed due to bandwidth limitations of data plans and their tendency to slow down mobile web applications.
Responsive web applications: Most companies today choose responsive web design because it ensures the best user experience regardless of the device used. Such pages adapt to any screen size, from the largest desktops to the smallest smartphones, making the web application look good and perform fast on mobile phones, tablets, and desktops.
Custom web applications: A custom web application is built specifically for your brand, product, or company and targets your audience. If you want something that stands out from other developments or plan to create a complex web application with many features and content types, custom design is the way to go.

Factors to Consider When Outsourcing Web Application Development

As you can see, there are many factors to consider when creating your own web application—from the type of web application to design, security, content, and more. Therefore, even experienced developers find it difficult to determine how long it will take to build a company homepage and how much it will cost. However, having a ready list of needs and expectations for the site can significantly help them decide how best to design the web application. What should you include in such a list for an outsourcing partner for corporate portal development?

Your main goal for creating the web application
Who your target audience is
Practical experience or client-side coding experience / popular programming languages to be used
What type of content will be on the site and what functionality you need
How large your page should be (ideally, if you have a rough page structure)
Your ideas regarding design and images (e.g., dropdown menus, style sheets, any fundamental building blocks, special back-end development tactics)
What level of compatibility and responsiveness you need for your site
What level of security you require (and scripting languages)