All posts tagged Web Development

According to the Digital 2019 report, a typical person spends 6 hours and 42 minutes online every day. The rise of the internet has revolutionized how we live and communicate and moved most of us to live a digitally-driven lifestyle. This is now exacerbated as we live in a ‘new normal’ because of the COVID-19 pandemic where we are pushed more than ever to rely on the internet for entertainment, education, employment, and livelihood among others.

With everyone depending on the internet for their access to necessities and supplies (i.e., food, appliances, medicines, clothes, among other products and services), website development has become more crucial to any business’ success. Website development is one of the ways to ensure the success of your business by informing people of products and services your business offers, getting to know your (possible) customers better, and understanding how to improve your product and service further.

Website or web development services include building, creating, and maintaining websites. It includes aspects such as web design, web publishing, web programming, web content creation, and database management.

Having an online presence is no longer an option for businesses; it is a requirement! Here are more of the reasons why companies need to invest in web development services:

Increasing Accessibility

It allows businesses to be accessible at any time of the day. It provides space for everyone to access the information they need when they need it. Whenever customers need to know something about the business, having a contact form, a live chat, an option to comment, or a phone number is a step towards them, which increases the possibility of sealing the deal.

Proving Credibility and Reliability

It allows effective communication with customers. Interacting and engaging with customers shows that the business is concerned about their satisfaction and is responsive to their needs. People prefer to transact with a business with their own websites as it gives them security and assurance.

Expanding Reach

It helps businesses to expand their reach by attracting possible customers or leads. Through website development, testimonies about your product/service will be available. These details help earn the trust and confidence of potential customers in the future. A properly designed website can help build an audience, target niche customer bases, and quickly return your investments. Your website conversion rate can multiply by 200-400 percent if your webpage is well-designed and has a functional, responsive interface.

Read more: The Importance of Investing in Web Development for Your Business

Part of my day job was to look after networks and servers, as well as web applications and websites. I could see the potential for web technology (and the move towards cloud/SaaS) in business and thought WordPress had a place as a powerful publishing platform far beyond blogging. The DevOps movement was also in full swing, and I saw how important it was to break down silos and barriers between different tech disciplines. I also had a number of my own personal websites that I ran in my spare time and found WordPress was the logical choice.

The light bulb moment for me was when I saw my colleagues using the websites that I had built. There were people without much experience using the web, that we’re able to publish and manage content after a few basic lessons. I liked the power it could bring to everyday users, not just web developers. The WordPress mission of “democratizing publishing” really struck a chord with me.

I also saw the community start to grow and gain momentum and I was inspired by the work that was being done in the space.

Read more: Building a Career Around WordPress Web Development With Chris Burgess

Outsourcing is contracting work outside one’s place of business. This could be down the street to a local web development firm or offshore to hire people who are expert at various IT domains. Whether it is building a mobile web application, website, blockchain solutions, AI solutions, chatbot, business intelligence application, and many other items you might be interested in. You just need to pick a platform and an outsourced professional will transform your idea into reality. Web development outsourcing can alleviate many responsibilities that might currently fall on your shoulders, which makes this solution particularly attractive to startuppers. Not only can an offshore expert put together a decent website serving your business needs, but also help you scale your venture. Factor in the ability to cut your business costs and enhance service quality, which are other notable benefits of outsourcing, and you’ll definitely want to outsource, too. But how to outsource web development in the most effective way? Below are some tips you want to follow to ensure your cooperation with outsourced IT guys is a success.

Secrets to Outsourcing Web Development Successfully

Everything usually starts out awesome. You have a great vision for your website, you hire a seemingly amazing web developer, and things work out well for you and your project. But eventually something starts to feel off and things that seemed so bright at the initial stage get more frustrating. Suddenly, totally amazing people have been reduced to lobbying insults over email or completely avoiding each other.

Above is a common scenario experienced by lots of businesspeople. So, what can you do so that your web development outsourcing experience won’t become your bitter disappointment?

#1 Set Expectations and Allow for Technical Difficulties
First, you need to make your expectations known to an outsourced specialist and make sure you understand technical difficulties. Things tend to fall apart quickly in your website building process, because there’s a mismatch of expectations and misunderstanding of what is a technical difficulty for different people. So, during your initial consultation with a web developer, you might say you’re looking for a simple website. In your web designer’s mind that means something very specific, while you may envision this “simple website” abstractly, vaguely, or completely differently. So, the solution is to be clear about what functionality you want for your website. At the same time, try to be open to feedback and suggestions from the web specialist.

Read more: Outsourcing Web Development – Tips for Successful Cooperation

Returning customers spend more than new and one-off customers. If someone who bought from you buys a second time, you can usually count on them to buy a third. This is important: repeat customers become more valuable over their lifetime.

But how do you get repeat customers? It’s all about customer retention. Read this short guide to learn four tips for increasing customer retention from Web design vs web development experts Huemor.

1. Create offers for returning customers. Don’t just advertise “new customer” discounts; returning customer promotions can be even more lucrative. This could mean a seasonal discount, a special comeback offer, or a sale event for returning customers. Your repeat customers are the bulk of your earnings: every once in a while, make them feel valued.
2. Reward loyal customers with a brand VIP program, so they know you care about their business and are keen on rewarding them for staying with you. Setting up an email marketing system paired with a personalized account page will not only give you valuable data about the customer, but also give them a series of perks for signing up to be a VIP member. Some ideas for what to include are birthday discounts, exclusive first-looks at new products, and early-bird discounts.

Read more: Web Design vs Web Development Experts, Huemor, Shares Four Tips for Increasing Customer Retention

Web development is a broad field, bringing with it an enticing array of different challenges. Indeed, I think my peers would agree that one of the role’s many appealing qualities is its inherent variety. On any day a developer might be tasked with: building the layout of a new web page, requesting and manipulating data from a server, coding interactions and animations, or one of any number of other interesting challenges. That mix of responsibilities requires a developer to understand and implement a range of different mark-up, scripting and programming languages.

For the uninitiated, a quick primer:

First of all, and essential to the web, is Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) which provides the semantic structure and content of each page. HTML is the heart of a web page, allowing us to inform the browser that we intend to display a paragraph, a list, an image, or one of a number of other content elements. Moreover, the HTML contains the specific content that each of these elements should show to the visitor.

Following on closely behind are Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which allow us to style the aforementioned content. Using CSS we can make the paragraph a different colour, adjust the spacing of the list, or increase the size of the image, amongst myriad other possibilities. Background colours, rounded borders, shadows, spacing between elements; all these things and more are specified with CSS. HTML tells the browser *what* the content is, and CSS tells it *how* it should look.

Furthermore, as websites increase in size and complexity, we typically make use of a database to store content and other useful data. This is where “back-end” or “server-side” languages enter the picture, so named because they run on the server rather than in the visitor’s browser. For this there are a range of choices — including Perl, Ruby and ASP — though we do the majority of our work in PHP, which powers platforms such as WordPress, Laravel and Drupal.

With the aforementioned covered in brief, today I would like to focus on Javascript (JS), a very useful and increasingly flexible language. Like HTML and CSS, JS typically runs in the browser and, traditionally, has been used somewhat sparingly to enhance the functionality of a page. This might mean powering a carousel of images or displaying an interactive calendar. However, more recently the development landscape has exploded with front-end JS frameworks such as Angular, Vue and React whose purpose is to provide a more convenient and structured way of implementing JS in the browser. Practically speaking, this means a smoother, more interactive experience for the visitor and, in theory at least, a neater, more logical approach for the web developer.

As if that wasn’t enough, JS has been broadening its horizons and, like PHP or Ruby, it can also be used as a server-side language via applications such as Node.js. These developments have opened up the potential to have entire web applications written in JS. This rapid growth has seen a surge in demand for developers with deeper and broader JS knowledge. With many of the web’s biggest players (such as Facebook and Netflix) using frameworks like React, it has become clear that JS is here to stay.

Read more: The Role of JavaScript in Web Development

IoT is undoubtably a big tech-wave in the web development landscape. It clearly defines the smart and well-connected devices. Whenever any new technology is introduced, it definitely impacts the tech world. Similarly, IoT has profoundly impacted every sector – be it web design, development, or mobile app creation. All of these sectors are affected by this latest technology.

Understanding the impact of IoT on web development

It is entirely the responsibility of web development services to ensure that the complex architecture of IoT functions smoothly without a glitch.

Web developers are required to have an in-depth knowledge of programming and database management. They’ve to stay abreast with the modern tools and technologies by bidding farewell to the traditional web development services. This contributes towards the overall growth of dedicated programmers.

IoT projects have higher turnaround time owing to its complex multi-layered architecture. With the help of competent web and IoT solution development teams, things will be done at a fast pace. You need to adopt a hybrid approach of development for the completion of IoT projects in a timely manner.

Hybrid development teams appear to be a reasonable option compared to the static exclusive teams. They can create clean and user-friendly interfaces so that robust code and hyper-connectivity with multiple operating systems, devices, networks can operate seamlessly in cooperation.

Friendly user-interface: When it is about developing an intuitive web-based UI for an IoT app, it has to be clean, interactive, and fast. Apart from that, designers should deploy the latest web designing practices. One more thing, you should make sure that your IoT based design is mobile compatible, so that smart device users can make the most out of it.

Solid backend: With the help of the robust backend design architecture, the communication between users and IoT devices can be enhanced. Every device has a different set of capabilities, commands, and data that works just the way users want. A good backend transmits and receives information and facilitates clear communication for the users.

Power management: The first thing that comes to mind when you hear about IoT devices is wireless operation or battery-powered devices. This demands an effective power management for them. When heavy programs are running in the backend, they consume maximum battery that leads to less user communication. So, the new layout should have a design that reduces power usage.

With the increasing popularity of IoT in our daily lives, web development has now become the most demanding field in which companies invest in-depth research and development.

Read more: Revolutionizing the web development sector

You launched your new e-commerce website and you’re excited about the promise of increased business.

You sit back and wait for the traffic to roll in. And then you wait some more.

After a few coffees, you realize it’s not catching on the way you expected. But why?

It’s very possible that it isn’t what you’re selling that’s the problem. You likely have a web development issue, that can be fixed.

Let’s take a look at common web development issues that hold businesses back and how to reverse them.

1. You Lack a Value Proposition

When it comes to content, what you present to website visitors is very important. While it’s okay to tell people your brand philosophy and some of your achievements (like many companies do), you have to make it relevant for potential customers.
That means you should take the time to develop a value proposition. There needs to be a focus on the products or services you’re offering – you tell the potential customer how these offerings can solve a problem that they have.

Think about what sets your products apart from your competitors, and then hammer that home in your website messaging. Tell them how you can better serve them or more affordably meet their needs.

2. You Don’t Know Who Your Audience Is

You could have heavy website traffic, but that doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t generate any sales leads from them.
This step of creating quality leads, not just website traffic, should actually start before the website is even built. Questions you should ask yourself include;

Read more: Web Development Issues: 7 Reasons Why Your Website Isn’t Driving Business

Early in the life of your startup, perhaps when that venture is still just a side project, you need to get serious about the design of your website or app(s). And you can expect that task to be a financial drain. Building a great interface isn’t all that different from building a house: It has to be done by a great designer or coders; and those professionals’ labor doesn’t come cheap.

However, there are ways you can reduce costs and the amount of time that designer or coder spends on your project. Here are the typical stages of a web-development project and how you can reduce costs at each step.

The web-design cycle
For those of you less familiar with web development, there is usually a set system for how new pages and features get designed and built. While this might vary from place to place, most larger businesses will have some variation on the following stages for building and improving web properties and apps.

Initial wireframes or mock-ups
First, there is a pre-design phase where any new ideas are mapped out, usually as a “wireframe” or “mock-up” (there is a difference). Those ideas might be for a new web page, a new feature in an app or some other element which might change the overall aesthetics or functions of your web property.

The design of a whole new site or app can be a large undertaking requiring many mock-ups and meetings, but a single page change will often be something an individual can build a wireframe for. This rough sketch of the proposed site can be shown to colleagues at meetings as well as to the company’s go-to or in-house designer. It can be discussed and reworked until everyone is happy.

The design at this point will only be rudimentary and will show where certain features are and where large images might go, and give some indication to the designer of how the overall page/feature should look.

Read more: A Quick Primer on Managing Your Web-Development Tasks

Few technological developments have garnered as much media attention as AI, and for good reason: Few nascent technologies have disrupted as many industries and commanded as much consumer attention as AI has. Despite the fact that AI is drastically upending many predictions about what the future of business looks like, however, too little attention is being paid to the way that it’s radically reshaping web development as we know it.

Savvy web developers around the world are already rushing to embrace the power of AI. Here’s how AI and the offshoot innovations it’s enabling are reshaping web development and giving developers everywhere hope about the future of tech.

A new kind of user experience

The biggest way that AI is reshaping web development is by offering users everywhere a new, more personalized experience unlike anything they’ve ever enjoyed before. Talented developers have understood for years now that in order to consistently lure new users in, you need to engage them and provide them with enticing, interactive web design that reacts to their choices. Now, with a helping hand from some AI companions, developers everywhere are realizing that they can cultivate a new kind of user experience that exploits the power of machine learning (ML) to dynamically adapt more quickly than ever before.

We aren’t quite yet at the point where we can delegate everything to the machines, but anybody involved in web development over the past few years can tell you that ML is rapidly breaking onto the scene and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. The exciting promise of ML as it pertains to web design will only grow in the near-future, too, especially as investment dollars continue to flood in from around the world. Eager investors everywhere understand that AI knows no limits and can be leveraged by businesses anywhere regardless of their size.

Read more: How AI is reshaping web development

A technology or framework doesn’t have to be brand new to be on our list here, it just needs to be growing rapidly or evolving in an interesting way. Let’s take a look!

LOOKING BACK ON 2018: SPA,  CSS GRID, AND SPEED

Single Page Applications (SPAs) saw a leap in popularity in 2018. A simple concept made possible by the power of modern Javascript, a SPA loads a page once then never reloads it or navigates to another page; instead, Javascript is used to manipulate the DOM and render new layouts in the browser. JSON data can be sent between the client and server, but the page behaves more like a desktop application than a “conventional” website. (Visit the websites of Gmail, Facebook, Apple and many more to see a SPA in action). It can provide a much snappier experience to the user and really transform the responsiveness of a site, but usually requires a sizeable chunk of code shipped to the browser. It’s an idea that’s been popular for a while but really saw a lot of developer engagement last year.

Read more: WEB DEVELOPMENT: WHAT’S BIG IN 2019?