No matter which of the multitude of web design companies you choose to help you with your web design, there are essentially a few basic steps in the process. Most companies will implement the following six steps when they help design your website. Here we will take a specific example to help demonstrate the process of designing a website. Let us consider a person who makes handmade cards and has decided to sell them online. For this purpose she needs a website and has chosen a web design company to help her with this aspect. Here is what will happen next.

Step 1 – Information Gathering

In this step the person from the company will get all the details of what the site is expected to do. The site will have information about the handmade cards. It will need a shopping cart embedded in the website. There may be a blog by the artist talking about her latest creation. A section could be devoted to ordering customized and personalized cards.

Step 2 – Planning

Once all the elements that the website may have are listed the executive from the company will plan what can be incorporated and what may not be possible to accommodate in the web design. The planning stage helps refine all the information that has been gathered and organizes the direction that the web site design will take.

Step 3 – Design

Now the data is handed over to the graphics designer and program coder. Between them they will come up with the actual graphics and layout that the website will have. How many pages will be there, the contact form, the disclaimers and the sales element, all this and more will be hashed together in an attractive design at this stage.

Step 4 – Development

Once the design has been shown to the customer and approved the actual work of coding the website will be done in the development phase. Here the programmer will key in the final website and load it up to the designated domain name. It may now be seen on any computer. There may be some minor changes required at this stage so that the design matches the development as closely as possible.

Step 5 – Testing and Delivery

Now that the final design has been developed, it will be time for testing the design for any flaws or glitches that it may have. This may be done in house by the company or by outsourcing the process testing of the website. Once all tests have been successfully completed the website is delivered to the customer.

Step 6 Maintenance

Now it is up to the customer to handle the site on a daily basis. Each element should be working fine by this stage. The technical support from the web design company will continue for the contract period that it had been hired for. The maintenance of the site includes keeping the code updated and seeing that its processes run smoothly.

=== About the Author ===

Sarika Periwal represents KarmaCRM.com, a web based contact management software. You can use it to organize contact data and stay informed on your sales team’s efforts. It delivers management tools for tracking deals and proposals, managing your sales team, and generating useful reports. Sign up now for a free account for this web based CRM service.