This is the age of the Digital world and every business is now going online. For a business, an online presence is important and having a website has become essential to reach millions of target customers. Without a website, it’s a without a doubt that you are missing out on many benefits’ of having a website.

The website development industry is growing rapidly as more and more businesses, despite their size, are making its way on the internet world.

You can either hire a website developer to build a website for you or you can learn this art of creating a website from scratch.

There are uncountable resources available online and every day experts are uploading tutorials on YouTube to help you learn web development. The problem lies with the questions like "where to begin" or "what are the basics for beginners"

In this blog, I have laid down the basic beginners guide to website development and what will you need to get started with your website development course.

Here’s the overview of basics you’ll learn in this blog:



  • What is website development and Website Design
  • Website Development Life Cycle
  • Learn HTML, CSS, and Javascript
  • Development Tools to Use: Code Editors and Version
  • Front-End, Back-End, and FullStack Developer
  • Important Programming Languages



What is Website Design and Website Development


Many people confuse the website design with website development. As a beginner, you should have the basic idea of both.

Both are different phases of website development life cycle, but both are equally crucial for building a website. The designer creates the mockups of the website design and then hand it over to the developer to create the life version of the design.

Website design basically handles how the website should look like, the appearance, the color, the typography, and other crucial design principles. Website design work to provide the best user experience (UX) and the pleasing-to-the-eyes look and feel, that is, UI (User Interface).

As mentioned above,Website development is basically used to give life to your website as a functioning final product - a website. The structure of the website, actions performed on the website, and styling of the website are carried out in the web development phase.

Website Development Life Cycle


As I have mentioned earlier, design and development are the paramount of the website development life cycle. If you are planning to learn web development then you should be aware of website development cycle.

  • Stage#1 - Planning: This preliminary stage involves the client and his goal for the website. The goals are the target audience, business purpose and technology used in the website. This is the vital foundation which will help the designer and developer to design and develop the website using the selected technologies.
  • #Stage#2 - Website Design: The designer will filter out the important component of the website content (graphic content and text), layout, visual style and usability and create the design as per the client needs.
  • Stage#3 - Development: This the stage where the coders come into the scene. The developer will take the approved design and bring it to life through codes using different programming languages and databases.
  • Stage#4 - Testing: This stage is necessary to make sure everything on the website is working smoothly. Testing should be carried out on the different stages of web development stages to eliminate the loopholes in the website and proper functioning of the code.
  • Stage#5- Deployment and Maintenance: After the website goes life, monitor the website to check if there are any bugs which need fixing. Schedule regular evaluation for website maintenance and improvement.

Now that you’ve learn about the basics of website development life cycle, let’s jump right into the basic of the creating a website.

Learn HTML, CSS, and Javascript


A website is primarily the combination of HTML, CSS and Javascript files.

As a website developer, you should be well-versed in these three.

  • HTML or Hypertext Markup Language: It is the basis of every website. It defines the structure of the webpage. Series of elements are part of HTML which instruct the browser how to present which content of the website. HTML tags helps to add headings, paragraphs and images on the website.

As a beginner, you should learn this language to create the basic website.

  • CSS OR Cascading Style Sheets: CSS is used to add text fonts, different styles and colors to the website to make it look appealing to the visitors. This deals with the website look and feel and the compatibility of the website on different devices.
  • Javascript: It is the widely used programming language used build interactive website and runs on the browser. But, its uses is not only limited to that. You can create mobile applications, website applications, and even games using this dynamic language.

After learning what these languages are, you’ll need a code editor to practice these. Here’s a list of useful development tools.

Development Tools to Use: Code Editors and Version


Development tools are available to support applications to create, edit or debug the code. The tool is to used to run the programs combined with other programs.

Tool like code editors are used to write, compile and run the programming codes and source code of a website. There are different code editors online and In the market as per your coding need.

Here’s a list of useful editors:

Notepad can be used if someone is just going to use HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Other editors:

VSCode; also known as visual studio code

Sublime Text 3

Notepad++

TextMate.

These are just a few example for you to select from.

Imagine having an editor which doesn’t offer the "undo" option as it might ruin the previous code. You lose track of the initial code as you move forward by adding different functionalities to the code.

With version control you don’t have to be worried about the changes you made to the code and you can make track of the original code. You can easily commit the change to the code as per the need and go back to the original code if you want to undo the changes to the code.

This basically helps you keep the original code intact. You can Git as this the widely used version control.

Let’s dive into the deeper end of the developer world and learn about languages and different level of development.

Front-End, Back-End, and FullStack Developer


Front End is your client-side scripts (in other words, a client’s browser) or in simple words the part of the website a visitor can see. The terms like HTML, CSS, Javascript and Jquery are widely used and spoken the front-end development world.

Front end developer use the aforementioned languages to build websites. Front end developers deals with the initial stage of the functioning of the website and are connected to the designers. Languages like PHP, Python, Java, and Ruby on Rails.

Back End developer on the other hand works behind the scene and code up the interactive functions and nitty-gritty of a website. This is the phase deal with the server-side script and responsibilities like databases, and performance of a website.

Full stack developers:

Full stack developer is the combination of the two. The Front end developer is well versed with both the front end and back end languages (not all).

The different level of website development option is available to choose from. If you want to become the full stack developer then you should familiarize yourself with both the front and back end development process and languages and the working of the server architecture.

Choose the one which is right for your career path.

Important Programming Languages


You’ll find many languages in the market to learn. For a beginner, here’s a list of programming languages to master for website development.

Client Side Languages (Front-End)

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)

CSS

JavaScript

Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)

jQuery (JavaScript Framework Library )

Server Side Scripting (Back-end)

PHP

Ruby on Rails


PERL

PYTHON

Little bit more…


This blog is written to guide and get you started with website development learning phase.

A beginner eager to learn many things in the desired field but learning the right thing at the right time is the key to master the skill set. To learn website development, you are not only learning the languages used to code but you also learn to build website the right way.

As you move forward in this learning phase, you will find many tutorials, guides, books written by the experts. Don’t go wasting your time and energy on all them but pick the one which is right for you and practice as much as possible.

Check this awesome website for making website design perfect of all kinds!

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