Our Web Development Process: 6 Steps from Request to Launch

Need a visually attractive and functional website with a modern look and feel to promote your business online? Searching for a reliable and experienced web development company to build it for you fast, and to the highest standards of quality? 

GetDevDone fits the bill perfectly. With a team of over 500 seasoned professionals and thousands of successful projects under our belts, we’re the go-to choice for creating standout websites to give brands the boost they deserve.

No task is too big or small for us. From designing a web page or customizing a theme to developing a site from the ground up, we can always offer you a solution tailored to your specific needs. 

In this post, we’ll walk you through our website development process from your initial request all the way to launching your site if you’re starting from scratch, with nothing but an idea. This should give you a clear picture of the entire workflow you can expect when you turn to us for assistance. 

Let’s get started.

Our Time-Tested Web Design and Development Flow Step by Step 

Step 1: Discovery 

Your Input is Invaluable

First things first. The more details about your project you give us from the get-go, the better results you can expect from us. You might want to do the following: 

• Define your goals and objectives (the reason or reasons for creating the website).
• Outline the scope of the work (what features and how many pages you want the website to have, whether you need third-party integrations, such as payment systems, etc.).
• Write down any other details you find important. 

While this is optional, having this information on hand will significantly speed up the website creation process. 

You can also get in touch with one of our project or business development managers for a kick-off discussion of your requirements and expectations. 

Preliminary Work by Engagement Managers 

As soon as we receive your request, it is directed to our Engagement Managers (EMs). If you need a regular website without many unique elements, interactive effects, or animations (e.g., a simple online business card), the EMs may ask you a couple of clarifying questions to understand which development team, or “cluster” as we call it, has the right expertise to give you the best result. Then, they pass your project over to that team.  

But if you need a truly outstanding online experience for your customers—a website with an unusual design and layout, lots of interactive features and dynamic effects, and sophisticated functionality—the EMs involve an Account Manager. We schedule a call with you to talk over your needs, expectations, and technical aspects in detail. 

Read this post to learn more about our Engagement Management process.

Detailed Consultation and Requirements Gathering

Next, the project manager alongside the team gathers your requirements. At this stage, you can provide us with the essential details about your website that you might have prepared beforehand (purpose, target audience, etc.). 

Depending on your needs, we can offer the best approach to achieving your goals. Several factors come into play here:

1. The complexity of your project. 
2. The availability of brand assets (logo, typefaces, icons, brand guidelines, etc.). 
3. The availability of content. 

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Example 

Take BizDeva, one of our favorite projects, for instance. The reason why the client wanted to create a website was to attract clients—businesses in search of B2B SaaS sales and management expertise—and inform them about BizDeva’s offerings. We asked her about her business model, clientele, personal preferences, and more. 

Finding out those details helped us capture BizDeva’s essence, which we then leveraged when creating the website design. 

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While this initial discussion may seem long, this process is, in fact, smooth, fast, and trouble-free. When we have all the information we need, we can start working on your website development project in just one or two business days after you first contacted us. 

Tech Stack Selection 

Next, it’s time to select the tech stack. This involves choosing the most suitable programming languages, frameworks, and tools for your project. 

The criteria for selection depend on various factors such as your project requirements, the type of website (e.g., is it a regular site or a web application), scalability, and future maintenance.

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Example 

For the BizDeva project, we chose WordPress as the content management system that the client can use to add and update content easily even without a technical background. In addition, we installed and configured several WordPress plugins to implement specific features. For instance, we used the Polylang plugin to make the website multilingual.

And, of course, we used the staple web development technologies: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 

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Once the tech stack is selected, the PM draws up a schedule, considering the full scope of the work, and creates a detailed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), presenting it to you for revision and approval. This document contains all the specific tasks that our designers and developers are going to perform along with the precise cost for each project stage and the time it should take.

If you OK the price and estimated delivery time, the PM enables the Payment Button in your Client Area. We’re very flexible as far as payment options go. You can choose among a variety of methods, including credit cards and wire transfer. In addition, we offer the split payment option if you’re short of funds at the moment. 

As soon as you transfer the required amount, the work on your project begins without a moment’s delay.

Step 2: Planning 

The next stage after we’ve sorted out the essential details is planning. We already have a defined scope of the work ahead at this point. The teams involved in the project (designers, developers, an SEO expert, or copywriter) break it into milestones/iterations and present them to you for approval. 

This process may involve these steps, depending on the initial setup: 

• Research. We study your competitors and niche, as well as the reference websites that inspire you. We also analyze the goals of your project, your target audience, and the required call-to-action. 
• Sitemap creation for multi page-websites. A sitemap helps us craft a streamlined website structure.
• User flows. We can also create user flows for your website if it assumes interaction with several different user types. 
• Low-fidelity wireframes. A wireframe shows the location of elements like headlines, calls to action, and subscription boxes “from a bird’s eye view,” without colors or specific details. It allows you to see what the user interface will look like before we create the full-fledged designs of the pages. 
• Prototyping (optional). For a separate fee, we can create prototypes from the wireframes we’ve drawn. Prototypes allow you to imitate how visitors are going to interact with the website. 

We realize that every website is unique in its requirements. That’s why we tailor our processes to the specific needs of each client. 

Step 3: Design 

If you provide us with a logo and brand guidelines we proceed to designing the user interface based on the wireframes we created in the previous step, using colors, typefaces, illustrations, and other branding assets. No logo or brand guidelines? Then we can create them for you. 

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Example 

Let’s turn to BizDeva for illustration again. The first step of the design process was to craft a mood board that showcased a variety of fonts, color themes, and design elements. 

Our web designers made the mood board because the client only had a logo and content at that time. It helped us capture the client’s vision exactly and gave BizDeva an opportunity to decide on the overall style and mood of the website. 

Building upon those ideas, we went on to create the website design. In particular, we did the following:

• Seamlessly integrated the BizDeva logo into the design.
• Incorporated hand-written elements to reflect the longstanding tradition of the BizDeva hand-written diary, a key part of their brand identity.
• Developed a distinctive color scheme. Red is the client’s preferred color. So we used it as the main criterion in selecting other colors. We found a variation of red that attracted rather than repelled, as well as picked non-conflicting background colors that went well with red to show femininity and softness, as the client wanted. 

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Throughout the planning stage and web design process, we work closely with you to ensure that your vision is realized to the letter. Every wireframe, every web page design needs your approval before we move to the next one. 

In addition, our designers are in constant touch with the development team to make sure that certain elements won’t negatively affect the website’s performance or for advice on the best approach to designing specific web page components from a development perspective. 

Step 4: Development

Next comes the development stage, where all the planning and design work comes together to build a functional website. This phase encompasses both front-end development and back-end development, including CMS integration if your website is based on platforms such as WordPress or Drupal. It involves the following main steps: 

1. First, our developers start coding the user interface using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (or/and JavaScript frameworks). The goal is to develop a website that’s visually appealing and user-friendly, matching the designs you approved down to the last pixel. Typically, we begin with the homepage and then proceed to develop the subpages. 
2. Next, the team creates the server-side logic that powers your website. This includes setting up and managing databases, installing and configuring the required plugins for a specific content management system, developing custom APIs, and ensuring that all functionalities work seamlessly behind the scenes. 

This work is crucial for handling data correctly, providing a robust user authentication system, and ensuring the dynamic elements on your site function the way you expect. 

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Example 

Once the design phase of the BizDeva website was complete, our developers got down to work. First, they converted the design into a pixel-perfect web page and created some custom animations and interactive effects by using plugins or hand coding from scratch. 

Next, they built the custom theme in the editor. 

Here are two features that our dev team created: 

Testimonials Carousel

To develop it, we used the Swiper mobile touch slider, customizing it to match the design.

Custom Cursor 

Depending on the page element where the cursor is positioned, it changes its size and transparency. For instance, when you hover the mouse over a LET’S… button or over the header elements like the social media icons, the cursor turns into a transparent circle with a red border. 

At the same time, when you place the mouse over a client testimonial in the carousel, the cursor grows larger, and the word DRAG with two arrows appears inside it. 

Want to learn more about the BizDeva project? Explore this case study.

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Throughout the web development life cycle, we adhere to industry best practices, writing clean, validated, and fast code that works seamlessly both on the server and the front end of your website. 

Step 5: Testing 

We never deliver websites until we are 100% confident that they’re free of bugs and perform well across all devices and platforms. The testing phase is essential to ensure the quality and functionality of your website.

Before the testing itself begins, our QA engineers meticulously study the project specifications and designs. Sometimes the completed parts of a project are submitted for testing without waiting for the entire project to be completed. This helps reduce the delivery time considerably.

The entire testing process is done manually. Simply put, your website, before it’s officially delivered, is tested rigorously by multiple real people. We test all our projects on real devices only with no compromise (no emulators). This guarantees that your product will render correctly in compliance with your requirements. 

Throughout the testing process, we validate the code against industry standards, test the site’s speed, and check its responsiveness on various devices. Apart from a UX perspective, those characteristics are important from a search engine optimization viewpoint since they make up Google’s Core Web Vitals. 

Only after the testing stage is complete, and we are sure that your website works as it should, will we launch it. 

Step 6: Launch

We’re ready to move on to the exciting part: launching your website. This phase includes deployment and final checks to ensure a smooth go-live process.

Deployment

The first step in launching your website is deploying it to a production environment. This involves uploading all the website files to a live server. We use secure and reliable methods to transfer the website from our development environment to the hosting platform of your choice. If you’re not sure what hosting provider is best for your business needs, we can always advise you. 

During this process, we ensure that all configurations are correctly set up, including domain settings, SSL certificates, and database connections.

Final Checks

Once the website is live, we conduct a series of final checks to confirm that everything is functioning as expected. This includes running another round of tests to verify that all features are operational, links are working, and the site performs well across different devices and browsers. We also monitor the website closely in the immediate post-launch period to quickly address any issues that may arise.

Throughout this phase, our team is on standby to make any necessary adjustments and ensure that your website is ready for public viewing.

Great! Your website is up and running. Visitors can now learn more about your business and hopefully convert into leads or customers.

But that’s not the end of the story. The website development life cycle includes another stage—Maintenance.

Maintenance

Website maintenance involves ongoing support and performance monitoring.

Ongoing Support

As your business evolves, you may need to expand the number of pages, add new functionalities, and update existing features. Our ongoing support services (for a separate fee) ensure your website remains up-to-date and fully functional. 

This includes editing and adding content, fixing any bugs or issues, performing regular site backups, and installing new plugins or updates as needed. Our team remains available to assist you with all these tasks, helping to keep your website in optimal condition.

Performance Monitoring

We employ a range of tools and processes to continuously monitor your website’s performance and uptime. By tracking key metrics such as load times, server response times, and overall site health, we can quickly identify and address any performance bottlenecks. 

Regular monitoring helps us ensure that your website consistently delivers an excellent user experience, keeping visitors engaged and reducing the risk of downtime.

Wrapping It Up

At the end of the day, your website is more than just a digital storefront—it’s a critical touchpoint for your customers to engage with your brand. Our time-tested web development process ensures that every aspect of your site is meticulously crafted to meet your business goals and provide a seamless user experience.

• We start by deeply understanding your objectives and designing a user interface that captivates and converts. 
• Our development phase brings these designs to life, combining cutting-edge technologies. 
• Rigorous testing guarantees that your website functions flawlessly across all devices, preparing you for a successful launch. 
• Once live, our maintenance services keep your site running smoothly, with ongoing support and performance monitoring that adapt to your evolving needs.

Transparency is key to our approach—you’ll know the status of your project at every stage. Since 2005, we’ve refined our processes to provide the best client experience in the industry.

For our returning clients, we offer the advantage of dedicated project management and teams who are already familiar with your unique needs. This allows us to hit the ground running and deliver results faster. With over 500 professionals on our team, we always have the resources ready to start your project immediately so that you never have to wait.

Need a standout, engaging website that puts you above the competition and brings you leads and customers? Get in touch with us today, and let’s make it a reality.