How does a website get put together - A 4-step process

Our approach to all our projects is simple and accommodating. We understand there is a lot of ‘internet jargon’ out there, so we ensure you understand the whole process every step of the way.
- Firstly, we meet and discuss your business and what you want to achieve from a website. This allows us to get a good feel for your business, for you to understand how the process will work and to make sure the right website package is offered to deliver the best results.
- Secondly, we provide the basic ‘frame’ of your website (similar to a family tree) to make sure you have all the areas of your business covered, understand which areas may be linked to another and to physically see the website taking shape.
- Thirdly, we provide the homepage design to show the style we feel best represents your business & the message you want to portray. We then discuss, refine and agree before moving onto the website programming itself.
- Finally, we build the website, provide the back-end programming and put the whole website together. We then make any final changes and take the site ‘Live’.
Building a website – The processes and software
A lot goes into the design and programming of a website. Here are the processess we use:
Designing:
- Sketched designs – Starts the process of design for 90% of our work.
- Adobe Photoshop - To produce mock-ups and ‘Internet Ready graphics’ and manipulate images.
- Adobe Illustrator - To produce graphics, used for items such as logos.
- Adobe Flash - For animation, movement & interaction.
- CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is a universal styling document used in conjunction with HTML to design a website.
Developing - The back-end Coding:
- HTML - Hypertext Markup Language - the basic language of a web-site.
- XHTML - A more in depth Language providing a standards compliant finish to a website.
- XML - A way of storing data.
- RSS - 'Real Simple Syndication' for real time feeds to allow publishing of frequently updated articles like blogs.
- MySQL - Is a Open Source Database platform used in conjunction with PHP to store and retrieve data.
- PHP - A scripting language to produce dynamic web sites.
- Javascript - A scripting language to provide the ‘fancy’ styling to browser based interaction.
- AJAX - A scripting language to intergrate javascrip.
- CMS - Content Management System - A programme that allows a non-programer to change and update websites.
- Keyword Tags, ALT Tags, Headings, Links - all used to provide basic SEO (search engine optimisation) to a website.
Open Source Software:
As well as bespoke designs we use open source Source software which includes applications such as blogging, content management and e-commerce.
- Joomla - An open source Content management system - CMS.
- Paypal - The most popular and safe method of sending and receiving money via the internet.
- Google Checkout - Google's way of paying online.