Most businesses do not realise their full potential because they don’t develop and implement functional systems. On the other hand, businesses that do develop systems often turn into empires and conquer the world. If you think about some of the most successful businesses on the planet, you will realise that they have systems. McDonald’s has a system that it uses to create and sell fast food. Google and Facebook are technology companies that have technology, marketing, operational, and other functional systems.
In a web development business, you also want to have functional systems. If you run every web development project as a system that consists of a number of steps, your job will be much easier because you will not have to think about what to do at different stages of the web development projects. A sample project system could consist of the following steps:
Planning
At this stage, you and the client define the goals for the website, create a brand identity, discuss content, design and content placement and figure out a way to attract visitors to the website after you launch it.
Proposal and contract signing
After you and your client discuss and agree on all the prerequisites, you need to put it on paper and submit a proposal to the client. The proposal should outline the scope of work and clearly define the expectations, time frame and deliverables.
Design, mockups, and wireframes
In this step, you create a visitor profile and make decisions about website layout, colour scheme, and content organisation. You then prepare a mock-up and submit it to the client.
Building phase
During the building phase, the mockup converts into code, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and so on.
Testing
When you finish writing the code, test it using a testing environment.
Launch
Buy a domain, hosting plan, and upload the website files and test it again.
Post launch maintenance
This step involves updates, backups, and editions of existing content.