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Chapter 5: Web development

Web development refers to building website and deploying on the web. Web
development requires use of scripting languages both at the server end as well as at
client end.

Before developing a web site once should keep several aspects in mind like:
• What to put on the web site?
• Who will host it?
• How to make it interactive?
• How to code it?
• How to create search engine friendly web site?
• How to secure the source code frequently?
• Will the web site design display well in different browsers?
• Will the navigation menus be easy to use?
• Will the web site loads quickly?
• How easily will the site pages print?
• How easily will visitors find important details specific to the web site?
• How effectively the style sheets be used on your web sites?
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Web Development Process

Web development process includes all the steps that are good to take to build an
attractive, effective and responsive website. These steps are shown in the following
diagram:
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Web development tools

Web development tools helps the developer to test and debug the web sites. Now a days
the web development tool come with the web browsers as add-ons. All web browsers
have built in tools for this purpose.
These tools allow the web developer to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript etc.. These are
accessed by hovering over an item on a web page and selecting the “Inspect Element”
from the context menu.

Features

Following are the common features that every web development tool exhibits:

HTML and the DOM

HTML and DOM viewer allows you to see the DOM as it was rendered. It also allows to
make changes to HTML and DOM and see the changes reflected in the page after the
change is made.

Web Page Assets, Resources, and Network Information

Web development tools also helps to inspect the resources that are loaded and available
on the web page.

Profiling and Auditing

Profiling refers to get information about the performance of a web page or web
application and Auditing provides developers suggestions, after analyzing a page, for
optimizations to decrease page load time and increase responsiveness.

Skills Required
For being a successful web developer, one should possess the following skills:
• Understanding of client and server side scripting.
• Creating, editing and modifying templates for a CMS or web development
framework.
• Testing cross browser inconsistencies.
• Conducting observational user testing.
• Testing for compliance to specified standards such as accessibility standards in
the client region.
• Programming interaction with javaScript, PHP, and Jquery etc.
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Website publishing is the process of uploading content on the internet. It includes:

• uploading files
• updating web pages
• posting blogs
Website is published by uploading files on the remote server which is provided by the
hosting company.

Prerequisites for Website Publishing

In order to publish your site, you need the following things:
• Web development software
• Internet Connection
• Web Server

Web development software

It is used for building web pages for your web site. Dreamweaver and WordPress are
example of web development software.

Internet Connection

Internet connection is required to connect to a remotely located web server.

Web Server

Web server is the actual location where your website resides on. A web server may host
single or multiple sites depending on what hosting service you have paid for.

Web Content Authoring

Web content authoring is the process of creating page-level content for your Content
Management (WCM) websites. Web content authoring comprises the following
activities:

■ Defining the content records that populate the content areas of your website pages,
optionally using workflow and Surf-to-Edit features to help with this task.

■ Managing images that you use in your content.

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Any software, or collection of software components, that authors can use to create or
modify web content for use by other people, is an Authoring Tool. Authoring tools, at
their best, should allow all of us to publish to a universal space of web content, read by
people from all over the world, in many different languages, on many different
computers, using many different input and output devices.

Examples of Authoring Tools

"Authoring tools" covers any software is used to write the web, from enterprise content
management systems (CMSs) through to microblogging mobile apps, whether web-
based, non-web-based or a combination. Examples include:
• web page authoring tools (e.g., WYSIWYG HTML editors)
• software for directly editing source code or markup
• software for converting to web content technologies (e.g., "Save as HTML"
features in office suites)
• integrated development environments (e.g., for web application
development)
• software that generates web content on the basis of templates, scripts,
command-line input or "wizard"-type processes
• software for rapidly updating portions of web pages (e.g., blogging, wikis,
online forums)
• software for live collaboration over the web
• software for updating social media profiles, microblogging, and photo and
video sharing
• software for generating/managing entire web sites (e.g., content
management systems, courseware tools, content aggregators)
• email clients that send messages in web content technologies
• multimedia authoring tools
• debugging tools for web content
• software for creating mobile web applications
• scripting libraries
• web application frameworks, IDEs and SDKs

Overview
Web hosting is a service of providing online space for storage of web pages. These
web pages are made available via World Wide Web. The companies which offer
website hosting are known as Web hosts.
The servers on which web site is hosted remain switched on 24 x7. These servers are
run by web hosting companies. Each server has its own IP address. Since IP addresses
are difficult to remember therefore, webmaster points their domain name to the IP
address of the server their website is stored on.
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It is not possible to host your website on your local computer, to do so you would have
to leave your computer on 24 hours a day. This is not practical and cheaper as well. This
is where web hosting companies comes in.

Types of Hosting
The following table describes different types of hosting that can be availed as per the
need:

S.N. Hosting Description

1. Shared Hosting
In shared hosting, the hosting company puts thousands of website on the same physical
server. Each customer has their own allocation of physical web space and a set of bandwidth
limit. As all websites share same physical memory, MYSQL server and Apache server, one
website on the server experiencing high traffic load will affect performance of all websites on
the server.

2. Virtual Private Server (VPS)

It is also known as Virtual Dedicated Server. It is a server which is partitioned into smaller
servers. In this customer is given their own partition, which is installed with its own operating
system. Unlike shared hosting, VPS doesn’t share memory or processor time rather it
allocates certain amount of memory and CPU to use which means that any problem on a VPS
partition on the same drive will not affect other VPS customers.

3. Dedicated Server
In this kind of hosting, single dedicated server is setup for just one customer. It is commonly
used by the businesses that need the power, control and security that a dedicated server
offers.

4. Reseller Hosting
A reseller acts as a middle man and sells hosting space of someone else’s server.

5. Grid Hosting
Instead of utilizing one server, Grid Hosting spreads resources over a large number of
servers. It is quite stable and flexible. The servers can be added or taken away from the grid
without crashing the system.
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Web Hosting Companies

Following are the several companies offering web hosting service:

S.N. Hosting Company

1. Blue Host

2. Go Daddy

3. Host Gator

4. just Host

5. Laughing Squid

6. Hivelocity

7. liquid Web

8. Media TempleServInt

9. Wired Tree

10. Wild West Domains

11. Wix

12. WIPL

13. Big Rock

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What Is Website Maintenance?

Website maintenance is the act of regularly checking your website for issues and
mistakes and keeping it updated and relevant. This should be done on a consistent
basis in order to keep your website healthy, encourage continued traffic growth, and
strengthen your SEO and Google rankings.
Keeping a website well maintained and attractive is important to companies big and
small in order to engage and retain customers. It’s easy for businesses, especially
startups, to cut corners and let a few tasks slide.
Website maintenance can easily become one of those things as it doesn’t always
present immediate issues. However, just like your health can fall apart if you go too long
without a regular check-up, so can the health of your website.
Regular monitoring of your website is a must for keeping your business running
smoothly.
What Are the Steps in Website Maintenance? A Quick Checklist
There is a laundry list of tasks that should be done to keep your website running
smoothly. The most time-sensitive of these are website security updates and patches.
Without these, your website has the potential to be an actual danger to those who click
on it.
With that in mind, here is a list of website maintenance tasks that should be completed
regularly:

To be done weekly
Check that all of your pages are loading without errors
Run a backup and make sure a previous version of your site is stored
Make updates to website software and plugins
Check that all of your forms are running properly
Remove any spam comments from pages and posts
Check your pages to see if there are any broken links
Search for 404 errors and fix or redirect
Write one or more blog posts to keep your community engaged and encourage SEO
traffic.
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To be done monthly
Check the load speed of your website and ensure that nothing is bogging it down
Review your security scans and make sure nothing is out of place
Analyze website statistics from the previous month
Check your blog to see if there are any articles that could be updated

To be done quarterly
Review your website design and structure – can be it improved?
Check graphics and images – should anything be updated?
Review SEO and meta titles and descriptions to ensure they are as effective as possible
Test and tweak popups, forms, and calls to action
Review your workload for efficiencies to see if anything can be automated
Test your website on all devices and browsers to see if it displays correctly
Review advertising and marketing campaigns to see if anything needs to be changed or
updated.
Restore a previous version of the website to check your backup health

To be done yearly
Update any reference to the current year
Review each page for content accuracy, grammar, typos, and relevancy
Check any active email addresses and see if any are excessive and can be deleted
Ensure that your website domain name is renewed
Consider whether a website design update is due
Review all of your top performing blog articles and see if they can be updated with new
content

A Proper Website Maintenance Plan Is a Circle

As you can see from our checklist, website maintenance should be a consistent part of
your business. It grows on itself, and if not correctly implemented, can cause some
serious problems and setbacks to your potential growth and business health.
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Staying on top of website health takes awareness and organization. This is particularly
the case for a large site with hundreds (or even thousands) of pages.

With the introduction of new tools to make website building easier, website sizes are
growing each year. While it’s easy to add pages to most websites, it’s not as easy to
keep all of your pages in a good state.

All that to say: keep on top of your website maintenance.

Why Is It Important to Do Website Maintenance?
Many new businesses already have a lot on their plates without worrying about
constantly checking in on their website. It’s tempting to buy a domain name, throw up
something temporary, and just worry about it later. There are many reasons why this is
not a good idea. Maintaining a current, healthy, and active website is important for a
number of reasons.

SEO
The whole point to starting a business is to have customers, clients, or an audience. To
drive traffic to your website, you’ll need to keep it regularly updated.
Google wants to rank websites that have the most relevant and up-to-date information
on their search engine results page . They may even de-index your website entirely if it
hasn’t been updated recently enough and if they suspect it has been infected by
malware. You must keep your website regularly updated with current content, news,
keywords, and articles in order to rank well in search results.
Regularly website maintenance is invaluable for SEO strategy.

Customer Attraction/Engagement
If your website is gaining traction and traffic, it’s important to keep those potential
customers. If they aren’t able to find what they are looking for, current information and
relevant content, there is a good chance you’ll lose interest quickly. In order for your
website to be the useful tool you want, you’ll need to ensure it is free from typos and
grammar issues, has any and all information a customer could want, and looks
engaging and consistent.
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Security
This is the single most important reason to keep website maintenance on your radar,
particularly if your website is storing any form of customer information. If you are using a
website building platform like WordPress or Wix, you must ensure that you are installing
regular software updates and security patches. It can be easy and attractive for hackers
to find and target websites that have sat dormant for too long.
Corporate Image
It’s becoming more and more simple to create a website that looks well-designed and
professional. There is an expectation for a professional website from professional
companies. If your website doesn’t deliver on the promise of professionalism, your
customers will often go elsewhere.
Your Sanity
Your website is a very important element of your business. If it is up-to-date and running
smoothly, it can be a valuable support and asset. If it is not in a good state, it can cost
you dearly. Once you are behind on your maintenance needs, it can be quite the
process to bring the website back up to speed. Sometimes, if your maintenance has
been ignored for too long, it is easier just to scrap everything and rebuild from the
scratch.
Do yourself and your business a favor by staying on top of your website. This will repay
you with simple ease of mind.
Keep up with Trends in Design and Technology
The sleeker your website is, the more you’ll convince potential customers that you are
their ultimate choice. If you’re staying on top of your website maintenance, you’ll also
have the opportunity to be an early adopter of new website technology that will help the
back-end run more smoothly. If you’re installing software updates regularly, you’ll be
able to take advantage of new features that install along with the updates.
You’ll also be able to tweak your design to stay on top of the latest website looks. It’s far
more tempting to employ a company with a polished and modern website than one that
looks like it hopped on a time travel device from 2003.

References:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/internet_technologies/website_hosting.htm
http://docs.imis.com/15.2.5/index.htm#!websitemaintenance1.htm
https://www.w3.org/standards/agents/authoring
https://fingerprintmarketing.com/website-maintenance/