Website Development
From single text pages to full e-commerce solutions, we’ve got your back (and front ends) covered with our complete web development service
From simple, eye-catching pages to full on electronic commerce solutions, the Creative Fabrik team have vast experience with a multitude of web development applications. Our mission is to create the right website designed around what you want to achieve for your business and your specific budget and then build something amazing that ticks all those boxes and more.
Not only will the site we build for you look good and function well but it’ll also be technically healthy and robust, secure, fully responsive and search friendly – all the while maintaining a focus on your unique business objectives and overall marketing strategy.
Web development explained
Web development relates to all the work that goes into building a website apart from the design. This can range from developing a single static page of plain text to complex web applications such as e-commerce and social network services.
When we talk about the front end of a website, this refers to the look and feel and the visual aspects such as layout, navigation, graphics, and other aesthetics. It’s the side of a website or software that you see and interact with as an Internet user. The user experience (UX) aspect is very important to us and this front-end code allows users like you and me to interact with a website and play videos, expand or minimise images, highlight text and more.
The back end is the side you don’t see when you use the Internet. It’s the digital infrastructure, and to non-developers, it just looks like gobbledygook made up of a bunch of numbers, letters and symbols. The servers of websites, programs, and software at the back end make sure everything works properly behind the scenes. It’s where the code sits for security, content, and site structure.
Our expert web developers can build and manage both the front and back-ends of your site. Their all-round knowledge will make sure they integrate the design and build side beautifully to optimise site performance and catch any issues before they occur.
Some web development platforms we’ve used
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that allows you to host and build websites. It’s hugely popular and powers over 2 million websites worldwide. It contains plugin architecture and a template system, so you can customise any website to fit your business, blog, portfolio or online store.
This Essex based business is passionate about creating employee surveys that deliver results.
They are all about data, research and goals and so the brief for their own website project was unsurprisingly concise. The company knew exactly which direction they wanted to go in and Creative Fabrik enabled them to build on their brand and helped them forge on into new markets.
Magento is an e-commerce platform built on open-source technology that provides online merchants with a flexible shopping cart system. You get full control over the look and content on your website. It can help manage catalogues, inventory, customers, orders and returns, as well as provide marketing and SEO tools and multiple shipping and payment methods.
Shopify is another e-commerce platform that is hugely popular with online store owners. It operates on a monthly subscription model and allows you to easily set up an online store and sell your products. Shopify offers all the tools you need to showcase products, engage with customers, accept payments and more.
Adobe’s new Portfolio platform lets us quickly and simply build a website to showcase your creative work. There’s a huge selection of layouts that can be fully customised with a responsive design that will look great across all devices. It’s the perfect platform for a start-up or small business looking to get that initial website presence.
Hawkspur is an independent firm of Chartered Surveyors specialising in consultancy advice to clients relating to development agreements, town and country planning, land acquisitions and development land disposals throughout the UK.
Nick from Hawspur says: “I first used Rik’s services when setting up Hawkspur and needed a website. Some years later, when the Hawkspur website needed thorough overhauling and making it compatible with phones etc, I contacted Rik again for his assistance.”
We were happy to work with Nick again to revamp the look and feel of the website with a total redesign and rebuild that enabled us to review the services and offering from Hawkspur as well as updating the deployment of the site and making it compatible with all devices from desktops, tablets and phones.
Our Website Development Process
We don’t do ‘one size fits all’ round here, so each website we develop is unique and bespoke, requiring a different development path based on the type of website needed, programming languages and resources.
1. First things first, we form a plan. We’ll ask you a series of questions to find out what you want from your website, such as:
· Who are your audience & what do you want them to do on your site?
· What type of website do you need?
· What content do you want to publish and at what volume?
· What purpose will the website have?
· What navigation will you need?
· What structure do you want?
· What’s your budget?
Once we have all the information to hand, we’ll create a list of your priorities and develop a detailed project schedule.
2. Secondly, we’ll create a blueprint for your site in the form of a sitemap. A sitemap gives you and your web developer an idea of what you’re picturing and the information needed to meet your vision. We’ll drill down into the nitty gritty here. What pages do you want? What content will be on those pages? How can you organise those pages into categories? What is the hierarchy of pages on your site? How will the pages link together? What pages and categories are essential to your site and user experience? Which pages/categories can be removed or combined?
Our SEO team will provide their valuable input here and will be critical in defining the linking structure and categorising of your pages.
3. Write your website code. Different languages are needed for the front end and back end, as well as different functionalities. These different languages work together to build and run your site, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS)– the big three of web development. Almost every website uses them in some shape or form.
4. Build the back end – These are the databases responsible for storing, organising and processing data so that it’s retrievable by server requests. Servers can be both hardware and software devices that make up your computer and accept and respond to requests. They’re the go-between the database and the web browser.
5. Build the front end – This is what visitors, customers and users see and how they’ll use your website. The front end controls components such as typography and fonts, navigation, positioning and browser compatibility and responsiveness. This part will reflect more of your initial site vision and what you included in your sitemap.
6. Get a domain name – If you don’t already have one, you’ll need a memorable website name that your visitors can use to find your site.
7. Launch – Once your domain name is set up and linked to your web hosting, we’ll almost be ready to reveal our hard work. But hold your horses – there’s still a few final checks we need to make before the official launch. These include testing your site thoroughly for any glitches, optimising for SEO and a (just to be on the safe side) final check before ‘flipping the switch’ and making your site live.