In today’s world having a website has become an essential part of any business as it not only gives you a strong stand in your market but also bridges the gap between your business and anyone searching for the services that you provide. In other words, all the prospective customers to your business can get to know about you and your products and services through your website if you have it on the internet. Website design and development is the first step in direction of making a website online over internet.

Website design and development are two distinct processes but are usually referred as one because of their interdependency. While website design deals with the overall look and feel of the website. website development provides the functionality needed to make a website work over internet.

Website design and development consists of two styles of making it. These two are -

a. Static Websites – A static website is document written in HTML. HTML is a short form of Hyper-Text-Markup-Language which is used to code basic web pages in the form of a document using various markups and tags. These tags are then rendered by a web browser which makes it possible for the user to view the website graphically. These pages remain static unless they are not updated manually by the webmaster himself. Generally these pages acts as an online brochure of a business company which may include information about a company, products and services and its contact information. Texts, animations, audio and visuals, photos etc. can be used to describe about the company.

Static website can be made using wide range of editors. These editing software are basically used to write codes in HTML. Notepad and Text-Edit are two software programs with sets of basic features to write codes. There are more sophisticated editors which are often referred as WYSIWYG editors include software like Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage etc. Today online editors are also available with WYSIWYG capabilities using Flash based platform.

b. Dynamic Websites – A dynamic website is one which keeps changing its content and features as inputted by the user. Such websites are made using web languages like PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, JSP etc which makes the data dynamic according to the piece of information feed in it. All the languages stated earlier are used provide functionality to interact with the user and store all the data in the databases maintained to feed, convert and retrieve again. All these websites use the WYSIWYG editors for the purpose adding graphics to them and then code them in any of the web languages of your choice.

The term website design and development is getting broader each day with the inclusion of all the activities that are involved in not just making it but also market it over internet to achieve high sales volume.