Website development is a collective term that involves the development, scaling, and maintenance of websites and web applications on the internet.

It can vary from the creation of a single-page website to the development of complex social media applications.

Web developers use many programming languages in web development. A web developer must be updated with best practices and industry standards to build high-performance websites. 

Most practices are industry-accepted set of guidelines to achieve desired web efficiency. Following these practices can help you transform into a better and more efficient web developer. What are these, and where to find them? 

Don’t worry. We have curated a list of 5 best practices for you to improve your online presence:

1. Flexible & Scalable Code 

A flexible code expresses a clear solution to the problem with minimum syntactical elements to avoid confusion. When any code functions the same way under a more extensive "scale" of things, it becomes a scalable code. 

Requirements often change over time. Your code should be robust enough to meet those requirements and adapt accordingly. A piece of code that's easy to modify and delivers the desired result counts as a flexible, scalable code. 

Avoid writing anything too complicated that could make your code hard to interpret and edit in the future. It's crucial while working in a team since your team members will test or modify each other's work. 

2. Mobile First Design

Devised by Luke Wroblewski in 2009 and made famous by the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, mobile-first design signifies designing for mobile. 

Essentially, mobile-first aims to switch the workflow from tackling desktop designs first. It encourages a web development company to address the mobile design head-on and work towards the desktop version later as the project grows. 

Around 50% of the total web traffic comes from mobile devices. 

A prediction by CNBC suggests that by 2025, more than 72% of people will use only smartphones to access the internet. 

If you don’t design and develop for mobile, you and your consumers are bound to face difficulties. 

Mobile-first design is an effective strategy to develop various digital solutions – websites, apps, and software, keeping future web traffic predictions in mind. 

3. Test and Deploy

You'll have to utilize your reverse engineering skills when you write tests for your website's code. Ask yourself: 

What dependencies do I have? How to align the code for testing? 

If you find that your code is troublesome to test, it's always a sign that it needs to be refactored for other reasons too. To deploy your website to production, you need to ask "four" conventional deployment questions – where, what, how, and when.

If there's uncertainty for any of these questions, go for code optimization and don't rush the deployment process.

A "tried and tested" website always performs well in the global digital marketplace. 

4. Simple Frameworks 

A significant driving factor for selecting a framework is the community's size around it. The framework impacts your ability to find learning resources and leverage open source libraries and plugins. 

Choose a framework that helps you maintain the right balance between the current demands and future innovations. 

Consider aspects like the programming language, problem fit, and scalability to determine the framework for your web design & development company.

For example, if your team prefers writing primarily in Java, your options are Spring, Play Framework, DropWizard, etc. 

5. Search Engine Friendly Code

A well-designed website doesn't guarantee that you’ll receive high traffic or an increased customer base. To boost your website's traffic, you'll need to implement search engine optimization.

Research done by Backlinko informs that a mere 0.78% of searchers click on results from the second page. If you don’t make it to Google’s first page, all your web development efforts go in vain. 

Your web design and development services must focus on developing an SEO-friendly website to increase organic traffic and achieve higher SERP rankings. 

Conclusion

Regardless of whether you are a web developer or a web development company owner, these website development practices will improve your online presence. 

If you're a new web developer, ensure that you adhere to these standards for all your future web development ventures. 

Which aspect of website development will play a vital role in 2021? Let us know in the comments section.