You might be wondering why you–as a business owner–need to know the answer to “with web development platforms, who designs the website?”
After all, you’ve got too many responsibilities to get lost in the weeds with web design or development.
That said, a vast gulf exists between obtaining the appropriate knowledge on business investments and getting lost in the weeds. No, as a business owner, you don’t need to obsess over web design and development. Yet, learning the core essentials is pivotal to your overall strategy.
To the above point, understanding a few of the intricacies of your outsourced or delegated initiatives and tasks allows you to make informed partnership and spending decisions. Thus, knowing the difference between a web developer and a web designer has many advantages.
For one, such knowledge helps you appropriately align your expectations with the services you procure. It also enables you to define your budget and insightfully plan the building, launching, rollout, and ongoing upkeep and updates to your website.
With the previous sentiments top of mind, it’s time to answer the pressing question: with web development platforms, who designs the website?”
No-Web Development And Web Design Aren’t The Same
Before moving forward, we must say unanimously, without confusion, that web development and web design are separate services.
We should point out that many agencies offer web design and web development (or hosting), but they’re still different services.
For instance, The Valley List offers comprehensive web design and turnkey Cloud hosting services, respectively. (Contact us today to learn more about both offerings.)
Let’s now delve into what web design and development entail.
What Is The Role Of A Web Designer
The responsibilities and tasks of a web designer vary across a broad spectrum.
Chiefly, a web designer focuses on creating the website’s visual aspects and layout. The primary objective of this role is to produce a user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing website that convinces visitors to stick around.
Along with layout structure and general framework, these responsibilities require that designers keep conversions in mind when constructing various on-page elements. They also must design web pages that are user-friendly across all devices.
Web designers must remain informed about the latest trends. They also must stay sufficiently upskilled to keep in lockstep with the most relevant, conversion-forward approaches and best practices. Additionally, designers need an expert grasp on concepts such as:
- Fonts
- Color palettes
- Brand Imagery
It’s common for web designers to create style guides to ensure consistency amongst branded websites.
Why Is Website Design So Crucial To Your Business?
Your company’s website isn’t merely a series of words and images appearing in digital space. Instead, it’s more akin to your online catalog or brochure–except it’s far more versatile and seamless.
Unlike printed products (which still have their place if used strategically), you can immediately update product or service information on your website. If there’s a mistake? All you need to do is make a quick edit, and you’re good to go.
A website designer allows you to maximize those advantages by making your online brochure or internet catalog look pleasing to your target audience’s eyes. They’ll produce the type of layouts that make it easy for your audience to learn what they need to learn and navigate where they need to navigate.
When your website is digitally presentable across all platforms, your company conveys itself as professional, convincing, appealing, and trustworthy. Emphatically, it tells your audience who you are, firmly establishing your identity. The best designers execute in a manner that takes control of these factors and harnesses their true power.
Consider these statistics:
- Nearly 50% of users determine a business’s credibility through its website’s overall design.
- Almost 95% of online shoppers won’t trust poorly designed, outdated websites. The same amount of people will base their first impression of a website solely on its design.
- Around 40% of website visitors will leave a site with an unattractive layout.
The numbers tell the story. Quality web design promotes profitable client/customer relationships. Failing to hire the ideal designer will leave your company–and its website–behind the competition.
Couldn’t You Just Use Wix For Web Design
At first, Wix might seem like the ideal option for a company looking to keep a tight financial belt. After all, Wix’s design process is drag and drop. You can DIY the process with little thought and effort.
However, with a templated service like Wix, you’ll discover that the lower (initially free) upfront price will cost you dearly in the long run in missed opportunities alone.
Wix will lead you down a primrose path where profits and chances to evolve slip away into the ether. Plus, while you might be attracted to the free price tag, you’ll realize to get any value from Wix and its imitators, you’ll pay for addon after addon.
Lastly, the platforms Wix and similar templated Online Website Builders offer are massively limited. You’ll be stuck with the unimpressive design features and lackluster performance by choosing these inferior options.
What Does A Web Developer Do?
Primarily, a web developer builds and maintains your website’s core structure.
An abundance of technical work encapsulates this role. Developers need to excel with advanced programming languages and complex coding.
A designer will generate ideas, produce concepts, and give them to a web developer, who then develops them into a properly functioning website.
In other words, your developer is responsible for the nuts and bolts of your website, which involves configuring and coding the backend databases and server. Plus, your developer must focus on the front end, which involves user-facing functionality and features.
Developers also must perform debugging and testing protocols and manage various post-launch services, like ongoing maintenance and support. They’ll provide hosting services and fix any related issues with the server.
When defining web development to our customers, we liken it to the construction industry. Web development services to your website resemble what construction businesses are to homes.
A developer transforms blueprints and design plans made by the architect–your web designer–then builds the foundation. This process ensures a sound, functional structure is put in place for your website.
We’ll take it one step further with hosting services. Provided your web developer also hosts your website, it’s like having a caretaker or superintendent who ensures your home remains in tip-top condition.
This is a broader description of web development–but we’ll explain where the Valley List’s Cloud Hosting services fit into this grand scheme.
Where Does The Valley List Fit in With Web Development
At the Valley List, we shine most for our Cloud hosting services.
Let’s extrapolate a bit further:
A web host provides the digital space for your web page storage made available on the World Wide Web. Web hosting companies keep their hosted website servers turned on permanently (unless there’s planned maintenance or unplanned downtime).
However, the Cloud hosting we offer at The Valley List goes far beyond your traditional web hosting service.
Why Choose A Cloud Hosting Service Over Regular Hosting?
More Reliable Server Uptime
Your website performance is drastically impacted by its uptime. Cloud hosting increases uptime, maximizing it, guaranteeing no single failure point.
Since the Cloud expands across a multi-layered interconnected server system, one of many other servers–by default–will absorb the workload when another can’t take your request.
Traditional hosting can’t make the same claims, risking downtime and hardware failure for your apps and website.
You Pay For What’s Needed
You don’t need to worry about wasting your budget on resources you don’t need on Cloud hosting services.
However, traditional hosting requires that you pay a fixed amount for services you never end up using.
Heightened Security
When you use traditional hosting, your CPU-based needs and resources get shared with other websites sharing your server. You can pay for a private server to better protect your sensitive information–but this option isn’t cost-efficient.
Conversely, the Cloud hosting infrastructure secures data at multiple levels (i.e., physical security, application, network, data).
Cloud hosting services like what’s offered at The Valley List ensure data safety through:
- Enhanced data isolation
- Increased storage segregation
- Customer identity management
- Encrypted solutions
- Backup recoveries
- Firewalls
Optimal Resource Scalability
Cloud hosting allows clients to allocate resources instantly when they have needs that call for immediate action. Websites using Cloud hosting can seamlessly reduce or add bandwidth, RAM, storage, etc., on multiple server-based networks.
Comparatively, traditional hosting uses physical machines with stringent specifications and scarce resources. Thus, appropriately scaling your digital resources is tough when you need to make strategic, real-time decisions.
Contact The Valley List Today For Top-Tier Web Design And Cloud Hosting Services
Web design and web development are different services. Procuring the services of a web designer doesn’t mean you’ll be hiring a web developer and vice versa.
However, with The Valley List, you can benefit from turnkey website services that include offerings such as web design, Cloud hosting, and ongoing website maintenance.
Contact us today, and we can discuss how the Valley List can host your website, optimize its design, and bolster your online presence.
