How long does it take to build a website?

When planning to build and launch a website, one of the first questions that come up to a head is “how long it will take”. If you also want to start such a project and you are thinking about all the details, then, first of all, you need to be aware of many factors that determine the development time. Building a dedicated, custom website takes time. The more complex the project, the longer it will be implemented. The time estimate depends on the needs of your project and what you want to achieve with it. A simple website or landing page can be created even in a week. An extensive marketplace, on the other hand, will take up to several months. As you can see, this range is wide. Read on for details on website building that will help you understand the whole process.

What are the basic steps in building a website?

Developing a website is very similar to the application development process because it is also really a type of software. Pages differ in the way they work because they are browser-based, but otherwise, they have a lot in common with applications. In addition to the steps listed below, usually, the development process will begin with establishing all requirements, action plan and roadmap, as well as all features of the website such as its type, functions or technology stack.

Read also: What tools do people use for product planning?

UX

The success of your website will largely depend on how well your visitors adapt and use all its features. Providing the best user experience is, therefore, the ultimate goal of your website. You should take care not only of a beautiful, clear interface but also of interactivity, intuitiveness and ease of use. Hence, when developing websites, it is important to put a lot of emphasis on UX design, which will ensure the right experience and comfort of using the website.

Development

Your website starts to come alive during this phase. The development team, based on the detailed plan, designs, arrangements and all guidelines, will code a fully functioning website, which should look exactly like on the mockups approved by you. 

Read also: PWA (Progressive Web App) examples in 2021

QA

Quality assurance and testing are an integral part of a well-executed project. At this stage, all errors are eliminated so that the final product works without any problems. It is important not to skip this step to save because, in the long run, it will make you lose more than you gain.

Deploy

After all the tests are complete, and any bugs have been fixed, it is time for the website to go live. Deployment is the process by which your website will be moved to the server, monitored, and given the appropriate SSL certificate.

How long does it take to create a UX/UI design?

Design is actually the most important thing in creating a website and it has a wide purpose. It has to not only be beautiful but functional and focused on users. The next steps and their implementation will depend on it. It takes into account not only the visual side but also the action, i.e. everything that User Interface consists of. The process of creating UI and UX requires the creation of mockups of the mobile application based on the requirements, functions that are to appear and all existing assumptions for the website. Mockups show you what your website can look like based on your requirements. At this stage, you can make changes to your site’s design. The development hasn’t started yet, so these revisions are essential to accomplish your needs before it is too late. After you finish scaffolding, designers complete the UI graphic design that includes the colours, fonts, theme, and images of your application. This is the stage where your website begins to take its actual shape. It can take anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. 

How long does it take to develop a website?

After the design phase is complete, it’s time to code your website. The website consists of a front-end and a back-end side. The front-end is about what users will see and interact with on the website, while the back-end is responsible for all invisible operations, data storage, and server-side support. In this phase, the developers will focus on creating both parts of the website. Developing a website is not only about transferring the visual layer from designs but ensuring good, proper operation of the website, ensuring a concise, clean code and achieving the highest quality. Of course, it depends a lot on the development team, so always try to find the best specialists. The development time will vary depending on the complexity and type of the website, and it may take up to about 2 months for complex projects.

How long does it take to set up a QA and deploy?

The development phase should always be followed by the testing and quality assurance phase. Its purpose is to check that every element of the website looks and works properly. Quality control is about finding non-obvious and confusing bugs, testing different use cases, performance, running on different browsers. The tests usually last a few days, it all depends on any detected bugs to be fixed. Deployment, as the last of all the steps, is equally crucial to your website. It involves pushing changes or updates from one deployment environment to another, where the site will already be networked. Setting up a website for final publication involves a few technical tasks to be performed by the developer, but it doesn’t take that long. Therefore, usually, a few days is enough for the final launch of the website.

Read also: What is a Website Maintenance Plan? Essential Components

What affects the duration of website development?

As it has been mentioned many times, the main factor determining the duration of website development will be the scale and complexity of the project. Building a simple landing page will require less time than an extensive company website or marketplace. All integrations on the website, innovative solutions, and architecture should be taken into account – all of this will affect the development time.

Another factor is the choice of contractor for your website. A team of developers will build a website faster than one freelancer. Of course, this choice also depends on how advanced your website is to be, so it’s not worth using only this factor when hiring developers. However, it will have an impact on the pace of work.

Experience in the selected technology and tools also has a big impact on the speed of development. Therefore, remember to choose a trusted and experienced agency, IT company, or a freelancer if you do not want to spend additional time on training them.

Read also: Why hiring only one developer is a bad idea?

The web development technology that is used and the quality of the code can extend the time it takes to build a website, primarily because writing high-quality code is time-consuming. There will be a compromise to do so, so consider whether you want to speed up your work drastically. Choose the most optimal solution that will have a positive effect on the result.

For more information about Web Development we invite you to read our related articles:

• Web Development Stacks – Which are the Best?
• What is Full-Stack Web Development?
• Website vs Web Application – What are the Differences?

What to do to speed up the development process?

Although the efficiency of the software development process is easy to degrade, there are always a couple of solutions that can be implemented to avoid project extension and possible failure. How to do it? Here are some tips:

• Automate what you can – even if it is not possible to automate the entire software development process, you still can take the burden off developers to some extent. Automated testing is one option, which helps to achieve a trade-off between speed and quality. With repetitive scripts, anyone can run regression tests without having to repeat the same steps manually. This gives you more time to work on new features as the old ones are checked automatically. Besides, it is worth improving communication and introducing tools to the workflow that will speed up the processes. Implementing a tool like Zapier that automates repetitive tasks, integrates and helps you manage them can help here.
• Expand your team – The obvious solution to the problem of not keeping up with the amount of work to be done is to add more resources. If you want to create more code, you should hire more developers. It is also a great solution for internal teams that can take advantage of body leasing services and hire any specialist or even the entire team for the required period without additional recruitment within the company.
• Work agile – breaking large work into smaller, manageable pieces and working in short periods of time (sprints) is very effective in software development. That is why many development teams work in agile methodologies. This style of work is worth implementing in your team.
• Set a roadmap and exact requirements – taking the time to plan each task, milestone and goal help you achieve much better results. If the development team has clearly defined project requirements and goals, knows exactly what to do and when to do it, you save a lot of time in the further stages of development.
• Avoid technical debt – the decision to choose a not-so-good solution that will speed up the development process is not always a plus. It has to be strategically designed and planned to make up for the shortcomings later. Otherwise, technical debt leads to system complexities that you can not deal with later, and you will end up wasting time instead of saving it. So try to make the code from the beginning of development to be written qualitatively and correctly.

You may be also interested in:

• In-House Development – Advantages and Disadvantages
• 7 Tips on How to Choose an Outsourcing Partner for Software Development
• Roles and Responsibilities in a Development Team

Summary

As you may have concluded, the process of building a website does not have one specific duration and depends on many factors that we have listed. We believe that you should always pay attention to quality first, but with an experienced team of specialists, the development of your website will not be prolonged. Check out our Web Development Services if you want a trustworthy team to create your website.