There is a big confusion amongst people who are new to the web about the difference between the terms web design and web development . I believe this is due the fact that once upon a time, in the early 1990s, these terms were used interchangeably and so meant pretty much the same thing.

With time and the evolution of technologies a big difference has emerged. There are people who do web design and those that do web development. Designers do graphics, play with images and colors. Developers, as the words suggest, is much more related to programming.

Because of the evolution of the internet and software, the development of websites has become far more technical.In the far away past, one would only need to know how to code HTML and the job of a web site was simple.

It is true to say, that once upon a time design was the “be and end all” of web building. Today, while web design is important, it is only a small part of the Iceberg. A skin for a website is easy to do, the correct architecture and usability is far more important, as is the integration of correct processes. Do the architecture wrong and if you want to change this in a few years time, you basically lose all your rankings.

Granted, businesses have not yet grasped these terms, nor what these so called web developers really do, but it is important to start understanding. As more businesses come online and actually make a nice portion of their living online, it is not a small issue to lose your ranking and your customers in one day because of a re-structuring of your website.

In essence the web designer now can ad the design, such as pictures to a website, however, web development has become far more programmatic with architectural considerations and usability than it was some 10 and 20 years ago.

Hence, businesses that just want a website often mistake the design of a website with the development thereof. With the evolution of time and technologies many more professions have emerged in the internet space.

If once upon a time there was a designer that was supposed to create the website, now there are also developers that deal with code and implementation while there are professional SEOs, people who deal with search engine optimization, SEMs, search engine marketing people and there are link builders and just so much more.

It has become difficult to understand the web professions, but that is only a sign that the internet has progressed tremendously since its’ beginning in the public and commerce arena.

For companies that don’t know anymore what to think of all of this, I think the easiest way to get around this, is to understand that graphics are one thing and the development, coding and implementation is another, while adding to that optimization and marketing is another different thing.

True to say that one person that is an expert on the web can easily do all those things, but in many cases not one person does all these tasks.

As the web progresses even further, things become even more complicated. I believe more professional courses by recognized institutions will be available for these professions in the future.

Right now, most of the professionals in this industry simply come from a technical background while some from a design or marketing background. People from marketing background usually decide mostly to deal with social media and off site SEO.

Keeping everything in mind, one should familiarize themselves with these terms, it is helpful, not for the service provider, but mainly to identify what to expect from one professional to another.

Going to a web developer that doesn’t do design might be disappointing when the developer says “where are the pictures, I don’t do this type of work”. Conversely a business can go to a web designer that is not a developer or an SEO expert, get the most beautiful web site built and when the business turns to an SEO to do optimization the SEO says “You have to start from the beginning because the site is built totally wrong for SEO”.

For this reason and to get a website done correctly, one should understand what is going on in the industry and what professionals have what skills and how these go together in building a successful website for the business; a website that actually brings income and makes a change to the bottom line.

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