Web development has become one of the most demanding skills in the last 4 or 5 years. A lot of new people are joining the field to take advantage. For freshers, it is becoming hard to grab their share and that is the reason we are here to help them.
Online shopping trends skyrocketed, especially during the COVID-19 lockdown period. It forced businesses to recognize the need to establish a strong online presence to reach a larger audience and generate more income. It was possible by developing a website or creating social media pages to promote their products and services.
The huge demand for websites and social media marketing resulted in the demand for skilled social media marketers and web developers. Higher demand urged more people to join the web development and social media marketing field to earn better bread and butter. Competition surged in the field as a result, and it became hard for freshers to stand any chance and survive.
We have written this blog post, especially for web developers so they may stand out and boost their skills and earnings.
If you want to become a professional web developer and learn more about tricks and techniques for creating a compelling website, the tips mentioned below are for you. In this article, we will look at seven important web development best practices that will help you enhance your skills and enable you to build unique and captivating websites.
1. Choose Your Frameworks and Tools Wisely
Selecting the frameworks and tools is a crucial step for any web developer, especially for freshers, when working on web development projects. Select wisely and carefully the tool and framework that are appropriate for your project’s requirements.
Frameworks
Frameworks such as React, Bootstrap, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, ASP.NET, and Spring each have their own set of features and benefits. The selection of the framework will depend upon the project environment and the requirements. For example:
ASP.NET works on Windows Based Servers,Laravel is quite popular among PHP web developers working in Linux environments,React.JS and React Native are best for creating cross-platform web apps, and similarly,Bootstrap is an open-source framework to create UI that supports all devices and screen sizes.
Content Management Systems
CMS (Content Management System) or Tools like WordPress, Joomla, and Magento offer premade modules and templates. Such tools can be handy when the deadline is short. So, select the framework or tool that best fits your expertise and project requirements.
WordPress is a very popular CMS for creating websites. You don’t need to be a hardcore experienced web developer to create impressive websites using WordPress. And that’s what makes it a popular choice. According to recent stats of 2023, almost 810 million live websites are developed on WordPress CMS.
Coding Platforms and Tools
In addition to frameworks and CMS, you must select coding platforms and tools that allow for seamless development. Though you can write code in Notepad (a basic text editor) offered by all the operating systems but popular alternatives like VS Code, Notepad++, Sublime Text, UltraEdit, and Atom offer sophisticated features that help developers streamline the coding process.
Such coding platforms are designed to make coding and debugging easier. As you type some characters, it auto-suggests the command with proper syntax. If you make any error, it highlights it before the execution of the code. And that saves time for the developer.
2. Write Clean and Readable Code
I may not find appropriate words to explain and state the value of writing clean, readable code. Well-organized, well-documented code helps in developer cooperation, code maintenance, and debugging. Clear, intelligible code is also more efficient and less prone to errors, making it easier for other developers to comprehend and change.
I have discussed above the coding platforms. Such platforms help in writing clean and clear codes. It detects the syntax and auto-suggests commands and formatting. For example, if you are writing HTML in Sublime Text, as you open a DIV, it will automatically add a closing tag. And if you add another DIV within the DIV, it will add an indent to the sub-div.
Moreover, such coding platforms use color palettes to differentiate between different parts of the code. For example, variables will be given a different color, while commands will have a different tint, and similarly, strings may have a different color. It makes it easier for the coder to read and understand code.
Adopting coding standards and best practices, such as uniform indentation, descriptive variable and function names, and logical code architecture, all help to clean, understandable code. Commenting out complicated portions and giving inline documentation increases code readability even more.
3. Optimize for Speed and Performance
Website speed and performance are critical in attracting and retaining visitors in today’s fast-paced digital environment. A slow-loading website not only bothers visitors but also harms your search engine rankings and conversion rates. As a result, optimizing your website’s speed and performance is critical.
Large picture and video files,inadequate optimization, slow hosting providers, excessive HTTP requests, and a high number of advertisements
can have an impact on website speed. You need to be very smart while selecting the media type and size if you are adding images, videos, or other interactive content to your website. For example, PNG images are no doubt the best in clarity and quality. But you should consider using other formats if transparency is not required.
Use images that are most suitable for websites and take less time to load. SVG and WebP are some of the best choices because these types of images solve the transparency issue and reduce the size of images as well.
If your website is rich in media, you can consider using CDN (Content Distribution Network). CDN reduces the number of requests to the server and helps with faster loading of images.
Similarly, adding a Caching feature can be handy in boosting the speed of website loading. The cache saves the latest version of the website in the local storage of the visitor and as the user revisits the website, it loads directly from the local storage in just milliseconds. Caching not only enhances speed but also reduces the load on the server by reducing the number of requests.
Don’t forget about examining the coding of your website. Delete any unneeded components that may be affecting performance. Choose a trustworthy hosting provider who can ensure that your website loads quickly and consistently.
4. Quickly Solve Coding Problems
Web development frequently provides programming issues that necessitate strong problem-solving abilities. Instead of spending hours entering code from tutorials and videos, you can use clever strategies to accelerate your problem-solving process.
Sometimes the error code is complex and lengthy, and it may take a good time while typing that code in Google Search. And still, there would be chances that you may make any typo. In such cases, take a screenshot of the error or code segment and crop it in a way that only the error or faulty code is visible. Use an online image-to-text converter to convert the code into text or editable form. Now you can search for the solution to that error.
It was just one technique, there can be plenty of solutions to every problem you face during your course of web development. You need to be clever and smart to save time and effort to be a smart web developer.
5. Use Responsive Design
Responsive design is essential for current websites in today’s mobile-centric society. Different kinds and sizes of devices are there that users use to browse websites. Some use desktop PC, others use laptops or smartphones to connect to the internet. Your website should seamlessly adjust to different screen sizes and resolutions to deliver the optimal user experience.
A responsive design automatically adjusts the visual sections, content, and functionality of the website according to screen size and resolution. Such a design offers the optimal viewing experience across all devices. Users may access content on a responsive website without having to scroll or zoom in, enhancing engagement and user happiness. Furthermore, responsive design improves search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their ranks.
6. Keep Your Website Secure
Website security and privacy is one of the major concerns these days. Users are now well aware of the value of information and their data. Now they don’t trust easily and check duly what kind of information is being collected by the website and what permissions it asks.
In such scenarios, website security is something that you must forget if you want to become a successful web developer. When I started my career in Web Development, back in 2007, I copied a CMS source code without checking the security the code offers. Unfortunately, it was a governmental website and it got hacked because there were loopholes in the copied code. I had to face severe consequences that I can’t even state here.
So, if you don’t want to ruin your reputation, you have to be extra smart while considering website security. Check every request and permission for files and folders. Add extra security layers to minimize the threats. Don’t use nulled codes, modules, or themes while developing a website because such codes and themes are often infected.
Whatsoever, protect the website you develop from potential vulnerabilities, viruses, and unauthorized access. It will help you to earn clients’ and user trust when they observe that you are going the extra mile for protecting important information.
Follow these best practices to make your website more secure.For all user accounts associated with your website, use strong, unique passwords.Employ firewalls and extra security layers to stop conventional threats and attacks.Captcha or other similar measures like two-factor authentication help in stopping brute-force attacks.Keep your scripts, themes, plugins, and libraries updated to keep them secure.Try to employ the latest versions of HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to keep data transmission encrypted and safe.Take regular backups of your website and save it in multiple secure places so that the website may recover instantly in case of attack or system failure.DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are the deadliest attacks and are hard to stop. But there are WAF (Web Application Firewall) Solutions and plugins which can somewhat stop these attacks.Proxying IP addresses and cloaking URLs can be a good idea to keep attackers and hackers confused.
Keeping in view the word limitations, we can’t state all the possible security measures here. But these are some of the basic measures that you can adopt to make your websites secure. Website security is a complete field like SEO. You don’t need to master but you must know the basics to stand out and earn a better reputation as a web developer.
7. Monitor Your Website’s Performance
The website is completely developed and made live, but web development does not end here. If you want to stand out from the competition, then you will have to go a step further. Check your live website and perform detailed QA yourself first. Check its performance metrics.
Various online tools can deeply check websites and give you a detailed report. You can analyze this report and see which are the development-related issues. Address those issues and develop skills to avoid those issues in the future.
If the developed website is to perform certain tasks, then check if the website is doing that task perfectly, without any unnecessary delays. Check it by giving different values and inputs and find the limitations of the website.
Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster, Google Page Speed Insight, GTmetrix, and other analytics platforms can be helpful tools to analyze the performance of the website after development. You can get useful information about the developed website like user behavior, traffic sources, and other important performance metrics. Such information will enable you to fine-tune your web development skills.
Conclusion
There would be millions of web developers in the world but following these practices can put you a step ahead of the ordinary ones. People don’t need just developers; they need smart web developers who can perform more than what they are paid for. You can be on the list of smart developers if you select web development framework, CMS, and coding tool smartly. You need to write code that any other developer can understand easily.
You shouldn’t neglect the fact that Google and other search engines prefer websites that load faster. So, pay attention to speed optimization. And as website security is another major concern, don’t leave any loopholes and make it as secure as possible. Once the website is up and live, check its performance and optimize it further. This can be hefty at the start but once you build trust among the clients, all these efforts will pay back.
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