It is possible to distinguish a different number of stages that make up the development process. Usually this number is between five and eight, but in each case the overall picture remains approximately the same. Let's focus on the average. So, there are seven main stages of web development: 1) Collecting information, 2) Planning, 3) Design, 4) Content creation, 5) Development, 6) Testing, review and launch 7) Support.

Stage 1. Collecting information: purpose, main goals and target audience
The stage of preliminary research and information collecting determines how all subsequent stages of development will proceed. The most important thing at this stage is to get a clear and complete understanding of what the purpose of your future site will be, what goals you want to achieve with its help, and also what is the target audience that you want to attract to it.

Stage 2. Planning: creating a sitemap and layout
At this stage of development, the customer can already get an idea of what the future site will be like. Based on the information collected in the previous stage, a sitemap is created. A sitemap describes the relationship between the various parts of your site. This helps to understand how convenient it will be to use. Also, at this stage it is worth deciding which technology stack (programming language, frameworks, CMS) will be used.

Stage 3. Design: page template, review and approval.
All the information that was collected at the very first stage of the project is extremely important at this step. The interests of the customer, as well as the target audience, should be taken into account first and foremost when working on the design. At this stage, the designer creates a page layout. The main purpose of the template is to visualize the structure of the page, its content, and also display the main functionality.

Stage 4. Content creation
The content creation process usually runs in parallel with other stages of development. In this step, you need to describe the very essence of what you want to convey to the audience of your website, as well as add a CTA (call to action).

Stage 5. Layout and development
All graphic elements developed earlier are used at this stage. Typically, the home page is created first, and then the rest of the pages are added to it according to the hierarchy developed during the sitemap creation step. Also at this stage, the CMS is installed.

Stage 6. Testing and launch
At this stage, every link must be tested, every form and every script must be tested. The text should be checked by a spell-checker for possible typos and errors. After you have checked and rechecked your site, it can be uploaded to the server. Usually an FTP client is used for this. After uploading the site to the server, it is necessary to conduct another test in order to be sure that during the download there were no unexpected errors and all files are safe and sound.

Conclusion: Understanding that there are no stages of website development that could be considered unimportant or unnecessary will help you avoid unnecessary hassle and give you confidence that work on the project is progressing as it was intended and you have full control over the development process.