Web development is a comprehensive term but it is used primarily in relation to the development of websites to be hosted on World Wide Web or Internet.

Development of a website may include web design, content development, e-commerce development and web server configuration.

Web development may range from setting up a simple static single page of plain textual content to very complex web-based Internet applications, electronic businesses or social network services.

Large business organizations with a complex network of business applications usually employ a large number of web designers to cope with the ever growing complexities of their business. Smaller business units may just do with a single webmaster. On the other hand, quite a large number of individuals are gradually acquiring the elementary skills for developing their own websites for their online businesses.

Web development as an industry

Web development was one of the fastest growing industries in the mid 1990s even though web-based businesses were at an incipient stage. There were around 1,000 web development companies in 1995 in the United States alone. This number grew to 30 times within a matter of one decade, that is to say, there were 30,000 web developing companies by 2005. It was indeed a phenomenal growth.

Web development industry is expected to register a growth of over 20% by the end of the present decade. This growth is being accelerated by the desire of the business organizations to introduce their products and services to the world wide clientele, reduce their expenditure on human work force and automate their business work flow.

While web development used to be a costly affair in the days gone by, with the proliferation of the knowledge of website development, the availability of free website development tools and the increase in competition, the cost of web development and web hosting has dropped dramatically.

Earlier the business men had to shell out thousands of dollars for developing and hosting their websites. Now the cost has come down substantially. You can have a fairly good website developed for just about one thousand bucks depending upon the complexity of the website and the amount and nature of its content.

Resourceful individuals with absolutely no background knowledge of website development can develop their own websites with free access to website development tools such as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).

An ordinary individual can also use WYSIWYG web development software, most notably Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression Studio which was formerly known as Microsoft Frontpage.

An ordinary lay man can build his own site within a matter of minutes even if he does not have knowledge of HTML or any other programming language.

Website building has become all the more simpler with the advent of blogs. A blog is a kind of ready made website. You do not have to use even the freely available website development tools such as LAMP. You do not have to spend anything on registering your domain name or hosting it. There are numerous blogging sites such as Google’s Blogger, Squidoo, Wordpress, My Space and so many other sites that offer free blogging servives.

The blog websites offer flexibility in blog site templates, designs, colors and the number of pages. You can post not only textual content but use mailing services, readers’ feedback, comments, pictures, graphics and videos also. You can customize the website formats to suit your fancies and requirements.

This, however, does not mean that specialized web development has lost its market value. A personal business website is still considered an essential vehicle for conducting and promoting your business. Your independent website carries a prestige and reliability that blogs cannot offer.

A blog website is like a free email account service like the one offered by Yahoo and Hotmail. Similarly there are several free website services like Freewebs, Yahoo Geocities, Bravent and so on. They sponsor your websites free of cost within their frame work and conditions. No serious businessman uses such free services. There is always a difference between the services of a charitable dispensary and a fully equipped hospital. Your own website secures your privacy in financial transactions ensures a level of independence which is not possible in bog sites.

The complex operations of large scale businesses cannot be executed through free website services. Service based applications like online banking, insurance or information exchange portals require special websites with multiple facilities that can be developed only by experts and no amount of free website services and tools can meet such necessities.

Website development involves multiple applications like checking errors in data entry or the sanitization of data to prevent it from being subjected to malicious intentions such as SQL injection. It is quite well known that scripts can be exploited by hackers to have illegal access to information such as email addresses, passwords, credit card numbers and other protected content.

Therefore website development as an industry promises a bright future.