The Ultimate Beginner Guide to Web App Development

Over 60% of the global population uses the Internet, and businesses have caught wind of the vast opportunities. Having a website isn’t enough anymore; businesses want dynamic, responsive, and interactive web apps to deliver their services.

The many advantages of a web app over traditional on-premises solutions make it a viable option for many organizations. Today, almost all industries use web applications. B2B/B2C organizations and direct consumers use web applications daily to boost professional and personal productivity.

A failure to keep up with changes in the industry or ignoring the latest technology trends can lead to serious risks for your business. Using the right resources and modern tools can also give you a competitive edge in the market. In this article, we spell out the most important steps to take if you’re not sure how to build a web app.

What is a Web Application?

Online stores, educational products, and booking systems are web applications. Web applications are more complex than regular information websites. The reason is that users take part in the business process, interacting with your company, rather than act as passive readers.

Web applications get developed for the following purpose:

• Providing users with online services, e.g. for marketplaces, B2B portals, various tools, and SaaS solutions. SaaS cloud applications are designed primarily for small and medium businesses and large enterprises. CRM, ERP, help desk, HR, business intelligence, and accounting applications are some of the main types of SaaS.
• Solving in-house problems. Large enterprises may need a web application to coordinate employees or build internal logistics. For example, using web applications, you can onboard new employees and establish workflows with contractors.

What Is a Web Application Developer?

Hiring an in-house team to develop an application is time-consuming and expensive. According to Indeed.com, hiring a single employee starts at $4,000. To save money, many people hire freelancers, but often it’s not the best solution. A full-fledged application requires a team of analysts, designers, and programmers. So, if you hire several freelancers, you’ll have to take on the job of a project manager.

The easiest way to develop a web application for a company is to turn to an experienced, self-managed, and well-coordinated team.

Roles in the team involved in the process of creating a web application:

• Analysts. They help better understand the market, determine the target audience, and find out what features are needed for a successful product launch.
• Designers. They help create a user experience and develop prototypes. Then they directly draw the design of the web application: logo, icons, and other UI elements.
• Frontend developers. They bring buttons and blocks to life by coding.
• Backend developers. They take charge of functionality: developing databases, connecting payment systems, and building the internal logic of your web application.
• Testers. They check the application for bugs and help roll out your product that works without error.

What are the steps in developing a web application?

Each specialist is responsible for a certain stage in the development of a web application. However, the stages and their sequence at different agencies may vary slightly.  We’ll talk about how it works at Broscorp, and how business owners will take part in the process.

How To Build A Web App: The Essentials Of Web App Development

Web application development has gained momentum recently. Not sure how to create a web application? We’ve outlined some useful tips to help you excel in the web application development process.

1. Setting Goals and Business Analytics

You can contact a web application development agency when you’ve got a ready idea and a rough understanding of how it’ll be working. The Business Model Canvas is a great tool to help you understand the business model in a simple and structured way. Using this tool, you’ll get an idea of the customers you serve, what value propositions get offered through channels, and how your company will make money.

When creating a web app, you must first identify the problem that needs to be solved. Ask these questions:

• What problem does your web app solve?
• What purpose will this app serve? 
• Who is the target audience? 

After this stage, you’ll understand the target audience of your web application, what main tasks it’ll solve, and how to make money from it. Once you understand your intentions for developing web applications, it’s time to move forward with researching the market.

2. Market and Competitive Research

The number one reason why start-ups fail is their inability to achieve a product-market fit. The more knowledge we’ve got about any market segment, the better equipped we are to launch a product or service within it.  But you can delegate market research to specialists. Professionals will help you understand what niche your product can occupy in the market, what target audience is more profitable, what functionality these people need, and what monetization model to opt for. 

As a result, you’ll surely receive a lot of data that will impact functionality, design, pricing, promotion, and much more. With this in hand, we move on to the next step.

3. Creating a POC/MVP and Validating Your Idea

So, you’ve got an idea for a web application, but you’re not sure whether it’s technically feasible.

The next step in website application development is to create a minimum viable prototype that shows the feasibility of the proposed technology.

Learn more about “Why Should You Build An MVP For Your Startup?“

4. Creating a Web Application Layout

Nowadays, users are accustomed to thoughtful and high-quality interfaces. Since there’s severe brand competition, if something in the web application seems inconvenient or incomprehensible to users, they’ll simply follow another link in the search engine. For that reason, it’s vital to build a customer journey map (CJM). It’s essential to understand what sequence of actions they’ll perform, and how website elements will respond to these actions.

When developing a web application, it’s helpful to have an idea of how it’ll look and function. This way, you avoid the situation when you launch an application only to find out that it doesn’t look or work the way you’ve expected it to. Creating an interactive mock-up of a web application is a great way to get the first impression or the impression it’ll make.

5. Building an App (Frontend and Backend Simultaneously)

How to create website application? The development of a web application includes two main steps:

• Frontend development
• Backend development

Let’s talk about frontend development first.

The frontend developer is responsible for adaptive and responsive design, namely for the web app to look correctly on different devices and browsers. At this stage, the process of loading elements, their clickability, animation, and other micro-interactions get determined.

The next stage is to develop the internal part.

‘How will the application work with databases? How will payment, booking, and other processes work?’ The back-end developer is responsible for the website operating correctly, the connection between the application components, the storage and structure of data, the logic of algorithms and calculations, and integration with external services, e.g. payment systems.

6. Testing an App

It’s an important step for the final application to work correctly. The main task of a tester is to check a web application before the launch to make sure the team rolls out a high-quality product. Testers study the product documentation and create test cases—a list of features that need to be tested—and their sequence. After that, they manually simulate user actions in different scenarios or write scripts for automated testing.

After that, developers receive a report with a list of errors and recommendations for fixing. Testing web applications necessarily comes not only at the stage of the final release but also during the development process. A well-planned testing strategy can reduce the risk of launching an unstable product and save time fixing bugs after the launch.

7. Hosting and Deploying an App

Hosting is the launch of a web application on a specific server.

At this stage, you want to buy a domain name, get an SSL certificate, and choose a cloud provider, e.g. Amazon Web Service, MS Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. The last step in website application development is deployment. At this point, your web application moves from the local storage on your computer to cloud hosting. At this stage, users can access your web application.

8. Support & Maintenance

It’s the post-development stage. After launching the web application, you want to continue monitoring it. After the release, developers ensure the stable operation of the web application and fix bugs. Also, you can specifically collect feedback from users and improve the quality of your product, e.g. by adding new features or changing the design of ready-made sections in your web application.

How Much Does It Cost To Create A Web App?

There are many ways to develop web applications. The price, terms, and functionality will depend on the type of your application. Developing a web app isn’t cheap. It requires time, money, and an excellent team to get the job done. Creating an app can set you back anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 depending on who you hire and the features that you want in your app

Types of web applications developed by Broscorp

The key advantage businesses get from developing web applications is a win-win strategy for owners of online resources and their customers. Users receive a convenient, fast, and affordable digital service, while website owners enjoy a business automation tool.

Marketplace app development

B2B solution helps fill the gaps between vendors, manufacturers, business retailers, and wholesalers. We concentrate on non-standard ones, such as NFT or B2B marketplaces, which require unique features and custom integrations. By creating visually attractive and feature-rich marketplaces, Broscorp can deliver unique, innovative products.

SaaS platform development

Having software that solves a real-life problem is a win. A SaaS solution is a way to scale up the operation, reach the clients, and simplify the use. Broscorp has experience in creating scalable, maintainable SaaS platforms and integrations for other SaaS solutions, applications for stores, plugins, etc.

Digital transformation

There are numerous reasons why businesses require building internal B2B portals: automating routine business processes, consolidating data from different sources, and integrating with existing CRMs and ERPs. B2B portals are like a Swiss knife. They’re multifunctional and easy to use.

Our Experience In Web Apps Development Services

Broscorp offers full-scale web app development services: from analysis and design to development and maintenance. We’re a seasoned custom web application development company.

Our successful web application projects:

• A next-gen NFT platform that provides completely new use cases for digital artists and offers a unique way of licensing NFTs.
• A coupon website with an advanced admin portal, scalable backend, and comprehensive data pipeline for fetching new coupons on schedule integrated with multiple coupon providers and an intellectual coupon parser.
• A marketplace that consists of a web application, admin portal, and backend for matching suppliers and buyers of eco-friendly chemical ingredients and innovative ways of building supply chains.
• An NFT platform that consists of a web application, serverless backend, and generative adversarial networks to renovate and bring new life into old NFTs.

Final Thoughts

In this article, we’ve considered how to create website app. We hope this information has helped you understand the business value of each stage and learn the most important definitions. As you can see, the web application development process is a complex, well-planned activity that spans the entire product life cycle. 

The all-important first step in web application development is to choose an experienced technical partner who meets your requirements and has the resources to turn your idea into a profitable product. We’re 100% passionate about what we do and 100% engaged in developing and launching high-quality digital products.

Here are the benefits of developing custom web applications with Broscorp:

• EFFECTIVE. By automating routine business processes, we boost the efficiency of your business.
• PROFITABILITY. Deep business analysis and market research help us make your product profitable.
• PERFORMANCE. We use the most up-to-date technologies and modern approaches to make your web app blazingly fast.
• SCALABILITY. Web application will handle more users when your start-up skyrockets.

Ready to embark on a new partnership with a trustworthy web app development company? We’d love to hear from you today!