The terms ‘web development ‘ and ‘web design’ are at times used interchangeably very casually on the web and off it. Virtual world has people who used both these words with apparent disregard to the meaning of both of them.

Simply , to start with , one is ‘Development’ and the other ‘Design’. Web development is developing the website to its optimum, so that it functions optimally; Web Design is just the designing part of it , by using all the technology and tools available.

Web development is the comparative study of consumer behaviour, providing guidelines for the designing of website, by using latest analytical tools and techniques. He ensures that the site is technically savvy, user friendly with simple layout. He sees to it that the site is compatible with the browsers, applies search engine optimization techniques, ensuring maximum traffic conversions, and customer satisfaction.

Web design is all about arranging the contents of the website in an attractive way, the way it may look appealing to the buyer. A web designer should design it in the way that the designs do not hamper the speed of the website.

Web development uses content management systems (CMS) and programming languages like Action script 3.0 and PHP 5.2. content management systems help the wen developer along with web designer manage content easily. Web development thus creates a customized website by keeping the ROI in the frame too. Web development not only keeps the behavior of users in mind, but it also keeps the algorithms of search engines in mind. The spiders and crawlers too have a pattern and the web developer would need to keep it all in the consideration along with the search engine optimization experts.

Web development thus requires over all specialization to monitor the site than web design. Web design is the process that ends once the site is up and running but web development is a constant and continuous process that goes along with the web designing and continues till you need to maintain a website. Web design thus is a subset of web development and vice versa certainly isn’t true.