Scope
In this stage, information is gathered and project objectives defined. Goals are clearly defined both for the project and for the website in general. A decision about which information and content is displayed on site, and the most optimal way of presenting this information are made through the form of a sitemap. During this stage, the client will receive advice from gekkota in regards to what can be done with a website, besides an online brochure. This stage will be completed with both parties sign off the goals and objectives.

Plan
This stage consists of a brainstorming session to arrive at ideas to best achieve the objectives as defined in the Scope stage. This stage will produce several elements that will later form the basis of the web site. A few examples of these elements are:

• Wire-frames. Architectural diagram representing a page.
• Prototype. Visual sample of a page, either on paper or on screen with no interactivity.
• Briefs. Documents the project, audience, goals, and objectives as well as describes how the design addresses these issues.
• Comps. Mock-up pages showing how the Web site will look, offering several options (from colour schemes to layout).
• Flow. Process diagram showing the how the Web pages connect to each other.
• Sketches. Informal hand-drawn drawings to brainstorm the layout of a Web page.

Client tasks are allocated for procuring and providing assets like company logo graphic, internal photographs, voids are identified and alternative plans are made.

Build
This stage involves producing mock-ups of the homepage for the client. Feedback is then provided by the client, to allow us to further refine the homepage and arrive at a final layout. A skeleton (blank but clickable site) of the inner pages with be developed based upon the main page design. Following consultation with the client, the site will be populated with relevant content. Any online forms, database programming, setup of e-mail id’s etc will be completed in this stage. The end result of this stage will be a nearly completed website.

Test
This stage will see comprehensive testing by gekkota to ensure that the website will appear correctly on all Operating system platforms like Linux, Windows and Mac. Testing will also be done to ensure compatibility with major browsers like IE, Firefox and Netscape. Finally testing will also be done on various screen pixel resolution and monitor sizes. gekkota will also undertake optimization in this stage to ensure that the site is usable by search engines by including Keywords, descriptions and META tags. Optimization will also be undertaken on images across the site to ensure quick download and presence on ALT tags (for image search engines like google).

Deploy
The site will be uploaded to the live server and final Quality assurance testing will be done. All links and form mail scripts will undergo stress (in case of databases load testing will also be done) and regression testing. The site will be submitted to the major Search engines.