An effective build process is what sets real website development apart from drag-and-drop website builders. The most effective website build process involves, at a very basic level, something like the process shown in the graphic below.

Imagine you want to make a non-trivial design change, but you don’t want your customers to know about the change until it’s complete and tested. It would be great to have another “sandbox” version of the site that you can play around with until you get it just right. Then, you can feel confident about making that new version of the site “go live”.

With a drag-and-drop solution, and even most WordPress hosting services, you don’t have that capability. The changes you make are public, for the most part, if you don’t trust the “preview” function most of those services provide.

The most effective website build process involves, at a very basic level, a build, launch, run cycle like you see in the diagram below.

More specifically, it is built on a development system, sent to a test system for quality assurance testing, and then published live for the world to see!