Get started by: Plan your website

Whether you are an ambitious entrepreneur, an Internet blogger, or a small business owner, it is undoubtedly essential to have a brand or personal website. However, it might be confusing and difficult to walk through the web design world without any guidance. Considering that, we will offer you a detailed step-by-step website planning illustration. After reading all these steps, you may have a well-organized plan before you hire a professional or create a website yourself.

Use this article as a project plan, which specifically walks you through how to prepare well for your new websites.

How to Plan a Website in 8 Steps

• Step 1: Determine Your Goal
• Step 2: Figure Out the Market Trend and Analyze Your Competitors
• Step 3: Set up a Domain Name and Pick a Hosting Provider
• Step 4: Define the Website's Structure
• Step 5: Pick Elements for Your Website
• Step 6: Create Intriguing Website Content
• Step 7: Test and Maintain the Website
• Step 8: Corresponding adjustment

Step 1: Determine Your Goal

A good start is half the battle. We propose that you set your goals at the start of your website planning endeavor. If you're working as a team, make sure everyone understands the goal and is working toward it.

This step is critical. It not only provides the developers in charge of the site structure with a clear grasp of the challenges to be handled, but it also gives them an advantage in developing the site's answer.

Whether you want to enhance brand visibility, traffic, or user pleasure, having a clear objective for your website makes the rest of the job, including content and design, much easier.

Furthermore, it is necessary to identify the target audience. Your purpose could be:

• Improve business-to-business services
• Sell products directly to the public
• Develop expertise with other professionals
• Show your brand and personal image

The key here is to think and ask. In addition to your direct customers, who are the users who are likely to view or use your website? It is important to fully consider the behavioral trends of visitors in different scenarios and how to meet their different needs.

Step 2: Figure Out the Market Trend and Analyze Your Competitors

There is no doubt that the competition of network marketing is becoming more and more fierce. Therefore, it is necessary to research and analyze the products that have appeared on the market. At the same time, you should also conduct a comprehensive comparison and evaluation of the products involved in your website development process and these existing products.

In this step of website planning, we make the following two suggestions to you:

• Browse the websites of competitors and other similar products to learn what strategies to adopt and what shortcomings to avoid in your website structure.
• In order to successfully create a website that is relevant and valuable to your target customer base, be sure to analyze ahead of time what trends are leading the market today.
• For some other website creative problems, we suggest that you consider the following aspects:
• What overall tone and personality traits do you want to convey on your website? (Stylish, calm, professional, etc.)
• Who are your primary and secondary target audiences? (Customers, professionals, novices, etc.)
• What is your overall budget for website development?
• Who is responsible for the design of your website? (yourself, designer, developer, content strategist, etc.)

Step 3: Set Up a Domain Name and Pick a Hosting Provider

The basic elements of planning a website include three points: a well-chosen domain name, a well-designed website architecture, and a reliable web hosting service. These factors will directly affect the user's browsing experience and the performance of the search engine, thus affecting the exposure and value of the website.

First, you need to understand what a domain name is. In this way, you can choose a domain name that is suitable for your business and can be used.

These simple tips can help you have a clear direction in the selection process:

• Choose a domain name that is short, memorable, and directly related to your brand or personal image, and try not to choose a name that is too complicated or confusing. For example, "marywitharchitecture.com" is a very clear domain name to convey the content of the website.
• When choosing a website hosting service tool, it is best to prioritize the security of the website and the length of time it can be up and running. A reliable host helps ensure that both your visitors and search engines keep coming back to your site.

Step 4: Define the Website's Structure

Before you can fully start website planning, first determine what kind of website you need. Depending on your needs, there are many types of websites to choose from.

Here are some of the most common types of websites for your reference:

• E-commerce sites and online stores
• Business website
• Blogging sites
• Online portfolio
• Activity website
• Landing page

Next, outline a sitemap or hierarchical frame of key web pages to optimize the user experience, which is sometimes called a site wireframe. This helps you intuitively connect all the elements when creating a page. Consider how many pages and what content will be needed to achieve your goals. The next step is to consider the page layout.

Some common elements are:

• Home Page: Introduce visitors to your brand with a clear call to action.
• About the page: Include your background and qualifications to build trust and credibility.
• Product/Service page: Describe the products you sell or offer with photos, costs and contact information.
• Contact page: Easy for visitors to contact and ask questions.
• FAQ page: Addresses common questions about your business, products, or services.

Then, identify the features and capabilities that must be in place to support the user experience and business needs:

• Navigation Menu: Facilitates navigation between different pages or sections of the site.
• Search bar: Helps users find what they need quickly and seamlessly.
• Call to Action (CTAs): Strategically place CTAs to prompt visitors to take specific actions, such as purchasing products or subscribing to content. Check out our CTA guide for more tips.
• Privacy policies: Privacy policies may vary depending on where the business or company is located (therefore, please check all local and national regulations before proceeding), but should generally include information about the data collected from users and the purposes for which the data is used.

Step 5: Pick Elements for Your Website

A cohesive visual design will impress visitors. Research current styles and layouts on existing websites that have successfully engaged audiences and draw inspiration from them. To help unify aesthetics, create a brand style guide that outlines the important design assets to use:

• Logo: Design a recognizable logo that encapsulates the essence of your brand. This visual identity creates consistency on your website and across platforms both online and offline, including your ICONS, social media channels and print assets. You can use the logo-making tool to make lasting and unique logos.
• Color: The color of the website is sensual and eye-catching, and can instantly set the tone of the website in a few seconds. Choose a tone that is unique and consistent with your brand image. You can explore different complementary colors to convey your brand image. When planning your website, consider all the places where color can have an impact, including buttons, menus, backgrounds, and elements.

• Font: Design a font combination of smooth headings and concise body text to improve readability and accessibility. Font design directly affects tone.
• Photos: Brand photos visually connect users to the brand's people-centered story and values. Be sure to use high-quality images and consider inclusivity when selecting images. When planning a website with Wix, you can access the Media Manager, which contains hundreds of free Wix picture and video files that you can add directly to your website. You can also use the Image Adjuster tool to make sure your photos match the page.

Step 6: Create Intriguing Website Content

A well-curated website not only looks beautiful but also provides value to the audience through engaging content. Here you can truly showcase your creativity and expertise with a strong content marketing strategy. When you establish your website planning, keep in mind that the content should be dynamic and evolve with your brand. For example, if the product you offer changes, be sure to update the product description and images.

Don't forget to include relevant keywords in your content strategy to improve your site's search engine optimization and visibility. Here are some hints:

• Conduct keyword research to determine the terms and phrases your audience is searching for. Integrate these words organically into the content.
• Use keywords to optimize page titles and meta descriptions to 60 characters or less.
• Use keyword-focused headings and subheadings (H1, H2 tags) to improve page SEO.
• Create search engine-friendly URLs by separating keywords with dashes instead of Spaces or underscores.
• Add image alt text and video scripts containing keywords for visual assets.

Taking search engine optimization into account from the start ensures that your website is optimized for search engines, resulting in increased visibility and ranking.

When creating website content as part of a broader content marketing effort, you may want to consider how you can incorporate AI content creation into your workflow.

Step 7: Test and Maintain the Website

After website planning is complete, testing helps to find and fix any issues before launching. The tests that need to be performed include:

• Conduct comprehensive user experience testing to optimize navigation, task flow, and content clarity based on feedback.
• Conduct technical tests, including website speed, mobile optimization, browser compatibility, etc., to catch errors.
• Implement ongoing maintenance such as link and image checks, content updates, backups, theme and plugin updates, and security reviews to maintain performance and provide ongoing value.
• Consider how to incorporate your website into your marketing strategy and how to market your website.

Meanwhile, remember to be proactive in using different tests (such as A/B tests) to compare different versions of a web page and doing regular website maintenance to ensure all features are up to date is crucial to the efficiency of your website. This not only provides a seamless browsing experience but also helps identify potential problems early.

Step 8: Corresponding Adjustment

At the end of the day, you may not be able to develop the perfect website strategy the first time. The good news is that you can make small changes to your website based on your analytics and your experience running it. Maybe you want to focus your website more on the blog, or maybe you want to create more e-commerce sites. You may even need to adjust your keywords for more relevant rankings. In any case, there's no shame in going back and changing your website strategy or website planning.

Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Your Website

A completely new website planning can be exciting, but if you're not careful to avoid some common mistakes, you can hit bumps in the planning process.

Here are some common mistakes to avoid:

• Neglect of user role research: Not understanding the needs and expectations of the target group can lead to a site that fails to resonate with users, resulting in lower engagement and conversion rates.
• Not organizing content well: Too much or cluttered content can overwhelm visitors and affect their interaction with the site.
• Navigation is too complex: Complex and confusing navigation makes it difficult for visitors to find the information they need, which increases bounce rates.
• Lack of clear and visible CTAs: Without clear and visible CTAs, visitors may be reluctant to take action, which will hinder conversion rates.
• Failure to implement SEO best practices: Failure to implement SEO strategies can affect your ranking on search engines, which in turn affects your visibility and traffic.

Conclusion

Website development is a long and tedious process that requires hard work and a lot of creativity. The steps shared above will allow you to finish the website planning process easily and launch it smoothly. However, after the website is launched, you still need to do a lot of work to attract visitors.

While to constantly promote and market your website, you still need to brainstorm and come up with a range of new ideas such as SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, targeted advertising, etc., to be able to work out the appropriate marketing strategy to make your website a success.

Related reading：Web Design Trends