How to design your website in 2024?
Any business operating today needs a user-friendly and informative website. Designing a website may seem like a daunting task, but luckily there are numerous tools available that can make creating your site easy, even if you are a beginner with no coding or design experience.
So, if you are someone looking for a guide on how to design your website in 2024, then, we have put you in the right place. In this blog, we have shared a complete guide on how to design a website. This guide covers all of the resources you will need, the basic mind map, and some important points that you should consider while designing your website.
Things you need to design a website
Before you begin building your website, there are a few things that you need to get ready. You will need the tool to help you build your website. A home for your website called hosting, and a catchy name for your website that people can type to find you called a Domain name and make sure to have a certificate to keep things safe and secure, and don’t forget to consider an effective way for payment handlings if you are selling stuff or services. And something to make sure of people can find your website when they are searching.
Here's the basic stuff you need to make your website happen:
A place to Store Your Stuff (Web Hosting): To keep all the pictures and words that will be showing on your website, your website needs a place to store all that stuff called web hosting.
A Name for Your Place (Domain Name): A domain name is the unique identifier through which people can find your website. It’s important to choose a name that is short, simple, and catchy. For example, the domain name “freepik” is easy to remember.
A Security Thing (SSL Certificate): To ensure your website security and build user trust, make sure you add a security certificate. It’s like having a virtual guard for your website.
A Way for People to Find You (SEO Tool): begin using an SEO tool early on to increase your site’s visibility to search engines and attract more visitors.
10 effective steps to start designing your website:
1. Define the purpose of your website:
To begin creating your website, you need to first define its purpose. Consider how your website will contribute to your target audience and what existing problem in the market your website is designed to solve. Additionally
2. Choosing your platform:
Once you clearly understand the purpose of your website, your next task is to choose the platform you will be using for your website design according to the requirements and criteria.
3. Gathering your brand elements:
- Your brand elements are details that bring your website to life. It includes font, images, text, colours, etc. that defines your brand.
- Keep in mind your brand identity while you are gathering brand elements.
- Start by selecting a color scheme for your website. Identify primary and secondary colors, then use font style, images, graphics, etc.
- Ensure you add high-quality graphics and images aligning with your website’s purpose and values.
4. Select a template or theme:
The theme or template determines your website’s appearance. Your Layout, graphics, and buttons.
5. Map out your website:
- To make the process of designing easier, create a mind map of how your website pages will appear to the users.
- Visualise the number of pages on your website, their general layout, content, and the purpose of that particular page
6. Design each site element:
- Designing each site element is an important step in this process, through elements users operate on your website.
- Make sure every element of the website gives an appealing look and is easy to use for a better user experience.
6. Design each site element:
- Designing each site element is an important step in this process, through elements users operate on your website.
- Make sure every element of the website gives an appealing look and is easy to use for a better user experience.
a) Site elements are:
- Menu: visualise the menu as a home for your contents, it represents what are you providing, services or products, etc. Make sure it is easy to pick by the users once they enter your website.It should be visible on every page and keep it simple—don’t overload visitors with too many options.
- Header and Footer: The headers of your website serve as the first impression, containing your logo and a navigation menu. Ensure ease of navigation for your visitors.
On the other hand, the footer is like the conclusion, offering more details such as contact information and terms of service. Both the header and footer enhance user engagement, making your site more inviting.
- Search Bar: A search bar is an essential feature of any website. You should place it on a visible spot of every page, like the top left or top right corner. By providing this helpful tool, you can improve the overall user experience of your website and make it more user friendly.
7. Customise your web page:
Your website content should reflect your purpose. However, every website should have the following pages.
a) Home page: your website home page is the first page visitors will see. Make it appealing by including your logo, business name and clear overview of what you offer. Add an easy-to-use navigation menu and do keep the page visually appealing and organized.
b) Product or service page: This page should guide visitors about what you are offering and how they can make a purchase.
For an e-commerce site, create a page for catalogue display and another to show each item in detail.
c) About page: This page introduces you to your visitors, telling them who you are, Your brand values, brand identity, and your brand story, and what could you offer differently to them as compared to others.
8. Blog page:
If you want to market your services through blogs, you must add a blog page including blogs relevant to your services.
9. Contact page:
Guide your website visitors on how they can approach you through various means including calls, emails, social media platforms, or by visiting your physical address.
10. Test and launch your site:
- Make sure to do beta testing of your website before it goes live.
- Do check website loading time, content readability, linking and mobile responsiveness, or any other element that can affect user experience.
- Keep your website updated with current business operations and user feedback.
Here is what you need to do after designing your website
1. Optimise your Website Content
After designing and launching your website, you should plan to optimize your site for a smooth user experience. Here’s what you can do.
- Mobile responsiveness: A mobile responsiveness website is a better way to boost your visitors and make it easy for your visitors to search for your website whenever they want from any device they have access to at that time.
2. Blacklining:
Internal links allow users and search engine tools to see you as an authority in your industry. They also keep people on your site, so use hyperlinks to direct users to other relevant web pages.
3. Media images/videos optimisation:
To prevent low ranking, higher bounce rates, lower click-through, and longer load times, work on your media files. Make sure they are not too large and that you don’t have too many photos or videos on each page. Also, feature only relevant images and videos.
3. Media images/videos optimisation:
To prevent low ranking, higher bounce rates, lower click-through, and longer load times, work on your media files. Make sure they are not too large and that you don’t have too many photos or videos on each page. Also, feature only relevant images and videos.
4. SEO:
SEO involves tweaking content, such as images and texts, to increase the number of people on your website. Examples of such optimization actions are adding alt texts to images and using readable URLs.
we at Blaze Creative offer SEO services at affordable cost.
Best tools for designing your website
- When you’re crafting your website, it’s better to have some tools to help you get the look and feel just right.
- Here are a few tools that can make designing your website a whole lot easier:
Website Builders:
Website builders are like a foundation for your site, platforms like WordPress, Shopify or Hubspot allow you to design your website with the required features.
If you don’t have time or the required skills our professional website designer will design a stunning website for your business at an affordable cost.
Design Tools:
If you want to play around with how things look, a design tool like Canva is great for graphic design and tweaking photos. But if you don’t have time or skills our professional graphic designers can produce your desirable graphics for your website.
Logo designers:
If your business logo is still under process, our logo and brand designer will create a great logo for you that resonates with your brand identity and its values.
