How to Design a Website?: A Step-by-Step Guide from Idea to Launch

Website is the basic essential of a business to create an online presence. Whether you have
a small to medium-sized or large e-commerce business, having a website that appeals to
your customers is important for all!

If you are on the first step of getting your website design ready and need thorough guidance,
then this article is for you.

A website's functionality and popularity can be impacted by its web design. Visitors explore
your content and return to your site if it looks good and functions well. Unfortunately, many
website owners believe that it is important to hire qualified web designers to build a high-
quality website. Although it's an excellent alternative to consider, hiring a team of specialists
to create a website might be expensive.

Fortunately, there are several other ways to design your website more effectively, with
limited skillsets and basic know-how of technical applications. Moreover, this won't even cost
you thousands of dollars.

You can design your website like a pro with basic understanding. This article will teach you
how to build, develop and design a website from scratch. After reading this article, you'll
have the perfect knowledge to build your website design and launch it effectively.

The article has two major parts: Building a website- which includes all the points from -
generating ideas to the final design. And the second part is launching your website, where
you'll find all the details regarding how to launch your website successfully.

Here's a detailed step-by-step guide on how to design a website without any fuss:
Idea to final design
● Define the idea of your website
● Look for web design inspiration
● Choose a website platform
● Select a theme
● Customize your site
● Add pages
● Optimize site navigation

Launching the website successfully
● Test the site's performance and launch it
● Monitor your site and reform

So without any further ado, let's dive into the article.

Idea to final design
● Define the idea of your website

Knowing the idea or purpose of creating the website is important before moving on to how to
do it. According to your ideas, the requirements would vary from person to person and so
does your website’s goal and designs.

If you run an online store, the design of your website should make it easier for customers to
make purchases, from finding the products to completing the billing process everything
should be simplified. On the other hand, those who wish to begin an online portfolio will
require a website that matches their writing style and presents their work.

To clarify what your idea behind the website is, you ask the following questions to yourself.

Who is the site's target audience?
What objectives does the content strategy of your business have?
What kind of content are you planning to give?
Is it informative, entertaining, sales, or any other type?

You'll have an idea for your website when you have the answers to these questions. Now
let's move toward the next step

● Look for web design inspiration


After you have your idea cleared about the website, the next step is preparing website’s
design/layout. I consider this is your first time creating a website design, so obviously you'll
be completely naive here. The best option for you is to check other websites' designs,
especially your competitor's websites.

Looking at competing websites might provide insight into what customers would want from a
website like your own. Many online tools can assist you in finding out who your competitors
are if you don't already know who they are.

This step helps you to visualize the final design of your website. In addition, be sure that you
stick to the recent website design trends and best practices for things like branding, visual
hierarchy, and more.

It guarantees that the website appears modern and up-to-date. Showcasing your website
with trends and updates keeps the visitors engaged. Remember, you should only follow and
apply trends if they match the purpose of your website. Otherwise, the impression of your
website might get lowered.


● Choose a website platform



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Done with the idea, have an imagined design/layout for the website? So get ready to enter
the beginning phase now. It is the moment to build a website. Select a platform to build your
website on. Software that best fits your skill set, price range, and intended use is ideal.

The content management system (CMS) WordPress is one of the most widely used website
platforms. WordPress is fantastic for building a variety of websites, including major
eCommerce stores, online directories, and digital resumes. Additionally, content producers
favour it because of its powerful blogging tools.

This platform will help you create your website that will be launched over the internet. To
make it available to users all over the globe, you need to host your website on the internet,
for which there are numerous website hosters.

Web hosting services differ according to the requirement of your website. If your website is
small, budding with very low storage usage and minimal traffic requirements, then choosing
shared web hosting will suffice. For a small website, you can even try web hosting for free.


While choosing a web host, make sure you verify the plan feature that the company offers to
you. It should give the maximum uptime guarantee, SSL certificate, regular backups,
Bandwidth, quality customer support and much more. You can go for WordPress hosting
for your website as it is one of the most powerful integrated CMS for websites.

Here are the key features of using WordPress:
● WordPress has the most user-friendly interface, so the website created through
WordPress will automatically have a good visitor experience.
● It is the most versatile platform, as users can add several functionalities with the
help of the huge plugin library.
● You can also scale the Cheap WordPress hosting plan per your growth and
requirement. The basic control of the website lies with you, so whenever the
requirement and resources are required to grow, you can easily upgrade from your
prevailing hosting plans.
● WordPress hosting is affordable as you get numerous themes, plugins, widgets,
etc., free of cost. All you have to pay is for the hosting; you get the liberty to create
your website on WordPress at no expense at all.

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Apart from WordPress, many other web hosting providers offer cheaper plans for creating
and hosting your website, with the best features at minimal expense. Opting for the web host
is beneficial for people who know very basic about tech and codes.

With the help of managed web hosting plans, it becomes helpful, as you have just to sit,
relax and monitor your website. Rest, all management is done by your host. Your web host
should offer you the domain; while most web hosting companies provide free domains, some
may have charges for generating domain. The domain acts as your identity and the address
of your website on the internet. For example, the famous search engine is recognized as
www.google.com, here google.com is the domain. You need a domain that suits your
website's functionality and purpose. A domain that isnt relevant to your website cxan ruin the
impressions.

● Select a theme


Once you finalize the platform. The next step is to select a proper theme for the website.
Themes are premade templates that have sections required on the website like blogs, about
sections, homepage, etc. selecting the theme for your website depends on the following
factors:
● Purpose oriented:
The theme you select should be related to the purpose of your website. For example, a
website showcasing a portfolio needs a theme with specified layouts and sections to display
the work; there should be sections to display the images and client reviews.

● Compatibility
The selected theme should be compatible with the different extensions and browsers to
avoid website breakouts.

● Customizability:
The selected theme should be customizable so you can make changes as p[er your need. A
fixed or rigid template won't let you make the changes.

● Adjustability:
Customizations and the theme should also be adjustable to various resolutions and screen
sizes of mobiles, desktops, tablets, etc.

● Customize your site


After selecting the theme, you must customize it according to your requirements. For
example, the website is for the Medical field, and the chosen template has some red or
orange colour. Then you can customize its colour to green to build positivity and trust.

Similarly, you can customize the fonts, the structure and other features according to your
taste. The only purpose of customizing the theme and the web design is to look pleasing and
appealing to the visitors. The colours, fonts, style or other factors should not be striking
against your audience's choice.


● Add pages


Now that your website look is complete add the desired and required pages. Websites
mostly include the home page, about page, service page, blog page, and contact page.
There are other pages, but remember you should use more; the website should look simple
and elegant. Add only the necessary pages to the website.
Homepage
The homepage is the first page that the visitors see. So, it ultimately becomes the
communication page that the user land on. It should convey what you have to say and the
services you offer. The website's main motto should be simple, easy to understand and in
sophisticated language for easy grasping.

About Page
The About page is a description of your website. Here you can use a bit of an informal tone
and share your story behind the website. You can add the feature of the website/services
and establish trust between your visitors.

Service Page
The service page includes all the services you have on the plate. You can add your client
reviews here, the discounts running, and any other deals related to your service. You can
also add the CTA and direct purchase links on this page. Ensure the CTA buttons are clearly
visible, as they should be the attention point.

Blog Page
Blog pages mostly include knowledge-based articles and blogs that give visitors information
related to your products and services, and they are the answers to the most commonly
asked questions of the audience.

Contact Page
Contact pages are a way to establish trust in the visitors. You can leave links and various
other ways to contact you directly for any queries. Make sure you leave contact information
that is accessible, as visitors will;l be expecting a prompt reply from your website. You
should be actively replying to the queries and other information asked by the visitors to you.

● Optimize site navigation

The next step is optimizing the user experience by checking the website's navigation. You
must cross-check and simplify the navigation panel if something needs to be clarified or
easier to locate.

During the navigation tests, you should analyze the website's overall performance. That
includes the website's speed, the accessibility and the user interface of the website. It should
load quickly to give the user experience of fast-loading pages and be accessible on different
browsers and resolutions, sizes, etc.

When navigating site, make sure you the website accessible is for mobile users. Many users
access the internet on mobile phones; if any of your website features isn't accessible for
mobile operators, your ranking will decrease by a great number. The website and all the
tools of the website should be mobile-friendly to skip the loss in the number of visitors.

Launching the website successfully

Now that all the prelaunch steps agave have been cleared out, let's move towards the
website launching. It includes two stages.

● Test the site's performance and launch it
It would be best to run multiple tests to verify whether the website functions appropriately
here. Your web host does this for you. You can ask the host about the reports of the tests to
verify the results.

Those who have used free website creators can try the recommended tests available online.
You can testify the different website features and functions with certain online tools. Once
you are satisfied with the results, go and launch the website.


● Monitor your site and reform

After launching the website, your work isn't finished. You have to monitor the progress and
features of the website. It is very common that even after several tests, there may be
mistakes. But as said, mistakes are the stairs to success.

You can ask your friends, family and close ones to test the website. Take their feedback and
do the reformations likely. It might happen that a feature you added may not be necessary at
all, or vice versa. In such cases, make the changes as soon as possible.

If you have chosen a hosting plan, your host offers a staging environment where your
website is launched in the trial phase to test and examine. When launched, the staging
environment ensures the website goes online without any errors.

And thus, your website gets launched successfully, where you start from scratch and end
with a beautiful, completely operational website design.

To summarise:
Website designs are important for any online business.

It serves as the core of the website. It should be the medium between the business and the
customers. The business will likely make good revenue if the design meets customers'
tastes.

Though not all the matter depends on the design, it is a very important aspect to consider
while making the website.

I hope the following article has given you in-depth knowledge about how you can design
your website and launch it successfully.