New to Web Design Process? Here’s A Step-By-Step Guide

November 11, 2022
Ellie
Web design, application design, coding, and web building on blue background
November 11, 2022

Ellie

New to Web Design Process? Here’s A Step-By-Step Guide

In today's technological world, website design has become increasingly important. With the wide accessibility of smartphones and other gadgets, people are now more likely to scroll through online websites than browse in physical stores. This means a well-designed website is a big factor for your business to become one step ahead of your competitors.

There are a number of different factors to consider when designing a website, including the layout and design of the site's pages, the use of graphics and videos, and the overall branding and look of the site.

Struggling to get traffic for your new website? Learn the website design process and attract visitors with this article.

Website Design Process

Website design is a complex process that calls for thorough and comprehensive preparation and execution. A successful website must be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and functional.

First Step In Web Design Process: Planning

The planning phase is essential for a successful website launch. To create a successful website, you need to have a clear plan. The planning phase can help you define your goals, identify key features, and create a functional design. 

During this phase, you should consider how your website will be used and what users expect. With these guidelines in mind, you can build a website that is both visually appealing and easy to use. Here are what to consider:

Website's Primary Aim

Identify the purpose of the website during the web design process. Identify the site outline and site structure. Web designers have different expertise, so consult and hire a suitable one that fits your type of website.

Target Audience

There are a lot of pleasing web design trends online. However, while the designs and trends are very interesting, there is no "one size fits all" visual style when it comes to website design. The design of your web pages must be tailored to fit its potential visitors.


When starting a new website project, you must first consider who it is for. Study your target audience by identifying which color schemes, typography, navigation, and other elements are the most effective for their demographics. 

For example, for a website whose primary target audience is in the senior age group, you need to increase the font size, use clear messaging, and simplify navigation. If you know who you're designing for, you can adjust your initial ideas for the appearance of the website to ensure that your website visitors will have a good user experience.

Visual Brand

The visual brand of your website must be established early in the planning stage. Identify the message and tone you want to convey to your target audience and ensure that it resonates with your brand. Try to formulate a value proposition with your brand and target audience's interests in mind.


A good value proposition will only be effective when expressed with an eye-catching visual style on your website.

Communication Strategies

Communication strategies are not limited to direct forms of communication like chat support and a "contact us" page. You may also indirectly communicate with your website visitors through the content you publish on your site. Sustain your visitors' excitement and interest in your website by publishing content that is within their interests. 

You may try social media integration and redirect them to your social media pages with interesting content, or you may implement a content management system to ensure that your webpage will be updated with new and relevant content and other SEO strategies.

Set a Realistic Timeline and Achievable Deadlines

You might get lost trying to work on a project without a realistic timeline to follow. When creating a website, whether alone or in a team, ensure that you are on track by using a timeline. 

Your timeline must include a detailed description of your goals for each phase of the project and allowances to accommodate adjustments. Don't make a cramped timeline that will compromise the quality of your work.

Second Step In Web Design Process: Developing

The development process is crucial to the website's information architecture and determines the user experience. Your website's information architecture is how you've chosen to structure all the data on your site. It is the way your website content is labeled and structured. 

Effective Information Architecture

One way to create a sound and efficient information architecture is to back it up with psychological models and principles. Understand the user's cognitive load and recognition patterns and translate them by incorporating those principles into your website. Make sure to optimize your site speed for a smoother user experience.

Design Phase

Whether it is an existing website or a new one, make sure the design process is going in the direction of the creative brief. In the early parts of the process, web designers encounter a lot of re-designing and revisions.

Take Note of Areas for Improvement

The design and content elements discussed during the planning phases must be evident here. As the web development process unfolds, you will notice some areas for improvement and visual design elements that you might want to add, even if the project went through proper planning. It is completely normal to scrap some drafts when designing websites.

By the end of this phase, you may already conduct a content review and look out for small coding mistakes. You may also start with content creation as you go through the design phase to see an actual prototype of what the final design will look like.

Third Step In Web Design Process: Testing

After completing the design process, it is time to test your website. Do not skip this phase, as there might be small details that you have missed from the website design and web development process.

Thorough Assessment

During this phase, you may go back to the details you have overlooked and make sure that the website is working well. Thoroughly check every function and every web page on your website and look out for small coding mistakes, typographical errors, and broken links.

Content Check

Ensure that the structure is easy to navigate and the functionality of each element is maximized without sacrificing the design. Proofread the content published on the website and see if they are SEO optimized. It is a good idea to practice SEO best practices on your website to have a higher chance of ranking higher on search engines.

Check out for bugs and other errors that users may experience when surfing your website. Make sure that you have all of the errors fixed before deploying your website.

Website Maintenance

The website design process does not stop once the website has been published. The existing website also requires continuous maintenance and updating to ensure that you are at par with other sites.

What To Avoid During The Web Design Process

Miscommunication With The Teams Involved

There are several cases where a website fails because of miscommunication between the different teams working on the project. To avoid this, you can schedule meetings with the business owners, the marketing team, and the web development team to make sure that everyone is able to communicate their thoughts clearly.

Failure To Prioritize SEO

Your SEO dictates how high your website will appear in search engines like Google and will severely affect the traffic on your website. Creating a beautiful website is meaningless if no one is able to find it because of wrong SEO practices.

To improve the SEO compatibility of your website, do keyword research and improve header tags, titles, meta descriptions, and page names. Investing in SEO is essential since it can also generate profit for your website.

Not Utilizing Web Analytics

Continuously utilize the use of website analytics. This will help you find room for improvement on your website and how you can consistently develop it through time. With website analytics, you'll be able to reduce bounce rates, recognize the interests and preferences of your audience, and identify slow-loading pages on your website.

Failure To Maintain Page

The creation of your website is not the end. Setting it up is a separate process, and maintaining is a whole new procedure. Developers should always find a way to consistently develop the website. A key factor is to rely on customer feedback, where you can get essential opinions.

Help Your Web Design And Development Company Grow With Mesmeric

Overall, a well-executed web design process can give your website the look and feel that you are aiming for while also optimizing it for it to be SEO-friendly. Always keep this in mind when designing your website so that you can ensure that your visitors can find what they are looking for quickly and easily.

If you ever find any part of the process confusing or you need help in improving your website, feel free to reach out to us, and we'll be more than happy to assist you. You can contact us anytime to learn more about the services we offer.

Join Our Newsletter
2023 Mesmeric - All Rights Reserved