Marketing

How to design a web page from scratch?

In this article you will learn how to design a website from scratch and some free and paid programs to build your first business website.

When a website is well designed, whether it is with a website builder or with the help of web designers and developers, it shows what you have to offer, supports the generation of business opportunities and attracts your ideal target audience. .

If you are setting up an online store, you should also provide a secure and easy-to-use platform when selling products.

A good website allows you to establish a strong brand identity and tell your story the way you want it told. You have full control over every element, right down to the last pixel.

The good news is that when you get started, you can build a website from scratch on your own. The bottom line is that you follow certain guidelines when creating your website visual design to effectively grab and hold user attention with an easy to use user interface.

Use the following step-by-step guide and tips to design an awesome website from scratch that conveys the unique value of your business.

Let's start!

1. Establish goals and priorities

When many think of successful website design and development, they think of the names of web domain, a reliable web server, website color schemes and content management systems…

However, a successful website design relies on clear priorities. Start your website project by determining what is most important to your business so that you know what your website needs to include.

Write down what success looks like and work from there. This process will help you decide what will be part of your website.

It may be useful to check other websites in your niche to inspire you with the design. Browse their pages and note the information they provide, how their brands communicate and what they offer to grab and hold the attention of visitors ...

Think about what you think will work well on your website and what you want to improve with your own design.

This list of important website elements will help you create a sitemap.

Create a sitemap

A sitemap, as the name suggests, maps your website outlining what pages you will have and how the pages will relate to each other, and will help you build your design and information architecture from scratch. .

Consider including these basic web page types on your website :

Main page

This is the first page of your website, so it will often be the first page new visitors see. They need to see the most important information they need first, understand what you're offering, and know how to easily navigate to what they need to do next.

About us

Here visitors can find basic information about your business, how you got started, where you are, your mission, and the profiles of key members of your team.

You can also include links to store hours and locations (if you have any), links to social media pages, and contact information.

Services

Depending on what your business or organization does, a page with brief explanations of the services you offer or the visual content of your products and links to detailed pages to learn more about those services can be very helpful for new visitors. .

Careers

If you often need new team members, consider a page where you can highlight available positions or a form where people can inquire about openings.

Blog

If you regularly post content, a blog page can be a central location that visitors can find ...

This may include product or service updates, articles related to what you offer, profiles of new projects, and any other content that helps inform website visitors about your organization.

Recommended reading: How to start a blog step by step.

2. Make a wireframe

Un wireframe is a skeletal diagram for your website. Like a plan for a house, it gives you a two-dimensional picture of the design, structure, and functionality of your website.

Wireframes can be created with a simple pen and paper, or digitally using web design tools or a website builder that can help you visually communicate your web page structure.

It exists 3 types of wireframes and as you develop your website you will switch between them, gaining more "loyalty" or details as you go.

1. Low fidelity wireframes

These early sketches, which usually have simple shapes and placeholder text, are great for mapping your browsing flow.

At this point, focus on the content and how the user will interact with it, rather than how the site actually looks. This is about the planning level, so you are just sketching the website and thinking about the hierarchy.

2. Medium fidelity wireframes

At this point, you don't have any live text or images yet. You create black and white renderings that show an accurate representation of the web page layout.

There are tools available to create these renderings that offer free trials, such as Sketch ou Balsamiq. This step is the backbone of your website. You don't need a specific design, but you do need clean lines and a precise size.

3. High fidelity wireframes

In this final step of your website design, you create a mockup that looks like your real website, with images, color combinations, and real text ...

Now you can design things like your menus and interactive content for your website from scratch. This is where you add color and text, but don't confuse it with a working prototype. This is still just one example of your website hierarchy.

3. Design with your audience in mind

As you go through the design phases of a website, focus on building an asset to serve your audience. After all, that's the point.

Make sure that at every step of your website development, from prioritization and formatting to determining navigation, you think about the needs of your target audience.

As exciting as it can be to create a completely unique and unorthodox website, you should always put the end user first.

Provides a visual hierarchy

The robust hierarchy allows visitors to quickly collect information and understand where to go on your website for more information.

The visual hierarchy includes spacing, colors, white space, repetition, etc.

Keep it simple

When designing your website, keep the visitor experience user-friendly by considering whether users need all of the elements. You might be adding features that complicate the website and make it harder for your audience to navigate.

Have a clear call to action

“Place an Order”, “Buy Now”, “Register”, “Contact Us” and other Calls to Action (CTAs) should be easy to find and intuitive.

Keep asking yourself if your website design makes it easy for your audience to know where you want them to go next.

Make it accessible

Your website should be responsive and accessible from any device. Review the design and performance of different aspects of your website on PCs, tablets and mobile phones.

Make sure that users can see text and images correctly on different devices, and that buttons and calls to action are easily clickable on screens of different sizes.

4. Use photos to tell your story

A website is a visual experience, so focus on images that appeal to your target audience to help communicate what your brand is all about.

If you don't already have your own photograph to illustrate your products or services, there are many sources for stock images. Websites like Pixabay, Pexels et Unsplash offer a wide selection of free images for you help to start.

Find a series of archival images of the same set or provided photographer. This allows you to maintain stylistic consistency on your website. It will make your website design more professional and your business more trustworthy.

Canva is another great tool that you can use to improve your website design from scratch .

It's a great program that has tons of features to make your website look great.

Recommended reading: what is Canva and what is it used for?

Tips for choosing images

  • Make sure your photos tell a story
  • Don't just pick an image because it's pretty. Ask yourself if the image works with your content to bring your brand to life.
  • Even if you use actions, be original.
  • Don't choose the most obvious option. You don't want to choose something that a visitor will immediately recognize like a stock photo that they've seen on a dozen other websites.
  • Make sure the people in the images look like your target audience. This will make visitors feel like your website, and your brand, product, or service, is something they can relate to and need.

Be consistent with the style of the picture

Make sure your website visuals stay true to your brand. Maintain consistency in colors, fonts and images so that they reinforce your brand image.

Crop images for greater impact

If you sell imported coffee, for example, and find an image showing a man drinking coffee in a group of people, crop the photo to highlight the man. You will receive more attention and it will look unique, compared to other websites that may have used the image without cropping.

5. Track your performance

A website will continuously evolve as your business grows. Track your performance early on using your website's reports to see what's working and what isn't. Then adjust to improve the user experience and the results for you.

The integration of Google Analytics to your website can help you track activity to see which pages are getting the most traffic and where people are clicking.

What is an A / B test?

THE A / B, where 2 different versions are compared, will help you determine which elements of your website perform best and ensure that your CTA motivates your visitors.

One way to see how users are interacting with your website is with a heat map tool like Hotjar.

The heat map provides a color-coded graphical representation of where people's eyes are naturally drawn on the website. This can show you which areas of your website are getting the most attention and can guide your future design improvements.

Since the traffic is tracked in real time, it is suitable for both new websites and long-lasting websites. And the best part is that the heat map layout is straightforward and straightforward to understand.

5 programs for designing web pages

Here are 5 of the best programs for designing a website from scratch. Some of these programs are paid and allow you to get started for free.

1.ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is a generator of sales funnels for entrepreneurs. You select a predefined template and start designing your web pages with the drag and drop editor.

Building your sales process is easy because ClickFunnels takes all the guesswork out of it. Read reviews online and you will see that the best feature of the tool is its resources.

ClickFunnels offers a free trial of 14 days. Paid plans start at $ 97 / month.

2. Main pages

Leadpages is best known for its landing there page builder et Page of sale builder, but you will see that it works equally well forfull websites.

Leadpages software offers conversion-oriented features like one-click signups and alert bars, making it a no-brainer if you want to attract quality leads all over your website ...

It also provides many highly converted and mobile friendly templates without any coding requirement.

The Standard Leadpages plan starts at $ 37 per month. You can try Leadpages free for 14 days.

3. Get a response

GetResponse features a sleek drag-and-drop webpage designer that lets you customize every element on the page from scratch and adapt to any device.

Like other web designers, GetResponse also offers a host of ready-to-use landing page templates.

But GetResponse is more than just a web designer. It is an all-in-one solution specialized in marketing automation. And when we say all in one, we really mean it. It is also one of the best platforms for email marketing on the market.

All GetResponse plans come with 220 email templates, 180 landing page templates, 700 form templates, 40 auto funnel templates, 150 integrations, and 24/24 live chat support .

The Basic GetResponse plan costs $ 15 per month.

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