How to Design a Website Layout Users Can’t Resist
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As technology continues to advance, it simplifies the process of completing tasks that once seemed complex. Designing a website yourself has become more achievable, especially with the help of website builders. These tools empower you to craft a site that not only looks impressive but also helps you create a strong online presence. By utilizing professional web design features, you can generate revenue, build a community, and promote your brand effectively.
If you’re wondering where to begin, don’t worry! From choosing the right website builder and domain name to understanding the best practices for designing each element, this guide will walk you through the steps of creating a functional and visually appealing website. With the knowledge you’ll gain, you’ll be on the right track to make your website stand out and serve its purpose.
How to Design a Website layout (Quick Answer)
Set clear goals – decide the purpose of your site.
Plan structure with wireframes – outline page layout.
Add essential pages – Home, About, Contact, Services, etc.
Keep navigation simple – easy menus and clear paths.
Use a clean colour scheme & readable fonts.
Make it mobile-friendly – responsive design is a must.
Optimise for SEO – use keywords, alt text, and meta tags.
Test across devices & browsers for smooth performance.
Focus on user experience (UX) – easy, engaging, and functional.
Update regularly – keep content and design fresh.
How to design a website
When designing a website, it’s essential to focus on more than just making it look good. The key is to create an experience that truly engages the audience while also supporting your business goals. A great guide to follow involves starting with defining your site’s purpose and laying out its structure.
As you move forward, choosing the right design is critical, but so is adding valuable content and optimizing your site for top-notch performance. Ensuring that the site is functional, mobile-friendly, and ready to scale as your business grows is equally important to keep up with future demands.
What You Need to Design a Website
When designing a website layout, it’s important to ensure that you have the right tools and resources in place. First, you’ll need a domain name, which acts as your website’s unique address online, such as example.com. This makes it easy for visitors to find your business. To host your site, you need reliable web hosting that stores your website’s files and ensures it’s always accessible to visitors. Platforms like Wix, a builder and CMS, offer customizable templates and built-in features, making it easier to design and manage your site. High-quality assets like images, videos, and fonts are essential for creating a professional and engaging website that captures your audience’s attention. By combining these tools with your creativity, you can craft a layout that not only looks great but functions smoothly.
Set Your Goal
Before diving into the design of your website, it’s crucial to set clear goals.
Understand the type of website you need—whether it’s an online store to sell your products, an online portfolio to showcase your art, or a business website to help you manage and grow your business.
For example, a fitness website may be focused on booking new clients, while a restaurant website could be centered on handling orders, delivery, and payment. By narrowing down your objectives, you’ll better understand what you want to achieve and how each element of your site should be structured, from the layout to the content. Research your competitors and see how they have designed their sites, paying attention to must-have features, the UX, and the UI. With the research you gather, you can make decisions that align with your brand while ensuring a seamless user experience for your audience.
Don’t forget to keep the overall goal in mind throughout your journey—whether it’s creating a professional resume website, sharing knowledge through a blog, or displaying and selling prints on your photography website.
Define Your Layout
When you start to define your layout, it’s crucial to conceptualize and plan your website’s structure from the very beginning. Whether you’re using a website builder like Wix or deciding to create from scratch, having a map of your design is essential.
Begin by determining the elements you want to feature, such as text, images, and the overall color scheme. If you want to elevate the design, professional business themes can help refine these decisions. But if you’re using pre-designed templates or drag-and-drop tools, they offer a great starting point. The key is to ensure your layout is both functional and visually appealing.
It’s also helpful to browse website examples on Pinterest, Dribbble, or other platforms for inspiration. Researching the best mobile web design principles and checking out social media platforms for trends will guide you in making smart choices.
Your layout should always prioritize user experience, so think about how visitors will interact with your website and its content, keeping it customizable for future growth.
Create Wireframes
When designing a website, it’s essential to create adaptive websites to ensure a seamless experience across all devices.
Start by creating wireframes that outline the basic structure of your pages. These wireframes serve as a blueprint for the layout, helping you place key elements such as text, images, buttons, and menus in the right spots. Focus on making the design simple yet functional, as this will make it easier to adjust and adapt to various screen sizes.
Whether you’re sketching freehand on paper or using online drag-and-drop platforms, begin with the homepage, making sure visitors can easily see the most important information first and navigate through the site. Keep your design flexible, focusing on functionality and layout instead of fine details, to ensure that the website can adapt perfectly on both mobile and desktop views.
Once the structure is set, you can move on to customizing and fine-tuning the site, aiming for a polished final look that works well across all devices.
Claim Your Domain Name
When creating a website, one of the first things you’ll need to do is claim your domain name. This is your online address, and it plays a crucial role in how visitors perceive your brand.
Your domain name should be simple, memorable, and professional to make a lasting impression. Ideally, it should be easy to spell and avoid complex symbols, special characters, or numbers. By doing this, you not only ensure that your website is easy to find but also that your web development efforts are on the right track.
A well-chosen domain name can even contribute to website optimization, making it easier for search engines like Google to recognize and rank your site. Additionally, platform compatibility is key—ensure that your domain name works well with the service providers and hosting platforms you choose. It’s also important to consider mobile optimization, as more users access websites through mobile devices. A mobile-responsive layout will help you stay relevant in the ever-evolving world of innovative web design trends for 2025. Ultimately, a strong domain name, combined with a well-planned user-centered design, will set the stage for your website’s success.
Gather Your Content
Before you start designing your website layout, it’s crucial to gather your content. This involves collecting everything that will be featured on your site, including images, text, videos, and your logo. It’s essential to use original content when possible, ensuring that your materials are both branded and legally acquired. You can get creative by utilizing Wix’s media features like their vast library of free photos from Unsplash, Vector illustrations, and even interactive videos that are exclusive to Wix. For those who need help creating visuals, Wix also provides an AI image tool that lets you generate images easily.
While having a plenty of material is tempting, remember that quality should always take precedence over quantity. With the rapid decrease in attention spans, it’s better to showcase only the best content that represents your brand identity clearly.
From the colors and fonts to the written content, make sure your website reflects your unique personality and tone of voice. A well-curated site with a clear brand identity will grab the attention of your visitors and ensure a strong, lasting impression.
Add the Right Pages
When designing a website layout, it’s essential to add the right pages that will best serve your audience. Think of your website as a digital design where each page plays a crucial role in guiding visitors and showcasing your best content.
Start by ensuring you include important sections like home, about, and contact. But don’t stop there—ensure your content is relevant and engaging by including pages for services, testimonials, or portfolios.
While doing this, always remember to focus on quality over quantity, as people’s attention spans are shorter than ever. Integrating AI image tools can help improve the visual elements of each page, making them more interactive and appealing. Your website should represent your brand identity, so your colors, fonts, and tone of voice should be consistent throughout.
When selecting images and media content, be sure to use original content whenever possible, or legally acquire resources. Utilize resources like stock photo libraries or even platforms like Unsplash to enrich your design. By carefully selecting and placing these pages, you ensure that visitors can easily navigate your site, leading them to the best possible web content.
Design your website elements
When you’re ready to design your website elements, it’s crucial to think about how each part of your site contributes to a seamless user experience.
The menu plays a central role in this; ensure it is easy to access and keeps navigation simple by focusing on a clean, organized structure. Use internal links wisely to connect all pages and keep your website architecture clean and intuitive, following the two-click rule so that visitors can find anything they need within two clicks. The color scheme you choose is vital because colors evoke emotions, affecting how visitors interact with your site. Stick to a few shades, mixing a primary color, secondary color, and accent color for balance.
When selecting fonts, choose ones that are easy to read, whether on desktop or mobile, and make sure they reflect your brand identity. Remember, the header and footer also contribute significantly to the site’s usability. Your header should display essential features like your logo and main navigation menu, while the footer is perfect for contact details and social media buttons.
To add some flair and creativity, consider adding motion like hover effects or even a subtle video background to catch the user’s eye. Don’t forget to implement scroll effects to provide smooth transitions, and a parallax scrolling effect can make the page feel more dynamic. A favicon is another small but important detail for branding and easy site identification in browser tabs. Finally, always ensure your design is responsive so it looks great on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices, adjusting automatically with tools like Wix Columns.
With all these elements in place, you’ll ensure your site has both form and function, keeping visitors engaged and guiding them seamlessly through your content. website elements
Pick the professional tools you need
Use the right tools to enhance your website and improve business operations.
For a service business, tools that allow online reservations and payments 24/7 are essential. Let clients book appointments and manage your staff’s calendars.
If you’re selling goods, set up an online store to track orders, accept payments, and keep everything in a dedicated place.
Incorporate eye-catching graphics and posts on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to drive traffic and engage your audience.
For musicians, tools like Wix Music help you sell music, retain 100% profits, and distribute it to digital stores.
Boost organic search traffic by over 157% with Wix Video Maker—create customized videos to promote products, share updates, and enhance design.
Manage your website on-the-go with the Wix app, chat with clients, and design your site from anywhere.
The Wix App Market offers a selection of apps to boost website business potential, including tools for payment, advertising on Google, and pop-ups.
Make it Accessible to Everyone
When designing a website, it’s essential to make sure it’s accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities. This means considering people with vision impairment, hearing loss, or even temporary injuries. With over one billion people living with some form of disability, it’s important to cater to their needs. A great website design also shows your business values inclusivity and diversity. To improve user experience, you should build your website layout hierarchically, using clear headers to define the levels of information. Your site must also be operable with a keypad, include alt text for images, and use heading tags. Additionally, a website with good contrast benefits not only those with low vision but also users on their smartphone, especially when walking outside on a sunny day. Accessible websites are not just for those with disabilities; they make the overall experience better for all visitors. As Nir Horesh, Head of Wix SEO & Accessibility, says, an accessible site is welcoming and usable for everyone.
Optimize for mobile
With the rise of smartphone and tablet usage, it’s important to ensure that your website is designed for a smooth, seamless browsing experience across all devices. A responsive website design ensures that your site adapts to smaller screens without losing its impact. When using Wix, a mobile version of your site is automatically created with the Mobile Editor, saving you time on building the structure from scratch. However, you still need to optimize the content to fit this smaller real estate. To do this, keep only the important elements on the page, removing anything necessary. Focus on optimizing the space above the fold to display vital information, such as your menu or name, which visitors will see first in their mobile browser. Make sure this space is both engaging and informative, giving users a great first impression on their smartphone or tablet.
Strengthen your SEO
To boost the performance of your website design, you need to focus on SEO (search engine optimization).
This involves optimizing your content so it ranks higher in search results, driving more traffic and attracting more visitors. Start with keyword research to find the keywords that are relevant to your site.
Use a main keyword and a couple of secondary keywords, placing them in strategic locations like the SEO title, description, and homepage. Don’t stuff your content with too many keywords, as search engines will penalize your website for this. Ensure your on-page SEO is solid by filling in meta-data such as the URL, SEO title, and description for each page. Use alt text for pictures and media to help Google understand your visual content and improve your site’s accessibility.
Also, adding internal linking will help Google bots navigate and index your site more efficiently, while creating a sitemap makes it easier for Google to crawl your site and improve your ranking. A clear Understanding of SEO will make these strategies more effective and give your website a strong foundation.
By taking these steps, you can increase the chance of ranking higher in search results and getting more visitors to your website.
Engage with visitors
Engage with visitors by providing ways to stay connected and informed.
Use a live chat widget to allow users to interact with you for customer support or guide undecided visitors to the cart.
Add links to your social media channels to build a stronger online presence and help followers connect with you across multiple channels.
Make sure social media links are visible, such as under the menu or in the footer of your site.
Use email marketing and newsletters to update visitors on sales, new blog articles, or achievements.
Use a lightbox to invite visitors to subscribe to your newsletter and keep them engaged.
Add online forms for visitors to share feedback on your products, services, or website, helping to build relationships with them.
Ask for feedback, test and edit
Once you’ve created your website design, it’s important to gather feedback from individuals you trust.
Be open to their critique even if it’s not what you expect. First, check the text for spelling mistakes as they can hurt your professional reputation. Make sure the pages are easy to navigate, and that the menu and site architecture are user-friendly. Since more than 50% of internet users browse on a mobile device, ensure your web design is optimized for mobile.
Don’t forget to check that all the links are working properly and not returning a 404 page. Test your SEO elements like alt text and title tags to improve your search engine visibility. Run manual tests, automated tests, and user experience tests to catch any design issues before the launch. Using A/B testing can help you find the best-performing design variations, while heatmaps can show how visitors interact with your site, revealing areas for improvement in user experience.
Finally, test your site on different browsers and devices, ensuring a smooth experience for desktop, tablet, and smartphone users.
Publish and update
Having a website is a necessity, but keeping it up-to-date is what makes all the difference. A dormant or outdated site can feel uninviting and unreliable, so it’s important to always be alert and stay in-the-know. As your site constantly grows and evolves, it’s essential to update or redesign your content to reflect the latest developments in your industry. Staying savvy with web design trends and UX design trends helps ensure your site remains fresh and relevant to your audience. With this knowledge, you can improve your site overtime and ensure it appeals to visitors and remains effective. Regular updates prove that you’re on top of what’s new in your field, building trust with your users.
Monitor and adjust your website
Once your website is live, it’s essential to track its performance consistently. By doing this, you’ll gain valuable insights into user behavior, page traffic, and engagement metrics. Regularly check analytics to see what’s working and what areas might need improvement.
Pay special attention to high bounce rates, exit pages, and user flow to identify potential issues that might be causing visitors to leave. You can also glean invaluable feedback from surveys or feedback forms, which can help you understand exactly where your audience is facing difficulties.
Google Analytics and other tools are great for monitoring these key metrics, like demographics, session length, and page views, so you can make data-driven decisions.
If you notice that certain pages have high bounce rates, try simplifying navigation or enhancing content to keep visitors engaged. Update your design and functionality as necessary, making adjustments based on the insights you gather.
A website that evolves with both user needs and technological advancements will always stay relevant and successful in the long run. Additionally, by integrating tools like Google Search Console and marketing integrations, you can continue to track growth and make informed changes to keep improving.
Once your website is live, it’s important to track its performance regularly. By analyzing user behavior, page traffic, and engagement metrics, you can gain valuable insights that help you identify areas for improvement.
Pay attention to bounce rates, exit pages, and user flow to see where visitors might be struggling. Collecting feedback through surveys or feedback forms can give you direct input from your audience.
Tools like Google Analytics can help you monitor visitor demographics, session length, and page views, enabling you to make smart decisions about content and updates. If you notice high bounce rates on certain pages, it may be time to improve navigation or focus on enhancing content.
Using this data, you can make the necessary adjustments to design, functionality, and user experience to meet your website goals and keep your site relevant and successful.
Additionally, integrating with tools like Wix marketing integrations and Google Search Console will help you stay on top of web traffic and ensure your site performs at its best.
What are the 5 golden rules of web design?
Good web design follows key rules like simple navigation for ease, a clear layout with consistency, and making pages both useful and original through engaging content. A responsive design ensures access on any device, while short URLs are easy to remember. By building around these golden practices, websites stay easy to use and effective.
What are the 7 phases of web design?
A good website goes through seven main steps: starting with research and planning based on clear goals, moving into design and content creation, followed by development and testing each aspect, and ending with maintenance. Each stage aligns with user needs and helps meet their expectations.
Can ChatGPT create a website?
With ChatGPT, you can plan, write, and generate code to create a website in 2025 by following simple steps. It can provide content, suggest platform options, and help you publish a site using its free tier, though paid hosting and a domain are often needed for a complete setup.
Conclusion
Designing a website layout may seem challenging at first, but with clear goals, the right tools, and a focus on user experience, it becomes a structured and rewarding process. From setting your purpose and creating wireframes to optimizing for mobile and strengthening SEO, every step brings you closer to a site that is functional, attractive, and effective.
Remember, a great website isn’t built once—it grows with updates, testing, and constant improvement to stay relevant and impactful.
Maryam Ahmed
Hi! I’m Maryam Ahmed, a passionate Web Designer and Developer with over 2 years of experience. I specialise in creating custom websites – from simple and elegant designs to fully dynamic and animated sites
ABOUT ME !!
Maryam Ahmed
With a passion for modern design and functionality, I create custom websites that are visually appealing, dynamic, and SEO-friendly. From personal blogs to business platforms, I bring your vision to life with creative design and expert development.
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