How To Design Your Own Website
A lot of time and creativity goes in to designing your own website. If you’re wanting to design a website that is easy to use and manage, here are some things you can do to get you on the right track.
1. Do Your Homework
There are a few things that need to be clearly defined before you start designing a website. One, what is the purpose of this website? Is it to impress people, to make a sale, keep others informed. Why will this website exist? The more details you have on the purpose, the clearer the design will become in your mind.
Second, what group of people will be looking at this website on a regular basis? Are they single moms looking for work from home? Teenagers with a love for skateboarding? Elderly men and women who are looking for someone to spend time with on the weekends? Knowing the niche of people your website is for will help with decisions of what colors to use, how simple or complex the design should be, what words to use to describe links.
Lastly, what is the end result of people coming to visit your website? What is it that you’re wanting them to do before they leave to go watch videos on YouTube? Is it to call and make an appointment? Are you wanting them to sign up for a newsletter? What action should your design make happen?
2. Find Inspiration
Once your homework is done it’s time to research the competition. Find other websites that have already been made in your niche and see what it is that they focus on in their design. What are they doing, or not doing, that could be done better? This isn’t a time to copy off of someone’s design or to get discouraged that someone already has you beat with their mad design skills. This is a chance to get inspired and to see what works and what doesn’t work. Take notes and learn from others.
3. Sketch It Out
After getting an idea of what you want your website to look like, the next thing to do is to get your ideas on paper. The best thing to do is find some graph paper and make a simple outline of a web browser. Within this simple outline, start sketching out your design. Make sure to include all the elements that came up in your research and work on it until the design becomes so clear in your mind that you’re ready to move on to the next step.
4. Make It Happen
Once all the paperwork is done, it’s time to put your hand to the mouse. Fire up your favorite image editor and start creating your website design. Make it look exactly like it would if someone pulled it up in their web browser. Include dummy text to show what it would look like to have content in certain areas. Play with the color scheme and keep in mind who will be looking at this site. You don’t want to scare people off with dark colors, or make them think they’re back in kindergarten with bright playful cartoon bunnies (unless that’s what your niche would expect to see). This is your design, make it a masterpiece.
Summary
When creating a design for a potential website, it’s important to do some research and get answers to questions that will clearly define the purpose of the website, who will be visiting and what they will be expecting to see. Visit other websites from people in your niche and get inspired to create something better and more useful. Sketch your ideas out and when you can finally see the entire picture in your mind, put it on the screen. Designing a website is an amazing process. Make it your own.
