Web Design Help: How to Design a Website for Beginners

Your website is your business’s online storefront that anyone can access. To encourage your target audience to visit you and consider your brand, you must make an excellent first impression.

If you need web design help from a team of professionals, contact us online or use our website design project quote calculator for a free quote.

Want to build your website? Keep reading to go through these topics:

• What is web design?
• 6 things you need when building your website
• How to design a website
• When to design your website and when to outsource
• Web design help FAQs

What is web design?

Web design refers to creating a website’s structure and its visual elements.

It’s a balance of art and science. Not only do you want your site to look pleasing to your target audience, but you also want a functional site that your prospects enjoy using and reading.

6 things you need when building your website

If you’d like to build your website without web design help, ensure you have the following prepared:

1. Domain name: Your domain name is your website’s unique address. It’s the address that users type into their browsers to visit your website. Make your domain name easy to remember by including your business name.
2. Website host: A website host makes your website content accessible online. Imagine your website as your physical store and the website host as the commercial building where you rent your store’s space.
3. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate: You also need an SSL certificate, which authenticates your website’s identity and encrypts data between a website and site visitors. SSL certificates keep your customer information secure.
4. Website builder or content management system (CMS): Choose a website builder or CMS on which you’ll build your website.
5. SEO and analytics tools: An SEO tool like Google Search Console can help you monitor your rankings in search engine results pages and inform your SEO strategy. Meanwhile, tools like Google Analytics track your site’s traffic and visitor data.
6. Point of sale (POS) system: If you sell products or services online and process payments through your website, integrate a POS system into your site for smooth and seamless transactions.

How to design a website

Designing a website can appear daunting, especially for beginners with no coding experience. If you think you have the resources and time to develop your own site without web design help, here are some tips to help you launch your site:

6 website design tips

1. Clearly define your website’s goals
2. Collect your brand assets
3. Choose a website builder or CMS
4. Select a layout or template
5. Customize your pages
6. Test your website

Let’s go through each one:

1. Clearly define your website’s goals

First on our list of web design tips is identifying your website’s goals. This critical first step is your “why” for designing your website.

By defining your goals, you’re also identifying your target audience and the conversions you want to happen on your website. Your objectives will guide how you design your website and dictate the vital elements and calls to action (CTAs) of your website design.

If you own a yoga studio, for example, you may want your site visitors to book a class. Meanwhile, a business-to-business (B2B) company that offers software as a service (SaaS) may want its prospects to download gated content or fill out a form online.

2. Collect your brand assets

Next up, prepare your brand assets before you begin with design.

Your brand assets are the elements that form your business’s identity. It includes your company’s name, taglines, and colors. Other brand assets you must gather are the following:

• Logo
• Color palette
• Fonts

3. Choose your website builder or CMS

Creating your website without any web design help is possible. Choose a platform that suits your:

• Goals
• Budget
• Technical know-how

If you have no coding experience, you can choose artificial intelligence-powered (AI-powered) website builders like Wix ADI or Framer AI. Upon getting started, these site builders ask you a few questions and create your site design based on your answers.

You may also choose from other website builders and CMS platforms that offer design templates that you can customize. Businesses that sell online can shortlist CMS platforms with ecommerce functionalities.

For example, B2B companies may need meeting schedulers on their website. They can shortlist CMS platforms with this feature or enable integration with an appointment scheduling app.

When choosing a website builder or CMS, consider how you’ll scale your business in the long run.

4. Choose a template or layout

After selecting your platform, pick a template or layout suited for your website. Ensure your template is mobile-friendly!

Choose a template with the site features and elements you need, like a website form. Then, customize it with your brand colors and fonts.

You can also personalize the following page elements according to your brand:

• Navigation bar: Show the most important pages for your site users on the navigation bar. That way, they won’t feel overwhelmed when navigating your site.
• Forms: Tailor your web forms with your audience in mind. Require only the fields that you need to contact or retarget them. That way, convincing them to fill out your forms is easy!
• Header and footer: Use your logo and other brand elements in your header and footer. In your footer, link to other useful pages, such as your Contact Us, About Us, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service pages.

5. Customize your pages

After choosing your layout, customize the look of your pages. For example, if your law firm’s website has a blog section, tweak your template’s look with your brand colors, fonts, and other elements.

Ensure the following pages are also aligned with your brand colors and customized according to your goals:

• Homepage
• Category page
• Product or service page
• About Us page
• Contact Us page
• 404 page

6. Test your website

At this stage, you’re almost ready to launch your website. To ensure your website runs smoothly, you must test it before launch.

Check your website’s page load time to ensure it loads fast. You can use our free SEO Checker to get a site speed analysis. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool is also handy for checking page speed.

Is your website content readable? This is an excellent time to check its readability.

You can use our readability test by entering your text or URL. Our tool will give you an average reading ease score, with 100 being the highest and easiest to read. It also estimates the readers’ age who could easily understand your copy.

Should you design your website or get web design help?

Today, businesses have many options to design their website using various free and freemium tools. However, there may be instances when getting professional web design help is better.

A professional building a portfolio website with a few pages can use website builders with free customizable templates. A small business owner with a limited budget and who needs a simple website with a few pages may consider designing their website, especially if they:

• Have the time to learn to do it
• Enjoy tinkering with design tools
• Can maintain the site

For other businesses, however, it’s more practical to get professional web design help. If your business needs a complex website with multiple pages, a blog, ecommerce functionalities, and other features, hiring a web design agency like WebFX is beneficial.

When hiring an agency like WebFX, consider it an investment. You put in money to build a website that drives leads and revenue to your business.

A professional web design agency saves you time and lets you focus on growing your business. With your web design investment, you hire experts to design and maintain your website.

In addition, the agency will improve your site’s performance and security. They’ll also optimize your pages for conversion and A/B test pages to discover which versions drive more revenue.

Web design help FAQs

Got other questions about web design help? Let’s answer them here:

1. Why do businesses need a website?

Every business — big or small — will benefit from having a website. It’s your business’s online home where you can welcome your prospects from anywhere in the world, anytime, to learn about your brand and offerings.

Your website not only improves your brand awareness, but also lets you sell online, obtain new clients, and drive revenue.

2. Can you design a website for free?

You can design your site for free using free website builders. Note that some site builders are freemium — they may require payment before you can publish your site.

Meanwhile, some free website builders let you publish your website without a fee. They don’t come with a domain and hosting, though.

You can use these free tools when you’re starting. Carefully pick one that you can use as you scale your business.

3. Can you design a website without coding?

Some website builders and CMS platforms let you design your website without tools. These platforms are beginner-friendly and use drag-and-drop tools and WYSIWYG editors.

WordPress and Wix are excellent examples that don’t require coding. If you need to add plugins or other functionalities on WordPress, you may need to learn some coding.

Get excellent web design help from WebFX

Designing your website can be a rewarding learning experience. However, complex website projects may require web design help from an award-winning agency like WebFX.

We’re a full-service digital marketing agency with 28 years of experience designing websites for our clients. You can expect stunning, user-friendly web designs that drive revenue for your business.

Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our web design services!