How to Design a Website in 2024

Last Update: December 2024

Written by Leeron Hoory
Tech and Finance Specialist

Reviewed by Yoni Cohen
BusinessHeroes Staff

You’ve probably had the experience of landing on a website with a tired, out of style design and immediately assuming the business itself is outdated and irrelevant.

That’s the power of web design and how strongly it represents your brand. In fact, one study found that 94% of first impressions are determined by a website’s design.

A well-designed website is crucial for your business or personal brand. For online customers, your website is the first impression and one of the best tools you have to communicate authority and professionalism.

Your website’s design also plays a crucial role in how easy it is for web visitors to use your website and find what they need.

Today, there are many tools to help you design a beautiful website, even if you are not a professional web designer. This article covers the basic steps.

Step 1: Define Your Website’s Purpose and Goals

Before you start laying anything out, you’ll want to make sure you clearly understand your website’s goals. A sock company will have a different design from a yoga instructor’s web page. The first is focused on selling products, and the second aims to highlight your expertise and authority.

To clarify your website goals, ask yourself what the main action you want your visitors to take. Do you want them to opt-in to an email list with a gift? Do you want them to learn something, buy something, or sign up for something? This information will serve as a crucial foundation for creating a website as it dictates where you focus attention, how you organize the website’s navigation and more.

Step 2: Choose the Right Website Builder or Platform

The easiest way to design a website as a non-professional is to use a website builder. There are several popular options, like Wix, WordPress and Squarespace. Instead of building your website from scratch, these website builders offer ready-made design templates you can easily adapt to fit your specific needs.

Today there are many popular website builders to choose from. They are all slightly different in their capacities, template designs and layout. Here are highlights from some of the popular options:

Squarespace: Squarespace is a subscription website builder where you choose a template from a list. These templates are tailored for portfolios, online stores, or service-based businesses. After selecting one, you can adjust the color scheme, fonts, and rearrange blocks to fit your needs. However, not everything is customizable in Squarespace.
WordPress: WordPress is a free, open-source content management system. While you don’t have to pay to use WordPress, you will likely need to choose a template or plugin and those cost money (either a one-time fee or an ongoing subscription fee).
Wix: Wix is a monthly subscription website builder that offers different templates to choose from. You can design your website with a drag-and-drop feature which is a unique feature from SquareSpace or WordPress. The drag-and-drop capability means you’ll have much more flexibility to design your website in the specific way you want.

Paid website builders like Squarespace and Wix offer customer support, allowing you to ask questions and get help as needed.

While website builders make web design easy, they have limitations. Don’t expect to make every design change you want. For example, your template might have a fixed blog layout or not allow you to remove social media icons from certain pages.

If you are set on a fully customized web design, consider hiring a professional web designer. It’s also a good option if you don’t have time to invest in web design, don’t have the patience to troubleshoot issues (you’re guaranteed to run into issues!), or just want your website to look top-notch.

Step 3: Plan Your Website’s Structure and Layout

Once you know your goals, the next step is to determine the pages you’ll need (home page, about page, contact page, for example). Remember, when people arrive at your website, they expect to find information quickly, so your site needs to be easy to skim.

Your website’s main pages will vary by business, but here are some of the pages you’ll likely want to start with, regardless of the type of business you have:

Home page: The home page is often the first place people arrive at when they see your business, so you want to make sure the page’s design clearly communicates what you do or what you are offering.
About: Businesses typically have an About page where users can find out more information about your business. You can also include your business story in this section.
Services or Shop: What are you offering? Your services or shop should be featured in your top-level navigation.
Blog: Will you have a section on your website to communicate ideas and share thought leadership? If so, include it in your top-level navigation. A blog can be a great way to build brand awareness and communicate ideas.
Contact: Include a contact page with information about how potential and current customers can get in touch with questions.

Step 4: Design the Visual Elements of Your Website

Before you settle on a direction for your visual design, we recommend doing an audit of your favorite websites and creating an inspiration board. What do you like about these websites? What’s common about all of them? Are they using bold fonts or script? Is the home page designed with one large image or smaller images? Pay attention to the different components.

All great websites have cohesive branding, regardless of the style. Your brand includes different elements such as color scheme, fonts and logo, that work together to communicate a message about your business. Branding is a whole field on its own, and you can hire a professional graphic designer to develop a brand kit. However, if you’re just getting started, you’ll want to consider the basics: What are your brand colors? What fonts will you use? And what is the overall feeling or message you are communicating? It could be happy and bold or minimalist and elegant. Color is an especially important element of design. In fact, nearly 40% of consumers think color is the most important visual element on a business’s website, according to a report by Top Design Firms.

Your branding will inform every aspect of your design, from colors to images to infographics. You can use various online databases to find high-quality images that are usable for commercial purposes. Make sure these elements align with the overall look and feel when you’re designing your site.

Step 5: Optimize for Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile-friendly design is essential, as these days, so many of your potential customers will be accessing your website on their phones. Mobile receives 313% more visitors than desktop for the top 100 visited websites, a recent study by Semrush found. Not only that, but 57 percent of users say they would not even recommend a business that does not have good mobile design.

The good news is that most website builders will automatically adapt your web design to mobile use. However, you’ll still need to confirm all the elements have been translated properly. If you are using a professional web developer, you’ll want to ask them about their process for ensuring a mobile compatibility.

Step 6: Add Essential Website Features and Plugins

Website visitors expect certain features, so be sure to include them. For instance, you should add a contact form to make it easy for users to get in touch. You should also Include social media icons so visitors can easily follow and learn more about you. Additionally, provide a business email address where users can reach you for inquiries.

As you’re thinking about what your website needs, take a look at the plug-ins available on your website builder that can meet your needs. Plug-ins give you the ability to do more with your website. For example, WooCommerce is a WordPress plug-in for e-commerce management that can help you list and sell products. Yoast is an SEO tool that helps WordPress users optimize their SEO.

Step 7: Test Your Website Before Launching

Testing your website with beta users before you launch can help you catch any potential errors, or areas of confusion on your website.

The most straightforward way to do this is to ask a few trusted people to navigate your website and watch them while they are doing it.

Give specific instructions like, “Can you find the About page?” or “Does the home page clearly explain what this website is about?” Based on the responses you receive and watching their behavior, you will gain insight into any potential design issues that need to be addressed before launching. Yale’s Usability resources recommend recording participants’ screens when you test. “That way, you don’t have to worry about taking notes while testing, and you can review the videos over again to see if you missed anything during the session.”

Additionally, you’ll want to test your website on different browsers and devices to make sure the layout looks the way you want. You can use a resource like BrowserStack, a cross-browser testing tool, to see what your website looks like on different browsers.

2024 Web Design Trends to Watch

Web design trends are changing constantly, and user expectations shift along with it. Keep an eye out for evolving trends so that your website stays relevant. In 2024, web design is shifting to be more interactive, which includes small animations or hover effects, button animations and dynamic loading indicators, all of which can create a more immersive experience on your website. AI-driven web design is also going to become increasingly popular, in addition to voice user interface (VUI) integration.

Your Business’s Website Design Is a Key Component of Your Overall Brand

Your website’s design is an essential part of your customer's overall experience of your website and your brand. Today, there are many tools to help you design a website, even if you are not a professional. The most important aspect of a website’s design is that it’s cohesive and clear. If you are unsure about which route to take or find the whole concept of designing a website overwhelming, you can always choose a clean and minimalist template with a website builder like Wix or Squarespace and make any necessary changes over time. The longer your website is live, the more data and information you will receive about how users are interacting with your website and the better able you will be to meet user needs.

About Leeron Hoory: Tech and Finance Specialist

Leeron, based in New York City, writes about technology and finance for top publications like Forbes Advisor, Quartz, and Popular Mechanics. With her expertise, Leeron simplifies complex subjects, guiding you through the latest trends and strategies to boost your business.

About Yoni Cohen

Yoni Cohen is a contributing writer and editor for BusinessHeroes.com. Yoni started out in journalism as a breaking news editor, but soon moved on to become a senior lifestyle and technology editor and has 15+ years of experience in creating content on topics that really matter to people.