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They say your business website is like a virtual handshake—it’s the first impression you will make on any potential client.
With this in mind, it’s vital that your website is seamless, user-friendly, and on-brand. Whether you are building your website yourself, using freelance web designers, or you’ve reached out to an agency for support, there are certain steps you don’t want to skip so you can make the best first impression possible.
We sat down with Neil Shastri and Taylor Wesley from Marketwake to give us their best nuggets of advice and best practices for each step of the website design process. Follow along and your website will be driving traffic and converting users in no time.
But first things first…
Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends.
For a long time, businesses used the traditional website design process to create their websites. It looked a little something like this:
Eventually, somewhere along the way, someone said, “Hmm, even with our new website, we aren’t driving traffic or converting site visitors, that’s weird.”
To that, the stakeholders who were part of the two-and-a-half-year website redesign process said “Shut up, we just spent two and a half years and our entire savings account on that site. We aren’t redoing it.”
Eventually, the voices of the people who questioned the traditional website design process outnumbered the voices of the pro-traditional website design process people.
Thus, the Growth-Driven Design (GDD) process was born. It looks something like this:
The GDD, as opposed to the traditional website design process, starts with a launchpad website which goes through phases of continuous improvement. Many businesses have seen that the GDD process works better because it allows you to adjust your strategies in real time, not invest as much money on a website all at once, and reduces the risk of product failure.
So, is the traditional website design process broken? No, people still use it. However, better methods of website design are currently available.
If you’re interested, you can learn more about Growth-Driven Design here.
Below, we’ve covered the 8 most crucial steps in the website design process, starting with research and discovery:
The research and discovery phase is where you lay the groundwork for everything that's being created in the website design process. This is all about getting to know the brand, the audience, and the goals you want to achieve.
During the research and discovery phase of the website design process, you and your team (or the agency you’ve hired) dive deep into understanding your business, your customers, and your competitors. This involves gathering insights like:
The website design discovery process is important because the research you gather during this phase informs every decision you’ll make moving forward. It guarantees that when the final design goes live, it doesn’t just look pretty—it actually works.
Plus, understanding your audience during the website design process means you’re far less likely to end up with a website that’s all flash and no substance. Instead, you’ll have something that attracts the right people, keeps them engaged, and (most importantly) converts.
“I make sure that the discovery questionnaire I send over before the discovery meeting is tailored to the client based on the scope of work. Come to the discovery meeting prepared with an overall understanding of your client’s business goals and their project goals. When you show them you’ve really listened to, digested, read, and understood their business and you have a list of additional questions to dive deeper, clients are a lot more responsive.”
Once you've done your work in the research and discovery phase of the website design process, it's time to get into the planning and strategy. Think of this step as the “architect” part of the process, where you’re mapping out how everything will fit together. The first thing you need to figure out is content structure.
Your website’s content structure is directly tied to its usability. If visitors can’t find what they’re looking for in a couple of clicks, they’re going to bounce. That’s where a solid site architecture comes in. You want to design a layout that makes it easy for users to navigate, consume information, and take action. Here’s what this looks like:
Both of these should be based on user experience research. During the site map or content index phase of your website design process, ask questions like:
“We’re a digital marketing agency. Our websites are built on performance. When looking at content and site architecture, we're pulling our client’s current site map and seeing what pages they're currently prioritizing. Then we also look at the top-performing pages on Google Analytics. We want to know what kind of content is performing well so we can showcase those pages on the sitemap.”
Now that you’ve nailed down the site architecture and content strategy of your website design process, it’s time to bring those ideas to life with wireframes and mockups.
Wireframes are basic, low-fidelity layouts that show where elements like headers, buttons, text, and images will go on each page. They’re kind of like the blueprint for your website.
Wireframes let you focus on structure without the distraction of visuals. By stripping everything down to the basics, you can zero in on the user experience and functionality. Are the calls to action clear? Is the navigation intuitive? These are the kinds of questions you answer during this phase.
Once the wireframes are approved and you’ve got the thumbs-up from all stakeholders, it’s time to move on to the mockup phase of the website design process. These are high-fidelity, more polished versions of your wireframes that show what the website will actually look like. You’ll see colors, fonts, images, and brand identity come into play here. Think of mockups as the bridge between the bare-bones wireframes and the fully designed website.
The people reviewing your work may still give feedback on the mockups so you have all the information you need to move to the next phase: designing your website.
“Wireframes give us the chance to present what content we think should go on each page. As an agency, we need approval because we're going to move forward with writing the content for those pages.
Even if they don’t give any feedback on the wireframes, it's important to present it to them. We need evidence that we presented it to them that we can refer back to if they try to make large revisions to the mockup.”
Now that we’ve done the heavy lifting with wireframes and mockups, it’s time to add the flair in the design phase. This part of the website design process adds colors, fonts, and images as the overall visual identity gets layered onto the structure we’ve built.
Design isn’t just about making things look pretty (although that’s definitely a perk). A well-designed site can be the difference between someone staying and exploring or bouncing in frustration. Great design balances aesthetics and usability, making your website both visually appealing and functional.
If you’re feeling stuck in the design phase, you can check out our guide for the best design collaboration tips.
Here is our best practice when moving from wireframes to the design during the website design process:
“I feel like usability is probably a bigger priority than making a website look “cool”: we think about intuitive navigation, clear hierarchy, accessibility, and legibility first. It’s not just about taking the wireframe and making it look pretty, but making sure that it actually translates to a point where it's easy to use and key actions on the site are simple. Overall, I think my goal is to create an experience that's both visually appealing and functionally effective.”
You’ve nailed the design. The colors, layout, and visual hierarchy are on point. You’re past the halfway point of the website design process. Now, it’s time to weave in the content.
Good content doesn’t just fit into a design—it enhances it. Here’s how to make your words work in harmony with your visuals.
Design already creates a visual hierarchy that guides the user’s eye, but the content has to complement this flow. Here’s what content you should be taking care of during the website design process:
Just as your design follows a style guide, so should your content. The tone, voice, and messaging need to be consistent throughout the website design process, and they should complement the visual identity you’ve created.
Remember that your website is likely being viewed on a variety of devices—from desktops to smartphones. This means the content might need to be adjusted for responsive design.
Now that you’ve got a polished design and your content is in place, it’s time for the development phase of the website design process—where the visual concepts you’ve worked so hard on come to life as a functional website. However, moving from design to development is not always a smooth ride. There are a few common challenges that come up when bridging the gap between what’s on paper (or screen) and what’s possible in code. Here are our best practices:
“When we design, the final phase is preparing dev-ready files—high-fidelity mockups on desktop and mobile. We pass over a whole component library and style sheet to the developers so they know what elements are easy to import. This includes buttons, hover states, any type of micro-interactions, and any images the dev team would need.
These are the elements we're testing for in UAT to make sure everything we designed is transferred over seamlessly to dev. Essentially, we're creating a design system that dev can easily understand and know what they need to do.”
“At Marketwake, we involve dev in design from the beginning to make sure whatever we are designing is able to be developed within the CMS system we're using. Then, for developers, I break out what they have to develop by module.”
After months of planning, designing, developing, and testing, the last critical step of the website design process is Quality Assurance (QA). Quality Assurance is the process of systematically reviewing and testing your website to ensure it meets all project requirements and functions without any flaws.
Here are some of the things you should be looking for in the QA stage of the website design process:
First and foremost, make sure every interactive element on your website works as it should. This includes:
Your website might look stunning in Chrome, but how does it perform in Safari, Firefox, or Edge? Cross-browser testing guarantees that your website works seamlessly on all major browsers. This test includes:
With mobile traffic accounting for a significant portion of website visitors, mobile responsiveness is critical. This test ensures that your site:
No one likes a slow website. Performance and speed testing confirm your site is loading quickly, providing a smooth experience for users. Slow loading times can lead to higher bounce rates and negatively impact your search engine rankings.
Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix can help you:
Your content is just as important as your design. Content and visual testing ensure that everything is in place:
Neil and Taylor both use Punchlist every day to help speed up QA and revisions during the website design process at their agency. Here’s what they have to say:
“Punchlist provides a way for our clients to be heard. It also creates a literal checklist for us to make sure we're addressing every single concern or feedback point. Plus, it’s a great place for us to communicate. If I need to talk to a content strategist, copywriter, or developer, I can flag any issues, we can work on it together, and then we can solve it and move forward. It really helps elevate the work and brings the client into the process but in a very collaborative way.”
“Punchlist has truly made my job SO much easier. Before Punchlist I was creating tasks for every team member I wanted feedback from and manually sharing a website link, document, or design for them to review. I was also having my team record their own feedback in their own docs for me to collect and filter what type of feedback and priority. Then, I would have to upload screen recordings and screenshots to a Google Drive folder, link those screenshots and recordings in a Google spreadsheet, and make a checkbox for our devs to let me know when a fix was made, but there was no way to notify me when it was done other than when they contacted me separately or tagged me in the cell of the sheet.”
After Punchlist I now am sharing one link and literally all of those steps from before happen in one place.”
Congratulations, you’ve gotten through the website design process and your website is live! But the work doesn’t stop there. Once a site is launched, the post-launch and maintenance phase of the website design process begins. This phase is all about keeping your website performing well, up-to-date, and secure.
Here’s what you should be focusing on during this phase of the website design process:
Even after launch, you should continuously monitor your site’s performance to make sure it runs quickly and efficiently.
Once your website is live, tracking its performance and gathering feedback from users is essential for ongoing improvement.
Even with thorough testing, unexpected bugs or issues can still crop up after the website design process. Ongoing monitoring ensures these are addressed quickly.
The website design process can be extremely time-consuming, especially with the amount of meetings, feedback, and revisions you have to go through to get to the final product.
To streamline your website design process, try Punchlist! Our easy-to-use tool consolidates feedback so you can collect and manage feedback—all in one place (it’s our one-two punch).
To get started, sign up for a 30-day free trial today!
