You’re about to learn how to design a website from scratch in a way that covers both UX design decisions and practical build choices, from picking tools to launching and maintaining your site.
By the end of this guide you’ll have a clear sitemap, basic wireframes, a chosen tech stack (builder or CMS), a launch checklist, and a simple plan to keep your site fast, secure, and up to date.
TL;DR: 9-Step Website Design Checklist
Follow these steps if you just need the quick version of how to design a website from scratch.
- Define your goals, audience, and brand tone so every design decision supports a clear purpose.
- Choose and register a memorable domain name, then set up reliable hosting and SSL.
- Decide your platform (AI website builder, classic website builder, or CMS like WordPress) based on budget, control, and skills.
- Plan your structure with a sitemap and wireframes that map out pages, navigation, and content blocks.
- Design your visual system (colors, typography, spacing, imagery) with a strong focus on UX and accessibility.
- Build responsive layouts so your site looks and works great on mobile, tablet, and desktop.
- Add content, CTAs, and basic on‑page SEO (titles, meta, headings, internal links, alt text).
- Optimize performance and Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP), plus run cross‑browser and device testing.
- Launch your site, monitor analytics and search data, and improve it with ongoing content and UX updates.
If you want a printable version, use the “Website design from scratch checklist” section at the end.
Who this guide is for
This guide is designed for complete beginners, small business owners, and early‑stage founders who want a practical, non‑fluffy path to designing a website from scratch.
It also works for freelancers or marketers who already use tools like WordPress or website builders but want a clearer UX and SEO‑friendly framework to follow.
What you’ll have by the end
When you finish this guide, you’ll have a documented set of website goals, a basic sitemap, simple wireframes, and a chosen platform or builder that fits your skills and budget.
You’ll also leave with a checklist for launch, performance, and SEO, so you can keep improving your site instead of treating it as a one‑time project.
Step 1: Understand the purpose of your website
Before you touch any design tool, get crystal clear on why your site exists and what success looks like.
Common primary goals include selling products, generating leads, showcasing a portfolio, providing information, or building a community around your brand.
Ask yourself:
- What action do you want visitors to take on your site first and second?
- Are you trying to increase leads, sales, bookings, or brand awareness?
- How will you measure success (form submissions, calls, revenue, email signups)?
Plain‑English: purpose is simply “what you want this website to do for your business or project.”
Step 2: Define your audience and brand tone
Next, clarify who you’re designing for so your structure, layout, and content feel like they were built specifically for them.
Look at demographics (age, location, role) and psychographics (goals, fears, motivations) for the people most likely to visit your site.
Decide on a clear brand voice—formal, conversational, or friendly—and stick to it so your copy, CTAs, and visuals feel consistent across pages.
Plain‑English: brand voice is just the way your website “sounds” to visitors when they read your words.
Step 3: Register your domain and set up hosting
Choose a domain name that’s short, easy to say aloud, and closely connected to your brand name or main service.
Whenever possible, pick a .com or another trusted TLD, and avoid confusing spellings or hyphen chains that users will mistype.
Then pick a hosting setup that matches your current size but won’t choke under growth: shared hosting for simple brochure sites, managed WordPress or VPS for more serious traffic and customization.
Plain‑English: hosting is the “computer in the cloud” that stores your site files and makes them available to visitors 24/7.
Step 4: Choose your platform or website builder
At this point you need to decide whether you’ll use a website builder, a CMS like WordPress, or go deeper with custom code.
Popular options include drag‑and‑drop website builders, AI website builders, and CMS platforms with themes and page builders.
Examples of modern builders and CMS options include:
- WordPress with a visual builder such as Elementor for flexible design and strong plugin ecosystems.
- Wix and Wix’s AI website builder for beginners who want fast setup and hosting in one bundle.
- Hostinger Website Builder and similar AI‑driven tools that generate layouts and content suggestions for you.
- Canva’s website builder for very simple, visually driven one‑page and multi‑page sites.
Plain‑English: a CMS (content management system) is a tool that lets you add and edit pages and blog posts without touching raw code.
Can AI design a website from scratch for you?
AI website builders now let you describe your business in a few sentences and get a complete starter site—pages, navigation, and dummy content—in minutes.
Tools like Wix’s AI builder, Hostinger Website Builder, Framer’s AI features, and newer platforms like Relume can generate sitemaps, wireframes, layouts, and even SEO‑optimized copy as a first draft.
AI can’t fully replace thoughtful UX and brand strategy, but it can massively speed up the early stages and give you something to refine instead of starting from a blank page.
Step 5: Plan your structure with a sitemap and wireframes
Now you’ll map out how your website is organized so visitors always know where they are and where to go next.
Create a simple sitemap listing your core pages (Home, About, Services or Products, Blog, Contact) plus any important subpages.
Then sketch low‑fidelity wireframes showing the basic layout for key templates like the home page, a service page, and a blog post page.
Each wireframe should indicate where your logo, navigation, hero section, content blocks, and CTAs appear without worrying about final colors or images yet.
Plain‑English: a wireframe is just a black‑and‑white sketch of a page layout used to agree on structure before you spend time on visuals.
What do you need before designing a website from scratch?
Before you open Figma or your page builder, gather your brand logo, color ideas, rough copy for key pages, and any existing photos or product shots.
You should also have a short list of competitor or inspiration websites and a rough idea of your initial navigation menu.
Step 6: Apply visual design and UX principles
With your structure in place, it’s time to design your visual system in a way that supports usability instead of fighting it.
Choose a small, consistent color palette, pick two to three fonts (for headings, body text, and maybe accents), and define spacing rules so elements breathe.
Keep layouts simple, with clear content hierarchy (H1, H2, H3, short paragraphs, bullet lists) and obvious CTAs that stand out from surrounding content.
Plain‑English: UX (user experience) is about how easy and satisfying it feels to use your site, not just how good it looks.
Step 7: Build a responsive website (mobile first)
Your visitors will come from phones, tablets, and desktops, so your layout must adapt smoothly to different screen sizes.
A mobile‑first approach means designing for the smallest screens first, then scaling up, which naturally keeps layouts focused and content concise.
Plain‑English: responsive design just means your site rearranges itself automatically so it’s easy to use on any device
Step 8: Add content, CTAs, and SEO fundamentals
Now populate your layouts with clear, benefit‑driven copy, helpful visuals, and strong calls to action that match your main goals.
For on‑page SEO, make sure each page has a focused title tag, meta description, single H1, structured headings, descriptive URLs, and image alt text describing what’s in each image.
Use internal links to connect related pages (for example, from this guide to your web design, SEO, and hosting or support service pages) so both users and search engines can understand your site’s structure and topical authority.
Plain‑English: internal links are just normal links between your own pages that help visitors and Google find related content.
Step 9: Optimize performance and Core Web Vitals
Performance and Core Web Vitals are now a major part of user experience and have a direct impact on how Google evaluates your pages.
The three primary Core Web Vitals metrics are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) for loading speed, Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) for visual stability, and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) for responsiveness.
Aim for LCP under about 2.5 seconds, CLS below around 0.1, and INP under roughly 200 ms for the majority of your traffic to provide a strong experience.
To improve these metrics, compress and properly size images, use modern formats like WebP, minimize render‑blocking JavaScript and CSS, enable caching, and consider a CDN to serve assets from servers closer to users.
Run your pages through tools like PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report to spot and track issues over time.
Step 10: Test, launch, and iterate
Before launch, test your site across major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) and devices to catch layout issues, broken links, or forms that don’t submit.
Click through every primary flow (such as home to service to contact) as if you were a first‑time visitor and ask a few non‑technical friends or colleagues to do the same.
When everything is working, connect analytics, set up basic goal tracking, and submit your sitemap to Google Search Console so search engines can discover your pages faster.
After launch, monitor metrics like time on page, scroll depth, bounce rate, and CTA clicks to see where readers drop off and where you might simplify or clarify.
Beginner 1‑page website plan
If a full multi‑page build feels overwhelming, start with a simple one‑page website that clearly explains who you are, what you offer, and what visitors should do next.
Your one‑page layout might include a hero section, short “about” block, services or features, testimonials or proof, FAQ, and a single primary CTA like booking a call or requesting a quote.
This minimal viable website gives you something real to promote while you gather feedback and plan additional pages later.
Timeline and budget expectations (without quoting your rates)
A simple brochure‑style site built with a modern website builder or theme can often be planned and launched in a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on how quickly content and assets are ready.
More complex projects with custom design, multiple templates, integrations, and heavy content typically stretch into several weeks or more of work.
Budget is influenced by the platform, design complexity, custom functionality, and whether you use an agency, freelancer, or do‑it‑yourself with a hosted builder.
FAQs about designing a website from scratch
Do you need coding skills to design a website from scratch?
You don’t strictly need coding skills because modern website builders and CMS platforms let you design and launch a site visually with drag‑and‑drop tools.
However, basic HTML and CSS knowledge gives you much more control over fine‑tuning layouts, fixing issues, and optimizing performance.
Should you use an AI website builder or design from scratch?
AI website builders are great if you want to move fast and get a solid draft that you can customize, especially for simple small‑business or personal sites.
If you need heavy customization, complex UX flows, or deep integrations, treating AI as a helper rather than the main driver and relying on a CMS or custom build is usually the better choice.
Can AI generate your website content and still be good for SEO?
AI can generate outlines, draft copy, and ideas quickly, but the strongest SEO and conversions still come from human‑edited content aligned with your unique expertise and audience.
Search engines increasingly focus on experience and originality, so you should treat AI‑generated content as a starting point to refine, not a final product to publish without review.
How long does it take to design a website from scratch?
A very simple one‑page or small brochure site might be finished in a few days once copy and assets are ready, while more complex projects often take several weeks.
Timelines depend heavily on decision speed, content availability, stakeholder approvals, and any custom functionality you need.
What’s the difference between designing and developing a website from scratch?
Designing focuses on planning structure, UX, layout, and visuals—what users see and how they move through your site. Developing focuses on implementing that design in code or a builder, connecting integrations, and handling performance, security, and technical SEO.
Maintaining and updating your website over time
Once your site is live, keep your CMS, plugins, and themes updated, maintain SSL, and periodically review security and backups to protect user data.
Update content regularly, refresh outdated information, and publish new resources to support rankings and give visitors reasons to return.
Use analytics and Search Console data to see which topics and formats perform best, then double down on what works while improving or pruning underperforming content.
Need expert help bringing your vision to life?
Let Phoenix Premier Digital Marketing & Web Design transform your ideas into a high-performing, SEO-optimized website tailored for growth. Contact us today to get started on your digital journey!