How to Plan a Website

Name the one job your site must do

Every effective website has a primary job. It might be to make the phone ring, to take bookings, to sell a product, to build a mailing list, or simply to reassure someone who already heard your name that you are real and reputable. Write that job down in a single sentence. When later decisions get difficult — what goes on the home page, what the main button says — you will settle them by asking which choice serves that one job.

Secondary goals are fine, but rank them. A site that tries to do ten things equally well usually does none of them clearly. A site with one obvious purpose and two supporting ones feels focused to the visitor.

Picture the people who will visit

You are not building the site for yourself; you are building it for the people you want to reach. Sketch two or three realistic visitors: what they already know, what worries them, what question brought them to you, and what would make them act. A prospective customer comparing three suppliers needs different things than a returning client looking for your hours.

This is not academic. Knowing your visitors tells you what to put first, what jargon to drop, and which proof — reviews, examples, credentials — actually reassures them. The Nielsen Norman Group has long argued that even a lightweight, honest picture of your audience beats designing for an imaginary "everyone."

Map a small, honest sitemap

A sitemap is just the list of pages and how they nest. Most small sites need far fewer than owners expect. A common, effective shape is:

• Home — what you do, for whom, and the next step, above the fold.
• About — the story and the people, building trust.
• Services or Products — one page, or one page per major offering.
• Proof — examples, case studies, or testimonials.
• Contact — how to reach you and what happens next.

Resist the urge to add pages "just in case." Every extra page is something to write, maintain, and keep current. If a page would not clearly help a visitor or move your primary goal, leave it out. You can always add later once you have evidence people want it.

Write the content before you design

The most common planning mistake is choosing a beautiful template and then trying to pour real words into boxes that were never sized for them. Flip the order. Draft the actual headline, the real paragraphs, the genuine list of services. Content-first planning, championed in the UK government's widely respected content design guidance, means the design serves the message instead of squeezing it.

Your draft does not have to be polished. It has to be true and complete enough that a designer knows how much space each idea needs. When words come first, the layout almost designs itself.

Decide what "done" looks like

Agree, in advance, how you will know the site is working. It might be a number of enquiries per month, bookings taken, or newsletter sign-ups. Having a target keeps the project honest and gives you something concrete to improve after launch. A site is never truly finished — but knowing your measure of success tells you what to adjust first.

Gather what you will need

Before building starts, collect the practical ingredients: your logo and any brand colours, a short and long description of what you do, real photographs where you have them, a list of the questions customers ask most, and the exact wording of anything legal you must display. Having these ready prevents the long, expensive stalls that happen when a half-built site waits weeks for a missing paragraph.

From plan to pages

With a clear purpose, a real audience, a lean sitemap, and draft content in hand, you are ready to think about how it should look. The next chapter, on web design principles, turns your plan into pages that guide the eye and make the next step obvious.