How to Design a Website in 2023: A Step-by-Step Guide from Idea to Launch

Designing your website seems like a complex task. But with the right tools, tips, and resources, you can accomplish it. Thanks to the plethora of internet tools, you don’t need coding knowledge to design a website from the ground up. Of course, you can hire a professional web designer, but follow along with us if you’re low on budget.

This post will show you how to design a basic website. Not only that but a website that will convert leads into sales because user experience and ease of use are essential to ensure that your website does its job of informing and selling to your customers.

So, let’s begin with the first step:

Choose a Domain Name

Designing a website begins with a domain name. Picking a domain name is similar to choosing a brand name. You can go for something simple, recognizable, and memorable. In fact, your domain name should align closely with your brand name.

A domain is a unique name that identifies your brand. It allows users to find you on the internet. Make it too complicated or irrelevant what you do; users will have trouble remembering it. Don’t rush to design a website before picking an appropriate domain name.

How to Register a Domain Name in Dubai, UAE | Domain Registration Guide

Get a Hosting Company

After choosing a domain, you can continue your journey by selecting an excellent hosting company. But why do you need one?

Similar to how your business needs a physical location to store and sell. You will need a digital place to store your data and make your website available online. A web hosting company can do this by renting out space on its web servers.

There are tons of good web hosting providers, but you should choose them wisely. Research different companies, analyze your requirements and budget, and choose accordingly.

You can consider the following qualities to make sure the hosting company is good:

• System Compatibility
• Plugin Compatibility for WordPress
• Security
• Reliability
• Uptime
• Price
• Customer Service
• Performance and Features
• Updates and Backups
• Hardware

You can find all these features and qualities here in AEserver’s UAE-based hosting plans.

How To Buy Cheap Web Hosting In Dubai, UAE | A Simple Guide to Get You Started

Choose a Platform To Design Your Website

Now that you have chosen a web hosting company. It’s time to decide which platform to choose for designing a simple website. For successful web designing, you should find a platform that suits your needs, long-term plans, and goals.

To design a website from scratch, you will need coding skills. Another yet easy way is to use a website builder. The most popular web builders are WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly, with WordPress being the most used platform.

Overall we think that WordPress can be the choice for anyone to create a self-hosted website. But that doesn’t mean everyone should use WordPress. If you want to choose any other option, you should be able to articulate why you are selecting these platforms over WordPress, and if you can’t, you should stick with WordPress.

How To Choose Domain & Hosting Combos For Business

Web Page Layout

A web page layout refers to how all of your web components are placed within a page. It may include navigation bars, text, images, videos, and more. Creating a layout before designing will allow you to hone the user journey. The overall goal is to make it easy for users to browse your website and read the content.

Using plenty of white space helps to create an uncluttered look. Creating a similar layout on every page allows users to learn how to navigate the site and find information quickly.

Website Navigation and Usability

Website navigation includes the main navigation bar and all of the links within the site. Most websites have a navigation bar that runs along the top of the page or the bottom side. It helps to use drop-down menus for similar group pages and keep the navigation bar from becoming messy.

For starters, keep your main heading straightforward. Becoming creative with navigation titles can overwhelm the users and cause them to take no action.

Effective navigation can help your customers to buy your products. Always put the essential items at the beginning or at the end because this is where attention and retention are closest.

Colours

A website’s color scheme plays a vital role in how visitors perceive the site. Flashy colors can easily send away your visitors. Keep in mind that a website should be easy on the eyes. A dark-colored text on a light-colored background would be easy to read.

Think of a color scheme that can go with your logo, navigation bar, buttons, and links. Always stay consistent with the color of your website to make it easy for visitors to browse each page.

Font and Typography

Like color schemes, using funky and difficult-to-read fonts can turn users off. Additionally, some fonts are globally recognized throughout different web browsers. If a website is using a funky font, it may not display correctly on a user’s browser. Some of the safe fonts include Ariel, Times, and Verdana.

Many designers make the mistake of using a small font size. At the same time, it helps to keep the design looking clean but is very hard for the users to read. A font size of 10 to 12 is acceptable for the standard paragraphs.

How To Choose & Buy a Cloud Server in Dubai Data Center

Graphics, Videos, and Animations

Rich multimedia is the piece of content that helps bring a website alive. Whenever you create multimedia, save it in a web-friendly format. It will ensure that web browsers can easily read the files. It also keeps the file in a compressed format so that it won’t take long to load a web page.

When using the content of others, be sure to ask for permission or at least use credits or backlinks to their website.

Incorporating Ads

Running online ads is a great way to generate passive income to pay the cost of website maintenance. Plenty of companies pay website owners a small amount of money to place ads on their sites. Google and Facebook ads are the most popular types. Website owners earn money when users click through ads on their pages.

Various companies also offer affiliate programs. An excellent way to find affiliate programs and ads is to look for companies that offer similar products or services that may interest the site’s visitors.

Maintain Your Site

Now that you have all the elements in place, all that’s left is maintaining your website and making sure it’s running efficiently.

Is My WordPress Site Secure? Ten Essential Steps To Protect Your WordPress Site

But What Does Maintenance Entail?

Starting with security, our security experts recommend that you use a solid password and change it frequently. Use security plugins and anti-malware software, update your software and third-party apps to the latest version and implement security best practices within your organization.

Furthermore, create a backup of your website and update all backup files regularly.

Additionally, test your website for errors and broken links and fix them as soon as possible. Perform SEO and run performance tests.

As maintenance goes, much traffic and new content being added should be maintained every three months.

Conclusion

That was the basics of what you need to know to design a website without coding skills. Now it’s a challenging job to turn this theory into practice and then maintain your website to keep it running efficiently.

A well-designed and excellent-performing website that prioritizes customer engagement can do wonders for your bottom line.

When you are ready to get your domain registered, you can check the availability of a domain name + extension in our domain checker, where AEserver offers 500+ domain extensions. Try AEserver today for domain registration and the best hosting plans. Some of our hosting plans even include free domain registration. In addition, when you buy Managed WordPress hosting, you’ll get more speed, you’ll get extra tools, better security features for WP, and website backups on almost every server.