The Website Design Process: 7 Questions I Ask Before Building a Website
A good website design process doesn’t start with choosing colours, fonts or deciding what the homepage should look like.
It starts with questions.
Before I start designing a website for a client, I want to understand the business, the people it needs to reach and what the website actually needs to achieve. Otherwise, it’s very easy to end up with a website that looks great but doesn’t do much for the business.
Over the years, I’ve found that asking the right questions at the beginning makes the entire website design process easier, from planning the site structure and content to SEO, user experience and conversion optimisation.
So, if you’re planning a new website or redesigning an existing one, these are the seven questions I ask before starting a website project.
1. What is the primary goal of the website?
This is always one of my first questions.
What does the business actually want the website to achieve?
It sounds simple, but “we need a new website” isn’t really a business goal.
A website might be intended to:
- Generate more leads and enquiries
- Sell products online
- Increase bookings
- Generate quote requests
- Encourage people to call the business
- Showcase a portfolio
- Establish credibility
- Attract customers through Google
- Provide information to existing customers
- Support an existing sales or marketing process
The answer affects almost every part of the website design process.
For example, an e-commerce website needs a very different structure and user journey from a professional services website designed primarily to generate enquiries.
A local business might need to focus heavily on location, services, reviews and contact information. A B2B company might need detailed service pages, case studies and lead-generation content.
So before I think about what the website should look like, I want to understand what it needs to do.
What defines success?
I also want to know how we’ll measure whether the website is working.
- Is success more enquiries?
- More sales?
- More organic traffic?
- More bookings?
- Better-quality leads?
- More phone calls?
This becomes particularly important when planning SEO.
Getting traffic to a website isn’t necessarily the objective. Getting the right people to the website and helping them take the right action is far more useful.
That’s an important distinction in the website design process.
2. Who is your ideal customer?
The second question is about the person on the other side of the screen.
Who are we actually building this website for?
Understanding your target audience should happen before the website structure and content are finalised.
I want to know:
- Who are your typical customers?
- What are they looking for?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
- What questions do they ask?
- What concerns might prevent them from buying?
- What information do they need before contacting you?
- What would make them choose your business?
This is where website design, SEO and user experience start to overlap.
People don’t necessarily search Google using the terminology a business uses internally.
A company might describe itself as a “provider of integrated commercial environmental solutions.”
Its potential customer might simply search:
“environmental consultant near me.”
Or:
“environmental impact assessment South Africa.”
Understanding the customer helps determine not only what the website says, but also what topics, services, questions and search terms the website needs to address.
Build for people first, search engines second
SEO is important, but I don’t believe websites should be written for search engines.
They should be useful to people.
Google’s job is essentially to help people find useful information. The more clearly a website answers the questions its audience is asking, the stronger foundation it has for organic search visibility.
That’s why understanding the customer is one of the most important steps in my website design process.
3. Why should people trust your business?
Someone visiting your website may have never heard of your business before.
They don’t know you.
They don’t know whether you’re good at what you do.
And they certainly don’t have any reason to believe every claim on your homepage.
So I ask:
Why should someone trust you?
This is where evidence becomes important.
I look for things such as:
- Customer testimonials
- Google reviews
- Case studies
- Client logos
- Awards and certifications
- Industry memberships
- Examples of previous work
- Before-and-after examples
- Real photographs
- Your team
- Your company’s history
- Relevant experience
There’s a big difference between saying:
“We provide exceptional service.”
and showing a detailed case study explaining what the client needed, what you did and what the result was.
The second gives the visitor something to evaluate.
Trust is also important for SEO
Trust isn’t only about conversion.
A website needs to demonstrate who is behind the business and why its information should be taken seriously. Clear business information, genuine expertise, useful content, customer experiences and appropriate author or company information can all contribute to a stronger overall online presence.
This is particularly important for businesses competing in search results where customers have several alternatives.
The website shouldn’t just tell people you’re good.
It should give them evidence.
4. What action should visitors take?
Once someone arrives on the website, what do you want them to do?
This is one of the most important website conversion questions to answer before designing the site.
Depending on the business, the desired action might be:
- Buy a product
- Request a quote
- Complete an enquiry form
- Call the business
- Book an appointment
- Schedule a consultation
- Make a reservation
- Download a guide
- Visit a physical location
The mistake I often see is trying to make every page do everything.
A homepage might have ten different buttons competing for attention.
A service page might explain the service beautifully but provide no obvious next step.
A product page might contain plenty of information but make purchasing unnecessarily complicated.
Every page needs a purpose
That doesn’t mean every page should have only one button.
It means every page should have a clear primary purpose.
For example:
- Service page: Explain the service → generate an enquiry.
- Product page: Answer buying questions → make the sale.
- Location page: Demonstrate local relevance → encourage contact or visit.
- Blog article: Answer a question → guide the reader towards a relevant service.
This is where good website design becomes more than visual design.
The layout, content, navigation and calls to action should all work together to move the visitor towards the next logical step.
5. What makes your business different?
This is the question that can make the biggest difference to the final website.
Why should someone choose your business instead of your competitors?
If the answer is:
“We provide excellent service.”
I’m going to keep asking questions.
Because your competitors probably say exactly the same thing.
Your difference could be:
- Specialist expertise
- Years of experience
- A particular methodology
- A unique product
- A specific target market
- A geographic advantage
- Faster turnaround times
- Personal service
- A guarantee
- Better support
- More comprehensive services
- A particular qualification or certification
It could also be your personality.
Not every business needs to look corporate, polished and serious.
Some brands should feel approachable.
Some should feel premium.
Some should feel adventurous.
Some should feel technical.
Some should feel local and personal.
Don’t design another generic website
When I start a website project, clients will sometimes show me websites they like.
That’s useful.
It tells me something about their visual preferences.
But I don’t want to simply copy the appearance of another business.
The website needs to communicate your value proposition, your positioning and your personality.
A website can be visually impressive and still be completely forgettable.
Good website design should help a business stand out for the right reasons.
6. What website content do you already have?
Here’s a question that can dramatically affect the website design process:
What content already exists?
Do you have:
- Website copy?
- Professional photographs?
- Product images?
- Videos?
- Brand guidelines?
- Logos?
- Brochures?
- Case studies?
- Testimonials?
- Reviews?
- Downloadable documents?
- Blog articles?
- Social media content?
I ask this early because content and web design are closely connected.
A designer can create beautiful layouts using placeholder text and stock photographs.
But eventually, the real content has to go into those layouts.
And that’s when problems sometimes appear.
The headline is too long.
The service description needs another section.
There aren’t enough photographs.
The case study needs more space.
The product information is missing.
The page needs an FAQ section.
Suddenly, the “finished” design isn’t finished at all.
Content should influence the design
This is why I prefer to think about content and structure together.
Good website content helps determine:
- What pages the website needs
- How those pages should be structured
- What information belongs above the fold
- Where calls to action should appear
- Which pages should target specific search intent
- What internal links should connect related content
- Where supporting images, videos or FAQs will add value
And from an SEO perspective, this is particularly important.
A website needs enough useful, relevant content to demonstrate its expertise and properly answer the questions potential customers are asking.
Design shouldn’t be used to hide a lack of content.
It should make good content easier to consume.
7. What happens after the website goes live?
This is the question that often gets forgotten during the website design process.
Everyone is focused on launch day.
The new website goes live.
The champagne comes out.
And then… what?
A website isn’t necessarily finished when it launches.
In fact, that’s when you finally get to see how real visitors interact with it.
After launch, there may be opportunities to:
- Improve underperforming pages
- Add new content
- Target additional search queries
- Improve conversion rates
- Add new products or services
- Update business information
- Publish case studies
- Strengthen internal linking
- Improve technical SEO
- Monitor Google Search Console
- Analyse website traffic
- Test calls to action
- Keep WordPress and plugins updated
Search behaviour also changes.
Businesses change.
Customers change.
Competitors change.
And search itself continues to evolve, including the growing role of AI-powered search and conversational discovery.
That’s why I prefer to think of a website as an ongoing marketing asset, rather than a once-off design project.
A Better Website Design Process Starts Before Design
There’s a common misconception that website design starts when the designer opens Figma, Photoshop, WordPress or whatever tool they’re using.
I don’t think it does.
The real website design process starts with understanding the business.
- What are we trying to achieve?
- Who are we trying to reach?
- Why should they trust you?
- What action do we want them to take?
- What makes you different?
- What content do we have?
- And what happens after launch?
Those answers influence the sitemap, page structure, content strategy, SEO strategy, user experience, calls to action and ultimately the visual design.
That’s why I spend time asking questions before I start building.
Because a website shouldn’t simply be a digital version of a company brochure.
It should have a job.
And the better we understand that job at the beginning, the better chance the finished website has of doing it.
Planning a new website?
If you’re considering a new website or redesigning an existing one, don’t start by asking “What should my website look like?”
Start by asking:
“What does my business need this website to achieve?”
The answer to that question is where the website design process really begins.
