Analyze and then draw a rough image of your web site

3. Analyze your competitors or others in the same industry

Your competitors might already be on the Web. Visit their sites and, if they are drawing a lot of clients, hopefully not from you, learn from them. You can’t duplicate what they have done but you can either improve on their weaknesses or offer a more compelling option.

Then, see how they present themselves, their products or services offline. Draw conclusions on what make them winners or losers.

4. Make a mental picture or draw a rough image

Having done the first three steps, the creative juice will start to flow. If not, go back to #1 to #3 above and review what you have done. You can then draw a mental and rough image of how you would like your home page to look like.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. Good design does not happen in a single burst of creative energy. It comes from drawing the best from out of a few choices. Draw as many variations of your initial image as time would permit. Use basic forms of square, rectangle, circle, ellipse and polygons to layout the position of the headline, the photo or graphic, the body of text and navigational elements. Use colored pencils or crayons to rough out some color ideas.

If you think this part needs an outside resource, I agree. Compelling web page design is in the realm of professionals. But you still need to make a few rough sketches to give a professional graphic designer some idea of what you want. Let’s make one thing clear here. A web programmer or coder is not a graphic designer. I have nothing against the so-called web technologists but most graphic designers have the talent and the experience to communicate ideas visually. There are authoring tools in the graphic designer’s arsenal that can do the job of coding more efficiently than raw coding. Web coders can do a better job at server side scripting and coding, I must admit.