How to Plan Your Website Design With a Wireframe

A great website isn’t designed by accident. Every website you love starts with a well-thought-out structure and intuitive navigation that guides users towards a desired goal. That’s where website wireframes can be helpful.

Website wireframes are your guide to creating an intuitive, user-friendly experience that keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to take action. Wireframes provide a clear roadmap for your website's structure, layout, and user journey.

Wireframes may seem complex at first, but we’ll help you learn to use wireframes as an effective tool for building your website and ensuring it’s user-friendly and prompts people to action.

What is a website wireframe?

Just as an architect uses blueprints to plan the layout of a home, wireframes help you plan out your website before you begin building it. Think of a website wireframe as a map for your user journey—a simple, visual guide that outlines the structure, layout, and key features. 

You can sketch by hand or use a design tool—it's not about the final look and feel. Instead, it's like a sketch or prototype that helps you plan and visualize your site's layout.

How to use wireframing for a website

One advantage of wireframing before you start building a site is that you can experiment and make a design plan without getting stuck on smaller details or making changes in a website builder. With a website wireframe you can:

• Create a clear visual outline. Use basic shapes, lines, and placeholder text to represent page elements. Focus on function—you can choose the actual images or text later.

• Test ideas. Experiment with different website structures and navigation options. Try different layouts to ensure pages are clear and uncluttered for a smooth user experience.

• Make a roadmap for user goals. Every element in a wireframe should have a purpose, guiding users toward a desired outcome, whether that's making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or contacting you.

• Plan for responsive design. Sketch out how your layouts could adapt to different screen sizes—desktop, tablet, and mobile—to create a seamless experience across all devices.

With these uses in mind, let's explore the key benefits of wireframing and how it can transform your website creation process.

Benefits of wireframing a website

Don't worry if wireframing feels unfamiliar. Wireframing makes it easier to experiment with design options, work with a partner, and gives you a structured plan to follow when it’s time to build your website.

1. Endless design opportunity

Wireframes allow you to explore many design variations quickly.

Unlike a fully fleshed-out design that includes colors, fonts, imagery, and text, a website wireframe is more pared back. You can mock up any page of your website with multiple possibilities in just a few minutes.

At this stage, the goal is to roughly sketch the key pages of your website. Wireframing helps you make sure your layouts keep the focus on the main goal of your page or site. For example, a visually crowded homepage might distract from your call to action to shop from your store. 

While you can definitely start to build a site without wireframes, it’s a good exercise if you feel unsure about where to start. If you go in with no idea of the design you want, that can lead to backtracking and wasted time. 

2. Collaboration made easy

If your website project involves collaboration, wireframes are an invaluable tool. 

Wireframes provide a tangible representation of your website's structure and layout, but make it easier to present multiple versions or start fresh than a designed website. It can also be easier to update a wireframe together than it is to try to work on a website at the same time.

Collaboration during the wireframing process can also lead to a better user journey and clarity on what assets you need for the final website design. You can ask your collaborator—whether a friend, colleague, or professional designer—to give feedback on how your design would work for them as a visitor to your site. This can help you identify confusing or overly busy layouts and pages.

This collaborative approach not only refines your ideas but also builds a shared sense of excitement for the final product and sets the stage for a successful launch.

3. From idea to reality

Creativity is the heart and soul of web design, but it can sometimes feel like a whirlwind of ideas and opinions. A wireframe acts as your anchor, helping you channel that boundless creativity into a structured plan.

As you draw out your wireframes, you’ll map out the connections between different ideas, prioritize essential elements, and establish a clear hierarchy of information.

With this visual blueprint in hand, you can transform ideas into reality. Instead of chasing after hundreds of design options, you’ll be following an organized plan that simplifies your decision-making at every step of the design process. 

How to create a winning wireframe

Now that you see how you can benefit from working with a website wireframe, we can discuss how to create one. These are the steps to creating winning wireframes.

1. Define your goals

Every website has a purpose. As you begin your website, ask yourself this important question: “What is the main goal (or action) of the website?” 

Every website should have one primary goal. For example, you might want people to sign up for an event or meeting, fill out an intake form, subscribe to your newsletter, or make a purchase.

The answer to this question will help you define every aspect of your website. 

A clear goal will help you:

• Determine which key pages the site needs

• Ensure every page and section points users to that goal

• Figure out what content blocks are needed for your target audience—headlines, text, images, videos, galleries, and forms—to get people to that goal

Once you’ve defined your primary goal, you can start to sketch your website wireframe.  

2. Map out your content

Now that you’ve thought through key elements associated with the site you’re about to create, including its purpose, audience, pages, and type of content, you’re ready to build your wireframe.

1. Create a basic hierarchy.

2. Include key pages and sections.

3. Sketch out the layout of each page.

4. Include static sections like the header, main navigation, and footer.

You can wireframe your pages by hand or with software made for wireframing. 

Your first website wireframe draft isn’t set in stone. After you map out your content, you may decide to move things around, iterate on your initial design, and explore various layouts. 

3. Focus on user flow

Remember, your website wireframe is more about site structure and functionality than about aesthetics. You’ll have time to design the look and feel later. At this early planning stage, the focus is to ensure the user flow prompts people to take your desired action.

• Determine the best location for elements like images, text, buttons, forms, and calls-to-action (CTAs).

• Place these elements on each page, moving them around as needed for better impact and greater navigational ease. 

• As you check your wireframe, consider the user flow and how visitors will interact with the site.

As you work on Step 3, you can go back to Step 2 to adjust what you feel needs to change to work better for site visitors. Once you finish step 3, you will be ready to start implementing your design.

Follow our guide to choosing website colors, typography, and graphics

Ready to wireframe?

Wireframing a website is a fun and creative step in building your online presence.

It helps you clarify your goals, visualize the user journey, and collaborate effectively with others. By planning ahead with a wireframe, you can plan your content, streamline your user flow, and ultimately create a beautiful website that prompts users to your desired action.