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Before you open Showit, Squarespace, Elementor, or whatever you’re using to build or rebuild your site, take a moment. A website planning process isn’t the most fun part of creating a site, but it’s what decides whether you’ll love the finished result or end up wanting to redo it in eighteen months.
Most people skip this part. They open the builder, pick a template that looks nice, and start arranging the pages they think they’re supposed to have. Homepage, about, services, contact. Job done.
Then the site goes live, and something feels off. Not broken. Just not quite right. Maybe it works, but it doesn’t feel like you. Maybe it looks polished, but the right clients aren’t actually contacting you. Maybe it’s fine, but you don’t want to send people there.
The fix for that gap isn’t a better template or a different builder. It’s the planning that happens before any of it. The kind that decides what this site is actually for, who it’s for, and what it should make people feel and do.
Why Most Website Projects Start in the Wrong Place
The instinct, when you decide you want a new website, is to look at websites to see what you like. To browse templates. To save examples on Pinterest.
We all want something pretty after all. 
You find a template that catches your eye, you build your site to fit it, and six months later your site looks like a template that doesn’t quite fit your business. Because it wasn’t built for you. It was built for somebody else.
Or you write a list of pages you think you need: homepage, about, services, contact, blog, maybe a portfolio if you’re feeling fancy. You create the copy. The pages get made, and the site goes live. But somehow the website looks competent yet forgettable. Because nobody decided what each page was for, beyond “websites have these.”
All of that is the design and structure stage. None of it is the planning stage.
Somehow, these two got combined in the website building world, but design and structure decisions don’t make sense without the purpose decisions behind them. A template can’t tell you what your site should make people feel. A list of standard pages can’t tell you what each page is actually supposed to do. Both are answers without questions.
The version of building that actually works starts somewhere else entirely. It starts with what this site is for, before anyone touches a single page.
What a Website Planning Process Actually Does
A website planning process isn’t a project plan. It isn’t a setup checklist for buying a domain and choosing hosting. It isn’t picking your colours, fonts, or layout. Those things exist, and they have their place. But they’re the steps of building a site, not the planning that comes before.
A planning process is what happens before the building starts. It’s a sequence of decisions, not a sequence of tasks. The decisions sit upstream of every later choice: which template you pick, which pages you create, what colours feel right, what each page says, and how each page is structured.
Get the planning right, and the later decisions get easier. Templates start eliminating themselves. Page lists start writing themselves. Copy gets clearer because you know what each page is meant to do.
Get the planning wrong, and you’re making thousands of small choices in the dark. You’re picking fonts before you’ve decided what feeling those fonts should create. You’re writing about pages before you’ve decided what each page is for. You’re guessing.
Four decisions, in this order:
- Who this site is for, and what they want from it.
- What you want them to feel.
- What you want them to do.
- Then, the pages those decisions need.
That’s the planning. The build comes after.
Start With Who This Site Is For (And What They Want From It)
Who this site is for shapes everything else. The colours, the pages, the words on each page, the feeling it creates when someone lands. Every later decision gets easier or harder depending on how clearly you’ve answered this question first.
Some of my clients have the instinct to answer “everyone.” Or “anyone who needs help.” Or “the right kind of person.” And while I understand the inclination, they’re hiding from making an actual decision. A decision that won’t just help your website but also your business and marketing.
If you’ve done ideal client work, this is the moment to bring it back out. If you haven’t, start with this and come back when you have someone in mind. It helps to use a real human you’ve helped or a composite of real humans you most want to help as a starting point.Â
Once you know who they are, ask what they’re doing right before they land on your site.
- They’ve heard your name somewhere.Â
- They’ve read your newsletter.Â
- They’ve clicked a link in someone’s recommendation.Â
- They’ve Googled a question and your name came up.Â
- They’ve followed you on Instagram for a while and decided to look at the proper site.
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Any or all of these could be true.Â
Those are different entry points, but they have something in common. Every one of those people is asking a question. Not necessarily out loud, but in their head. Is this the right person for me? Do they actually do what I think they do? Are they still in business? What does it cost?
Your job is to design the site around those questions.
In other words, think about what they want from your site, not just what you want to tell them. The difference is significant. What you want to tell them is your story, your credentials, your method, your offers. What they want from the site is reassurance that they’re in the right place, evidence that you understand their problem, and a clear path to taking the next step.
Both things end up on the site eventually. But the second one comes first.
Then Decide What You Want People to Feel
So let’s assume you get the right person on your site. What should the next thirty seconds feel like for them?
Warm. Calm. Energetic. Playful. Grounded. Curious. Unhurried. Confident. None of those are universally “right.” They’re choices that fit the audience and the person behind the business.
The default answer is “professional.” That’s a real feeling, and for some businesses, speakers, consultants, anyone whose authority is the whole sell, it’s the right one. However, for most coaches and creatives, “professional” is the default choice of least resistance that neglects what the site actually needs to feel like.
A coach helping people through grief doesn’t want their site to feel energetic. A facilitator running silly creative workshops doesn’t want their site to feel grounded. A consultant working with high-end clients might want calm and confident, while a children’s illustrator wants playful and warm. The feeling should be specific enough that two people in the same industry would decide on different words.
If you’ve worked through my Marketing Strategy Starter Kit, the brand words exercise is the same work. If you need some help coming up with the right words, download the kit to get some examples. Use those words as your starting list.
Pick two or three feelings. Write them down. They become the test for every later decision. Does this colour feel calm? Does this image feel warm? Does this paragraph feel grounded?
If you’re rebuilding, there’s an extra layer to this. Your current site is already creating feelings. The question is whether they’re the feelings you want now. That gap is what the rebuild needs to close.Â
This post walks through how to spot the gap if your existing site feels off in ways you can’t quite name.
Once you know the feelings, the visual side gets clearer. Colours, fonts, imagery, spacing. If you want to look ahead to that side of your brand building, you could read my article Branding for Small Businesses.
But the website planning process isn’t where the colour palette gets picked. It’s where you decide what the colour palette should make people feel.
Need help with (re)building your website?
That happens to be exactly what I do! 😊Â
Get Clear on What You Want People to Do
A website without a clear “do” is an expensive online brochure. Every page presents information but never invites action. The visitor reads, nods, and leaves.
This is the decision most websites fudge. They list everything the business offers, point at the offerings, and trust that the right person will find the right thing on their own. They almost never do.
The fix isn’t a louder call-to-action button. It’s deciding, upfront, what you actually want each kind of visitor to do.
Different visitors at different points in their journey need different actions. A first-time visitor isn’t ready to book a paid 1:1, but might be ready for a free call. A long-time newsletter reader has often already decided they want help and is shopping for a specific service. Someone who arrived from a podcast wants to know more about you, maybe read another post or two.
Map the main visitor types you defined back in the “who” decision. For each, pick the one next step that makes sense for where they are. Newsletter signup. Book a call. Read this specific post. Browse the offers. Join the waitlist. Fill out a contact form.
That doesn’t mean every page should have one button. Most pages have a primary action and a secondary action. Primary is the most useful next step for the most common visitor on that page. Secondary is the off-ramp for visitors who aren’t ready for the primary yet.
If you can’t decide what each page should make people do, you’ll either ask for nothing or ask for everything. Both kill conversion.
The “do” doesn’t have to be a sale. It can be downloading a free resource, reading a blog post, signing up for your newsletter, etcetera. The right action is the next step in creating an authentic relationship, not the biggest possible commitment you can extract from someone.
Now You Can Plan the Pages
With three decisions made, this part gets surprisingly clean. You know who’s coming. You know what they should feel. You know what they should do. The pages are the structures that make those three things happen.
Most sites start with the standard list. Homepage, about, services, contact. Maybe a blog. Maybe testimonials. That list is a useful default, but it isn’t the answer for every business. Some sites need pages that aren’t on the standard list. Some sites need fewer pages than the standard list. Both kinds of sites can be excellent.
Start by asking what each visitor type needs to see to take the action you want them to take.
A first-time visitor needs a clear answer to “who is this for and what do they do?” That’s usually the homepage plus an “about you” page. One or both of those should have an “is this for me?” check, and some sense that other people have worked with you successfully.
A long-time newsletter reader needs to find the specific service they’re shopping for. They will probably need a page with the overview of services and then a page for the specific service with depth so they know exactly what will happen and how much it would be.
A podcast arrival wants more content. They want to sink into your world further by reading more or listening more. Give them blog posts, podcast episode pages, and a clear way to browse through them.
Pages get added when a visitor type needs something the existing pages don’t provide. Pages get cut when nobody needs them. That’s the test.
The homepage is special. It does triple duty. It greets the first-time visitor, points the returning visitor toward what they want, and creates the first impression of feeling. If the homepage doesn’t make the right person feel like they’re in the right place within ten seconds, the rest of the site rarely gets seen. It’s the hardest page to get right. That’s why I recommend starting with the homepage as you move on to writing and building.
Once the page list is decided, what each page says becomes the next decision. But that’s copy work, not planning. The website planning process ends when you know which pages exist and what each one is for.
How Your Website Connects to Everything Else
Your website doesn’t live alone. It’s one part of a marketing system that also includes, for instance, your email platform, podcast or social presence, payment platform, and booking system. The planning decisions made above only work if you’ve also thought about how the website fits into that bigger picture.
And most of the time, that next step happens in your email platform.
If the homepage’s primary action is “join the newsletter,” then the email signup form has to work: the freebie they signed up for has to deliver, the welcome sequence has to exist, and the newsletter has to actually start arriving. Without that, the homepage’s “do” leads nowhere.
If a service page’s primary action is “book a call,” then the booking system has to be set up, the calendar has to be synced, and the next email after booking has to confirm what to expect. Without that, the service page promise breaks the moment someone tries to take you up on it.
Planning the website without planning the system around it is like buying a beautiful front door for a house that doesn’t exist yet.
What to Do Before You Open Your Builder
The website planning process doesn’t need to take weeks. It needs an afternoon, with the right four questions in front of you and a notebook open.
Pick someone you most want to help. Write down what they want when they arrive. Write down two or three feelings you want them to land in. Write down what each kind of visitor should do next. Then list the pages those decisions need.
That’s it. That’s the planning.
You don’t need a beautiful template yet. You don’t need fonts, colours, or a hero image. You don’t even need to know which builder you’re going to use. You need four pieces of paper, or a single document, that says what this site is for.
The version of you who takes the afternoon to answer these four questions will spend the next three months building once and trusting your judgement. Take the afternoon.
