Planning your Website | Web Theme User Guide

wireframing example

Wireframe Example

Before you dive into building your new website, think through a high-level website plan. This planning process doesn’t need to be complicated or time intensive. It’s more or less about taking the time to answer some important questions that will help ensure you build your website with the right foundation to accomplish your goals.

This following is intended to help you determine the appropriate information architecture, through the creation of a Sitemap followed by the creation of Wireframes (starting with the high level pages first). Sample template and reference documents are provided, which you can use to help plan your website.

Site Architecture

It’s important to consider how you want to set up your new website before constructing the new pages. This simple exercise of drawing out the menu structure and subsequent pages will help set your site architecture. This is a key step before actually building out any pages. Completion of this step can also aid in finalizing the sitemap.

gloomap example

Sitemap example using GlooMaps

Already have a site? If so, the first step in your re-design process should be taking an inventory of all the site's pages. Finding your site's page listing can come from a number of sources:

Site Improve keeps a list of all pages that are public-facing
Google Analytics can help find the pages, as well as poor-performance pages
An existing Sitemap

Ways to build a new menu structure

Online template builder (Google Slides template, GlooMaps)
Word Processor (MS Word, Google Doc, etc)
Pen and Paper (it doesn't have to be fancy!)

Find some helpful website creation templates on our Resources page.