How to Create a Website Wireframe in 9 Steps

Before diving into website design, you need to map out its structure through wireframes.

This may sound like yet another step in the already long design process, but it's essential; if you don't build a solid foundation for your website, you'll spend a lot more time on fixing layout and user flow issues down the road.

In this guide, you'll learn how to make a wireframe that aligns with your goals. I'll discuss the importance of wireframing, outline the essential steps, and offer practical tips on mastering the process.

What is a website wireframe?

A website wireframe is a low-fidelity visual blueprint of a website's layout, structure, and key content areas. The keyword here is simplicity; a wireframe isn't concerned with color, style, or imagery.

It focuses solely on a website's functionality and layout.

Website wireframes lay the basis for a successful and functional website.

Think of them as blueprints for a house—without them, you're building blindly and risk investing time and effort into something that isn't even close to your initial idea.

Here's an example of a low fidelity wireframe.

It's essential to distinguish between wireframes and mockups—although often used interchangeably, they serve distinct purposes.

Mockups are high-fidelity wireframes and include real images, text, color, fonts, and other visual elements. Essentially, they're a step up from wireframes, as they represent static previews of websites before they go live.

You can use several methods to create wireframes:

1. Drawing them by hand

2. Creating them in digital tools

3. Building them in design platforms

Why are wireframes important for website design?

Wireframes are important for website design because they provide a clear visual blueprint of a page's structure, layout, and user flow before any design or development begins.

Creating wireframes help align teams on functionality and design decisions early in the process, reducing costly revisions later.

In the website design world, a wireframe is your map and guiding star. It helps you plan the page's structure and understand how elements interact with each other.

Wireframes are useful because they:

• Clearly visualize your website's layout

• Focus on content hierarchy and user flow before jumping to visual design elements and details

• Set design priorities before actually diving into the development process

• Identify usability issues, such as confusing navigation or cluttered layouts, in the early stages of the design process

• Improve communication among design and development teams and other stakeholders, thus saving time and ensuring everyone's on the same page

A wireframe is crucial for aligning the website's appearance with user needs and business goals.

For example, if the goal of a website page is to encourage readers to subscribe to a newsletter, the wireframe will plan the position of the CTA button and supporting content to achieve that and drive more subscriptions.

Here's an example of a website wireframe for a newsletter subscription page.

9 steps to make a wireframe for a website

The wireframing process consists of numerous steps, and each is equally important for a high-quality final result.

From jotting down your goals to sketching down ideas and breathing life into them with robust tools, every step contributes to an intuitive, clear, and functional website wireframe.

Ready to bring structure to your website idea?

Here's how to make a wireframe for a website in 9 steps.

Step 1. Define your goals

The wireframe design process begins with identifying your website's core objectives.

Ask yourself, "Why am I building this website?"

You may want to generate more leads or simply present valuable content to your existing and potential customers to build brand awareness and establish authority.

Or, you may want to pitch your new product.

Whatever the answer is, it will be your starting point for wireframing.

In this process, keep your own vision in mind, but prioritize your target audience.

Clearly establish who will use your website and what they might expect from it, as this will help you design a layout that aligns with your audience's needs.

Your goal will affect your website's layout and structure—for example, a SaaS product site will prioritize the sign-up CTA for a trial.

Similarly, an e-commerce website will focus on getting visitors to purchase a product.

For example, here's a wireframe for an e-commerce product page I generated using UX Pilot's wireframe generator.

To ensure future visitors aren't overwhelmed, concentrate your wireframe's goal on a single primary action, whether that's "Sign up," "Book a demo," or "Add to basket."

To stay on the right track throughout the process of creating the wireframe, you should:

Conduct thorough research

Gather insights about your audience through surveys or by analyzing your competition. Understand your audience's behaviors, preferences, and challenges, as these will help you properly shape your wireframe.

Define metrics

Identify how you'll measure if and to what degree your website aligns with the goals you defined. The metrics will help shape your wireframe to support these goals.

Establish user journeys

Consider how different segments of your target audience will use and navigate your website to ensure the wireframe is intuitive enough for each segment.

Step 2. Research sites in the same niche

Your competition can be a valuable source of inspiration.

Browsing their sites can provide website wireframe design ideas and spot opportunities to make your website more functional or organized.

Start your research by picking a few websites in your niche that target the same or similar audience.

For example, if you're building an e-commerce website, check out online stores of different sizes to see how they organize their products and CTA buttons, and how they guide the user toward checkout.

Visit the websites you've picked and pay special attention to the layouts of homepages, product pages, and navigation menus.

At this moment, you're not concerned with colors or website design—your eyes are on:

1. Content organization

2. Placement of key elements

3. Page hierarchy

Try identifying patterns across competitors.

• Do their CTA buttons stand out enough?

• Is the content organized clearly and logically?

Consider what you'd like to apply in your own wireframes and write down your thoughts and ideas.

Similarly, you should focus on what you don't want to include or replicate in your wireframes. Cluttered layouts, long blocks of text, and hard-to-find CTA buttons and navigation menus should be avoided, as they can confuse or overwhelm visitors and diminish their user experience.

You can use UX Pilot to turn competitor sites into wireframe templates. For example, here's a page in the skincare industry I like.

Tools like the GoFullPage Chrome extension can help you take screenshots of the entire website page you want to analyze, including inner scrollable elements and embedded iframes.

This way, you can quickly save full-page screenshots and analyze them side-by-side to identify patterns.

I took a screenshot and then used UX Pilot to turn it into a wireframe.

Step 3. List key features and pages

Now that you have some basic layout ideas, it's time to begin shaping your wireframe by jotting down the elements your website should have.

Here are some basic elements to help you get started:

• Headlines

• CTAs

• Navigation links

• Testimonials or social proof

• FAQ section

• Contact forms

• Footer info

Some of these elements will remain constant across your wireframes, such as headers and footers, while CTA buttons, text, and page layouts will differ.

Once you list out all the elements, group them in categories such as:

1. Text: Headlines, paragraphs, FAQ section

2. Forms: Contact forms, sign-up forms, etc.

3. Images or videos: Places for product images, how-to videos, etc.

4. Interactive elements: Menus, buttons, sliders

Then, consider the importance of each element, as this will guide your layout in the right direction.

Identify high-priority elements that should be visible above the fold—those that should be visible as soon as the visitor opens the page, without requiring scrolling, such as the headline, navigation bar, and CTA button.

Less essential elements, like the FAQ section or contact form, are typically placed closer to the bottom of the page.

Here's an example of a layout for a pricing page I generated with UX Pilot. You can see how purchase CTA buttons are right in the top hero section.

Step 4. Hand sketch your ideas

Once you've come up with a list of elements you want to include in your wireframes, it's time to create your first wireframe sketch and visualize your website pages.

The quickest way to create a wireframe is by using a pen and paper. Prioritize speed over perfection and precision to bring your wireframing ideas to life.

Think about several core pages (like the home page and the about page) and how you want them to look, and start sketching.

Decide how you'll present different web page elements; for example, you can draw blocks to visualize image positioning or use lines for text like in the image below.

You can easily come up with several layout ideas and wireframe examples that you can later compare and see what would better suit your content, goals, and your target audience's expectations.

If you're short on ideas, try quickly searching for website wireframe templates to find elements you can include in your sketches.

Hand sketching can help reduce overthinking and tool distraction.

When you're visualizing your ideas for the very first time, it's easier to do it on paper. Once you've chosen the right layout, you can adopt a wireframing tool into your design process.

While you're sketching, write down the main headlines on your web pages. This will help you visualize the content flow and present information in a logical and intuitive manner.

Step 5. Use a tool to create a low-fidelity wireframe

Hand sketching definitely has a valuable place in the wireframing process, as it helps you unlock creativity and quickly visualize multiple ideas without getting caught up in the details.

But, drawing wireframes by hand has its limitations as it lacks precision and speed, and is not suitable for communicating wireframe ideas.

That's why the next logical step toward your final product is turning your hand sketches into low-fidelity digital wireframes using a wireframing tool.

A lo-fi or low-fidelity wireframe is a basic, simplified visual representation of your web page or app layout, usually in black and white, using simple shapes and placeholders.

It focuses on structure, content placement, and user flow rather than design details like colors, fonts, or images.

Digital versions of your wireframes offer important benefits, such as:

• Shareability: You can quickly share your work with other team members, clients, or stakeholders to show your progress and ask for feedback.

• Easy edits: Quality wireframing tools enable you to easily rearrange, resize, or add or remove elements to get the desired results.

• More detail: Wireframing tools allow you to add more depth to your work than when you're hand-sketching.

Here are a few tips to help you create low-fidelity wireframes:

• Focus on structure: Remember that wireframes are about layout and structure, not colors and fonts. Getting caught up in the aesthetic appeal of your future web page could distract you from your priorities, which are functionality, proper information hierarchy, and user flow.

• Use placeholder text in your wireframes: Filler text (lorem ipsum) can replace the real copy, allowing you to predict how much space the actual text will take and make adjustments if necessary.

• Export your digital wireframes to PDF or PNG: Saving your wireframes as PDFs or PNGs allows you to easily share them with stakeholders and receive feedback.

UX Pilot's AI features simplify creating and editing digital wireframes for websites.

Thanks to the tool's AI capabilities, you can simply tell it what you want, and it will deliver results in seconds.

To help you get started, UX Pilot can turn your hand sketches into digital wireframes, which you can revise as you like.

For example, I found this hand-sketched wireframe to use as a reference.

And asked UX Pilot to turn it into a wireframe.

You can see how UX Pilot took a hand-sketched wireframe and turned it into a digital wireframe for a website, which you can easily hand over to others.

Unlike with hand sketches, you're not limited by a specific structure, website wireframing template, or pre-defined component. And you can revise your wireframes as often as you like.

You can also turn your desktop website wireframes into responsive wireframes for mobile and tab devices.

Step 6. Map the user flow

User flow is the path your target audience must take to complete a task, whether that's purchasing a product or submitting a form.

By mapping the user flow, you outline how the user interacts with your wireframes, ensuring the layout you've designed is smooth, logical, and intuitive.

Here are a few tips to help you with mapping out the user flow.

Think about how you'd like the user to travel between screens from the moment they land on your website to the point where they complete the desired action.

Use arrows to connect elements on different screens and show the direction of a particular action (what happens when a user clicks on a specific button).

Another option is to use numbered steps to represent the flow between wireframes and record the order of interactions.

Create separate flows for ideal users (those who take the exact actions as you've planned) and edge cases (situations that fall outside of "typical").

For example, you should have a flow for what happens if a user fails to fill in a required field in a form or clicks the wrong link.

Use a basic flowchart or sitemap diagram to clearly visualize the user flow and ensure there are no missing wireframes or issues. These handy tools can also improve collaboration with your team, reducing the risk of confusion and misunderstandings.

Step 7. Add annotations

Even if you create wireframes that are detailed and well-organized, there may still be some ambiguities or aspects that require further clarification.

This is where annotations come in—these short notes summarize the gist of a particular button or dynamic element.

By adding annotations, you can explain how a dropdown menu works, what happens when a user clicks More info, or how a section behaves depending on a user's interaction with it.

When adding annotations, be as detailed as possible.

Leave no room for assumptions about how certain elements should behave. Besides helping you mark your ideas, annotations are vital for efficient collaboration and communication with your development team.

UX Pilot makes adding annotations easy allowing you to leave notes directly on specific elements.

Based on annotations, the dev team will clearly understand how each wireframe element is supposed to work.

Of course, annotations are essential during client reviews, especially if you're working with someone without a tech background.

They offer clarity and help your clients visualize the end result.

Step 8. Gather feedback on important features

The next step of the wireframing process is sharing your designs with stakeholders, which can include:

• Your team members

• Development team

• Marketing team

• Clients

Including others in the design process ensures all involved parties are on the same page, preventing misunderstandings down the road.

It also helps you identify potential areas for improvement and catch issues early on, before the next steps of the website design process are set in motion.

To keep the feedback process efficient, remember your priorities—at this point, design aesthetics are not a priority.

You want feedback on the future site's functionality, content prioritization, structure, and clarity.

Here are some ideas for questions you can ask to get relevant feedback:

• Do the page hierarchy and flow make sense?

• Is the CTA button properly placed?

• Are all the important elements easy to find?

• Is navigating between wireframes intuitive?

As for how you'll gather feedback from stakeholders, there are several options.

If you're using UX Pilot, head to the Share option. Set your privacy and share the link.

You can create a Google Form that you'll distribute to the involved parties and collect feedback in written form. If you prefer a more interactive approach, you can do Loom walkthroughs or set up Zoom calls.

Remember that wireframing is an iterative process, and it's completely normal to make lots of changes until you get perfect results.

The more feedback you receive and implement now, the fewer revisions you'll have to make on high-fidelity wireframes later on.

Step 9. Revise your wireframe

After you've collected feedback from stakeholders, implement it and revise your wireframes accordingly.

At this stage, prioritize feedback regarding page structure, clarity, or layout over designs.

Once you've implemented the feedback, review your wireframes again to ensure they're clear and aligned with the primary goal.

You can use UX Pilot to quickly integrate feedback by just leaving instructions for the tool. Here I change the 4 images to a 3-image sliding carousel.

This is the before.

Followed by the revised wireframe that UX Pilot generated for me.

Here are some questions you should answer after the revision phase:

• Do the wireframes support the user flow?

• Are all relevant elements logically placed and easy to see?

• Have I resolved all concerns/suggestions from the feedback phase?

• Are the annotations properly updated to reflect the revisions?

To ensure your wireframes are ready for the upcoming design stages, consider setting up peer reviews or usability testing to obtain additional validation of your work.

Once your wireframes are finalized, they will become the blueprint for UI design and development so you watch to catch any mistakes now.

Key takeaways

• Wireframes are low-fidelity layouts that focus on structure, user flow, and functionality without visual design distractions like colors or images.

• Wireframes help teams align on layout, content hierarchy, and usability, reducing costly design changes later in the process.

• Strong wireframes start with clear business goals, audience research, and analysis of competitor layouts to inform design decisions.

• Begin with hand sketches, then use tools like UX Pilot to digitize layouts. Lo-fi wireframes allow quick iteration and collaboration without aesthetic distractions.

• Visualizing how users move through the site and annotating interactions ensures clarity for developers and stakeholders.

• Gathering feedback from various teams helps refine wireframes and ensure they meet user and business needs before high-fidelity design begins.