The Design Process
It is the foundation of your website. A blueprint in which you decide how it will appear and what it will convey. Essentially, this process determines the purpose and functionality of the website.
Collect
First you need to bring together all the info you want the site to convey. Gather what you feel is the most important and necessary. Try to discard whatever seems frivolous or distracting. Provide just the information that is needed. If there is too much text, your users will not bother reading all of it. Would you?
Design
Next, decide how you can best aesthetically portray that information. I usually sketch a rough draft on paper, placing the data in different places. Keep in mind that even though this is your website, its most basic function is to provide information for others. Make brevity and simplicity your foremost objective.
Create
Now that you have decided how the website will look, and where everything will go, you need to create it. You can use many programs to do this, but some are better than others. Consider how your code will translate into programs such as Notepad++. Disorganized code will make future adjustments difficult.
Assess
Since the website is up and running you should learn how functional it really is. Tell your friends and colleagues about it, both tech savvy and not. Listen to their opinions on its usefulness or lack thereof. Your main goal is to provide the information that others seek, but a website that is disliked will see little use.
Improve
No website is perfect; believing it is won't make it so. Take the ideas and concerns of those who have used your site into consideration. Sometimes the smallest variations can improve ergonomics between a website and its users. These changes are what convince users to return, and tell their friends about the site.