The web design process is a process that ranges greatly depending on who you talk to. Generally you will start off with the customer (or if the customer is you, start off with yourself) and really try to map out all of the elements that you are looking to include in your website.

After developing your list of elements, you now want to start putting those elements into buckets or containers. These containers end up being your website sections. All like items should be grouped together. For instance your "About us" section could end up with a company mission statement, careers, bios of executives, as well as the company location, and possibly even a contact us section. Logical sections of your website should be grouped together. If you have questions about what items should go together, start to look around the internet at competitors sites, as well as websites in different industries to give a better idea of the content you'd like to include in your website.

After you have your list of elements, containers (or sections), you now want to identify websites in your industry (and other industries) that you like, and you also want to identify elements on websites that you want to stay away from.

You are now at the point that you want to pick a color palette. A color palette selector Color Schemer is a good tool to use to give you a better idea of what colors go with each other. All you need to do is select a color to start with, and it will give you all of the complementary colors. Another website I just came across Degraeve is a really cool tool for matching up that great photo with a color palette. Sometimes people start off with a great picture and go from there. With this tool you can take advantage of that great picture to the extent that you need to.

To recap -- You now have your elements, your buckets or sections, and the color palette you are going to use.