What Makes a Good Web Designer

In our last blog article, we considered what distinguishes a successful website from a less successful one. Today, we want to focus on those who create a website: the web designers. What makes a good web designer? Spoiler: It's not so much about technical questions.

Who is a web designer?

Some of our colleagues approach this question with a certain arrogance. For them, web designers are only those who have professionally learned and practice this profession full-time. Similar to many apprenticeships, they look down on any layperson who attempts this art.

For this article, we want to broaden the term "web designer" a bit. For us, a web designer is anyone who creates a website - whether good or bad. Because fundamentally, even laypeople can now create very good websites with the right tools. But not everyone who considers themselves a good web designer actually is one. Here, we want to focus on four points that distinguish a good web designer.

Putting the Visitor in Focus

In general, a master is recognized by his work. This is also true in web design. A good web designer is recognized by creating good websites.

We have already discussed the most important factor for a good website in the blog article The One Factor That Sets Successful Websites Apart. In short: Your website is good when you succeed in meeting the needs of your prospects with your offer and thereby winning them as customers.

So, a good web designer first and foremost delves deeply into the needs, expectations, and behaviors of website visitors. Only in this way can he create an intuitive, user-friendly, and appealing interface that provides visitors with added value and encourages them to take action: to make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter or podcast, book a room, etc.

Many web designers - even many professionals! - disregard this very basic point and create websites only focusing on their clients. Of course, it is important that the client and their brand are ideally represented through the website (see below). But the goal of a website should not only be to positively showcase a company, association, or whoever. If it is not purely informative, the goal of a website should always be "conversion": turning visitors into prospects and prospects into customers - or members, visitors, guests, etc.

Keeping Search Engines in Mind

By consistently focusing on the needs of visitors, a web designer is already on the right track to also consider the second central point: the placement of the website in search engine results. Because the best website is not very useful if no one finds it.

To perform well on Google & Co., many things need to be considered - both technical and content-related. Search engines always strive to present their visitors with the most relevant and best search results for their needs (they have understood the first point!). And in their eyes, search results are relevant and good if they:

• have relevant, up-to-date, and well-prepared content that matches the search query,
• have been rated as relevant and worth reading by others (e.g., through links or reviews),
• are optimized for mobile devices and generally accessible,
• load quickly and
• are securely configured (e.g., with SSL encryption).

There are many other factors that play a role for search engines. And these factors, or their weighting, also change regularly. Search engine optimization is an art - and an ongoing process.

A good web designer understands the importance of SEO and has the necessary experience to optimize the website both in terms of content and technically and to prevent costly mistakes.

Brand Ambassador

The first two of our points are very focused on the visitor of a website. However, this does not mean that a web designer should not also keep the client's brand in mind.

A successful brand is much more than just the external appearance (logo, colors, fonts, etc.). The core of a brand is always the intersection between:

1. what the world and one's own target audience most urgently need with
2. one's own values and
3. one's own abilities.

Bringing out this brand and supporting it in every possible way through the website is an art that distinguishes a good web designer. It starts with the structure of the website and goes through the design to the implementation.

Sustainability

Did you know that poorly programmed websites consume a huge amount of electricity and computing power? A banner video in high resolution may look fancy (once it eventually loads), but it contributes to the insatiable resource consumption of our modern world.

But even for those who are not so interested in environmental protection and resource consumption, sustainability usually becomes interesting when it comes to their own wallet. And here, there are countless pitfalls that inexperienced web designers can fall into:

1. They may use a website builder that looks very cheap and easy at first glance - but turns out to be much more expensive than expected over the lifetime of a website. And the tricky thing about website builders is that you are bound to the provider for better or for worse unless you want to rebuild the entire website.
2. The same applies to supposedly free systems like WordPress or Contao, which are then extended by third-party themes and plugins. Here, you really need to know what you're doing. Because setting up these constructs is usually relatively quick and cheap. But beware if you later want to add a specific function. Or if the provider no longer provides security updates for the plugin. Or if prices rise. Or if the EU issues a new data protection directive. Or, or... It is not uncommon for third-party solutions to be so deeply embedded in the system that you have no choice but to start over. And that becomes expensive in the long run.
3. Inexperienced web designers often lack the background knowledge to securely set up a server or hosting and configure a website in compliance with data protection regulations. Then, at some point, a competitor's warning letter arrives. Or a hacker looks around and steals important data. Or the server crashes and the website was not backed up. All of this has happened before - and is very annoying (and expensive) when it happens.

A good web designer has the knowledge and experience to create a website that can be operated securely, in compliance with legal requirements, sustainably, and without unnecessary dependencies. They not only feel responsible for creating a website but also for its continued existence - and of course, they do not shy away if damage occurs despite all security measures.

Soft Skills

In this article, we have already covered the most important factors that make up good (web) design. Because design is much more than just appearance. Nevertheless, a good web designer should naturally also have an eye for colors, shapes, fonts, and layout. Often, you can't exactly pinpoint why a design appears "harmonious," and of course, there is a subjective factor in everything. But on a good website, function and form seamlessly fit together, support each other, do not impose themselves, but are also not completely arbitrary. Customers notice and appreciate all of this, at least subconsciously. Visitors quickly become repeat customers.

And last but not least, a point that is personally important to us: As web designers, we always try to identify with our clients. We literally have a stake in the success of our clients. For us, web design is more than just a job. It brings us joy to put ourselves in our clients' shoes (and their target audience's) find the best solution for each of them individually. So, no website is like any other, and we always learn something new. A web designer who does not approach each new project with a certain curiosity, humility, and enthusiasm cannot be a good web designer.