The Five Essentials Skills of a Successful Web Designer

 Guest Post By: Saurabh Tyagi

In order to have a true brand recall one needs to reach out to its audience on every available platform through every usable channel and that includes Internet. However, what do you need to have a successful presence on the web? This post discusses the same.

A successful website designing takes more than just learning how to code, including eye-catching graphics and adding readable content to it.   Almost every other site has all of these components, and despite that only a few are able to register themselves in our memories for a considerable time.  Than what it is that makes a website special?

Here are some of the essentials of a successful web design.

1. Smooth Navigation:
When a layman uses a website what impresses him most is the ability to quickly browse through different pages of the site without starting all over again. The ability to quickly locate the information that we are looking for comes under the navigation part of the site and therefore, is undoubtedly a site’s most important asset. The most successful web designs weren’t loaded with flashy colors, and heavy graphics, neither were they a jumble puzzle to solve. Instead, the designs that are appreciated most are simple and easy to navigate.

The success of the website has a lot to do with how the navigation system is designed. The lion’s share of your web designing efforts should be dedicated towards planning and creating a structure for the site’s navigation system.  Different things that you will need to consider include placement, technology, style, usability and web accessibility.

Your home page should have a clearly visible navigation block while each link on the page should have a descriptive title. Visitor to your site should not have to scroll down for viewing the site’s navigation.  For large sites that are organized in a hierarchical and multi-level manner, it is essential that the site’s navigation allows users to get what they are looking for without too many actions and with as little efforts as possible.

2. Search Engine Optimization:
Even if you employed the services of the best website designer the success of your website still rests a great deal on a term that you might have heard of before; Search Engine Optimization. 99 percent of the websites are found through search engines like Google, Bing and others. If a search engine cannot find your website, there are very remote chances of it being successful. There are various SEO techniques that might require the services of an SEO expert. The first SEO rule is to have quality content on the website, which is plagiarism free.

As a web designer you should have the knowledge of white-hat SEO techniques and keyword related information, considering which keywords your readers will input in the omnipresent Google search box to find your website. There are many free tools who let you guess the current search trends, such as Google Adwords and Google Trends amongst others. Many professionals suffer from this misconception that SEO should be applied after the website has been designed. The truth is that a site must incorporate SEO principles right at the time when its design is being conceived.

3. A Mobile Ready Design:
Smartphones consumption is fast outpacing the number of desktop pc consumption in world. This also means that there is a shift in internet usage patterns of most users. It has been reported that a greater population is accessing websites through mobile devices than traditional desktop pcs. With mobile devices driving an increased amount of web traffic, it is a top priority for today’s generation of web designers to create a website that is as easy to navigate and read on a mobile device as on a desktop. And this is where responsive web design comes into picture.

Responsive web design takes into factor the device as well as browser independence of a website. What it really means is that the visitor should have the same experience while viewing the site on different devices like mobile phones and tablets, besides personal computers. While it is easier said than done as it will require a lot of technical expertise along with significant cost, if you want to future-proof   your website than taking these steps is eminent.

4. Social Media Integration:
The whole web is going berserk over social media. This is evident when we look at the monthly traffic reports of sites like Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and others. These are the most visited sites of the web and therefore ignoring them is something that you wouldn’t want to risk. For ensuring the success of your site, not only you should promote it on social media but also integrate these platforms on into your website’s design. Almost every one of these sites offers an easy to integrate widget that provides a direct method to share your content.

5. Font:
As important are the bigger design elements such as graphics and navigation, the impact of fonts and typography on a website’s success should never be underestimated. Out of the thousands of fonts out there, choosing which would look best to the visitors is certainly a mind-numbing exercise, and should be given due attention. However, once you settle on a font, make sure to maintain a consistency throughout your website. Keep the headings visually different from the main paragraph test. Different attributes like font-size, letter-spacing properties, white-space and line-height should be given due consideration to keep the text readable and pleasing to eyes.

Thus, for becoming a successful website designer, you should have broad skill sets including designing aptitude, technical, and interpersonal communications. After completing a website designing course you can get good career opportunities in both private as well public sectors.

About The Author:

Having keen interest in Web designing and online marketing, Saurabh Tyagi provide freelance web designing services and occasionally writes on topics of interests like for leading education sites.