Best Website Designer

Who is the best climber? The woman or the goat?

In the image above, who is the best climber? Who would you take climbing lessons from? The woman who made it to the top, or the mountain goat who lives at the top.

What Distinguishes the Best Website Designer?

The term best is just an opinion. Yet, everyone is looking for the best website designer when they want a website. So who really determines who is better?

The answer to that question lies with YOU!

The best website designer is the one that you can communicate with, work well together, and together create a website that makes your business stand out and brings you more customers or clients.

Here are some general skills a website designer needs to be called The BEST!

• Communication – The ability to communicate in a simple manner with the client. If you do not understand what is expected or needed to complete your website, the communication has failed. So people in the tech industries feel it is necessary to use industry jargon, or “talk over your head”. This is bad communication. You need someone who can break it down into bite-sized steps in a language you understand.
• Listening – Listening is not hearing. Listening is truly understanding what is being asked. It is the ability to be “in the moment” with you during a conversation. Listening is a skill that is developed and cherished. Once you find a website designer who knows how to listen, you will say things like, “You just get what I want” or “You just intuitively understand me”.
• Time Management – The ability to complete a website on time and within budget is important. If the website designer you hire does not have good time management skills then time seems to magically go by and your website does not get finished.
• Organization – How annoying is it when you send photos, text, instructions, or other information to someone and it gets lost? You have to resend which is a water of your time. Hiring a website designer that is not organized will cost you time.

You might have noticed none of the things on this list have anything to do with website design specifically. All of these “soft skills” will make the difference between any website designer and the one you want to hire. All of these things really do matter when it comes to your experience with getting your website created.

What Website Design Skills are Needed?

Here is a list (not all-inclusive) of skills that website designers need that are specific to creating performing websites.

• Experience in the website platform that you want to use – This is so important! I am a WordPress website designer. If someone comes to me and wants me to create a website on a different platform, I turn that job down. It is not fair to the client to make them pay for my learning curve in a different system. They would be better served by finding a website designer that already knows, and loves that system.
• Basic photo editing skills – Very useful! Clients usually give me photos that are not quite right. They may need cropping, rotating, color correction, or another basic photo editing. I edit almost every photo that a client gives me before I upload it to their website. Most photos need to be resized and then saved in an optimized format. Website site photos need to look high quality but be very small in file size. Someone without this knowledge will create you a website that is slow loading, which you do not want.
• Understanding funnel marketing – If you want to collect leads by having an opt-in on your website, your website designer needs to understand that concept and know how to implement it. They need to know how to get the pdf file (or whatever it is) delivered to the person who fills out the form. They need to understand how to integrate your CRM into the website.
• Design skills – Great website designers understand colors and how to use them together. They understand the placement of important sections of your website for better visibility. They know how to make your website user-friendly and to flow together well to support your branding.
• Responsive design – Will your website work on all devices? Does the website designer know how to make adjustments to mobile versions?
• Accessibility – If you want your website to be used by everyone – sight impaired, hearing impaired, mobility-impaired people, then your website designer needs to understand how to make a website accessible.
• Hosting – If you want your website to load fast and be secure, then your website designer needs to understand hosting options that will work for speed and security. There is a great deal to know about hosting and you want someone who knows how all the pieces fit together.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) knowledge – the website design company you hire may (or may not) offer SEO services. If they do not – they still need to understand the concepts to that they can take the text you provide and optimize it for the search engines. If they offer no SEO on your new website, go to another company.

Premium Websites might be the best website design company – or they might not. Ultimately it is up to you and what you want, and who you want to work with.