Web Design 101 - Some Basic Criteria for a Good Web Designer

Designing a website takes more thought than most people expect.
In this article I want to share what I genuinely think separates good web designers from the ones who just hit publish and move on. These aren't optional extras — they're the things that determine whether your site works for actual humans, and whether Google notices it at all.

Design for your audience, not for yourself

Before you open a design tool, figure out who you're building this for. The biggest mistake I see: designers who build what they like, not what works for their visitors.

Most people scanning a webpage will never read it top to bottom. They skim. They look for something that grabs them in the first sentence, then jump to the bold text and headings. So make that first sentence count — say clearly what the page is about — and use bold text where it actually matters.

Short paragraphs help too. Once a paragraph runs past four or five lines, you start losing people. A new heading resets their attention.

And if someone can't figure out where to find what they're looking for within a few seconds? They're gone.

Keep navigation consistent

Your navigation should be the same on every page. Same structure, same labels, same position. Visitors shouldn't have to figure out how your site works each time they land on a different page.
Fewer menu items is usually better. And if you're going to add links inside your text, put them at the end of a section — not scattered through every paragraph.

Speed matters more than you think

Some web designers genuinely don't check how long their pages take to load. That's a mistake.
Most visitors won't wait more than a few seconds. If your site crawls, they leave — and they probably won't come back. Fast sites also rank better in Google, so there's no reason to ignore this.

Design for every device and browser

People visit websites on phones, tablets, laptops, large monitors — you name it. Your site should look good and work properly on all of them.
That means building responsive layouts that adapt to different screen sizes, and testing in multiple browsers. A site that only looks right in Chrome isn't finished.

Keep it simple

There's a real temptation to keep adding things — animations, fancy fonts, sections that do interesting stuff on scroll. Resist most of it.
The best-looking professional websites tend to be calm and focused. Minimal clutter means the things that should stand out actually do.

SEO is part of the job

A client who paid to have a website built and then never appears in Google has wasted their money. On-page SEO is a designer's responsibility too.
That means writing good page titles and descriptions that match the content, thinking about heading structure, and making sure the text is written for people, not just keyword counts. Sometimes it means helping a client rewrite copy that isn't working.

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