1. Web designers are marketers per se. Web sites are all about advertising products, ideas and services. Thus, a web designer has to understand the mindset of marketers in order to create a design that sell.



2. Read, read and read. We do not experience everything. Thus, our tendency is to learn from others. Reading web design books, newsletters and tips are pretty valuable since they can save you time and effort. Basically, books are more conclusive than newsletters and tips however, they are for free and mostly updated.

3. Narrow down your target market. You cannot please everybody same thing that you cannot be good at everything. Thus, this fact calls for the narrowing of your target market. Even in the interface of the so-called web design, a designer cannot claim that he is an expert at anything or everything about the needs of a website. It is better to pick a certain audience and try to be good at catching their attention, preference and choice. This practice allows you to be best at a given area thus developing expertise.

4. Answer your target audience’s needs. In order to answer the visitor’s needs, web designers must know what kind of visitors his site is welcoming. Do they belong to the younger generation or otherwise? What do they want from your site? Are these information, details and pleasures in your site in order to get their undivided attention and loyalty? Bear in mind that colors, font size, style of graphics, contents and the entirety of the site affects viewer’s decision and choice.

5. Know the basics of SEO and copywriting. Though Search Engine Optimization and copywriting are not directly related to designing, still, designers must have basic knowledge about them. This is because web designing is intertwined with marketing, use of keywords and visibility.

Aside from that, designers must also have knowledge of the programming basics. If not, the tendency is waste time or to create a mediocre or unsatisfactory design to the detriment of the sites.

6. The primacy of functionality. If ever you are faced to make a decision between a web site’s aesthetic form and its functionality, you have to be firm in upholding the latter. Not everything that is pretty is ‘saleable’. Besides, you don’t create web sites for the sake of making it nice-looking.

Above anything else, the site must be functional so as to cater to every visitor’s wants and needs. Appearance is a means to catch visitor’s attention nevertheless, it is not the end. If a designer prioritizes appearance alone without considering its primary consideration the web site’s marketability will suffer.

7. Know when to break the rules. Rules are only guidelines, if you feel that the rules are inappropriate for a certain creation follow your heart’s desire and venture on an experimental adventure.