The value of finding the best possible website designer for a project is sometimes inexplicable. Good designers have a knack for bringing something extra to a project, whether we speak of a website or a mobile app.
Generally, every company can find a run-of-the-mill website designer. The market is full of web design professionals who can come in and do a job. However, the question here is not how to find a web designer. Instead, this piece is for those looking for the best website designer.
Anyone who knows the value of web design would understand the difference.
Finding the best web designer available requires some effort from the company as well. There are many possibilities to prepare for.
Firstly, companies must test the designers that apply for the position with an appropriate testing mechanism. This involves the kind of skills and abilities the top website designers tend to have.
Secondly, companies may have to approach website designers who already work at another firm. This essentially means they have to poach the designer by making the right offer and selling the company and position effectively.
In both these scenarios, there is a considerable amount of effort companies have to make. If these efforts end with a company getting the best website developer for their project, the labor is indeed worth it. This is because great web designers bridge the gap between a company’s ideas of a great website with the user’s perception of optimal experience.
In this piece, we will discuss the different ways companies can find the best design pros in the market who know the bare bones of stuff like web page design and user experience.
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What are the Skills the Best Web Designer Should Have?
Google web designer and you will find results showing top designers and the odd web design agency. How can you find the best talent amongst these names?
The best way to identify talented web design professionals is by judging them based on their skills. There are certain skills generally common amongst most web designers. However, some special skills are unique only to the best website designers in the market.
Whether we speak of Canberra web design experts or responsive web design pros in New York, the best amongst those have certain key skills that set them apart. If your company is looking for the best website designer or even a web design agency, you should look out for some specific skills. After all, anything designers work on is a representation of their skills.
Before hiring a professional to manage web page design and various other operations, a company first tries to gauge the skills of a designer.
Moving forward, we will specifically discuss the skills which the best website designer is likely to have. We will leave aside some common web design skills which designers generally tend to have anyways.
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Programming (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript)
Generally, web designers are very good at using design software. In fact, the perception in the market is that web designers can land a good job if they know how to use design software like Photoshop.
Firstly, there is no denying the importance of design software. In this day and age, the skill to use design software must be ubiquitous. From a website design company to a freelance professional in the field, all parties must have a handle over Photoshop and other kinds of design software.
However, the knowledge of design software is only a basic skill for web design. When companies look for a leading web designer, they don’t just want to hire someone who knows Photoshop. Instead, the best website designer is someone who understands the technical side of website development and management as well.
Thus, modern web designers should have a grasp over programming languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Why is knowing programming important?
For example, let’s consider HTML and CSS. How does it help Canberra web design pros or those from another city?
HTML is the programming language that dictates the publication and structure of content on a webpage. CSS is a language that communicates with browsers on the format and style in which the content comes out on a webpage.
Together, HTML and CSS play a vital role in how content comes out on the webpage. One of the foremost requirement of a web designer is to make sure people have an optimal experience reading and viewing content on a webpage. Thus, knowledge of both HTML and CSS are crucial for web designers. In fact, it is a great distinguishing factor between an average and the best website designer.
Read more: How to Get the Best Website Designer for a Project?
Search Engine Optimization – The Best Skill for a New Web Designer
The SEO game is a major factor in the success of a website these days. Companies have found a way to get their content noticed by a large audience organically. In other words, without spending a single buck on getting someone to a website, companies can get real people to come and read their content.
How?
The answer is search engine optimization, better known by its acronym, SEO. SEO simply refers to a technique practising which increases the presence of a website on major search engines like Google.
There are many different factors that contribute to improving the search presence of a website. The most popular factor is content. You must have heard people repeating the tiring phrase ‘CONTENT IS KING’. When people say it now, they often refer to its impact on SEO.
However, web designers don’t need to concern themselves with content.
One key factor of improving search presence is having an SEO-optimal web page design. This basically refers to how a search engine interacts with a website. There are many instances where a website’s search presence falls because the design doesn’t meet standard SEO guidelines.
Thus, the best web designer is someone who understands SEO guidelines perfectly. While the designer may not need to know core SEO techniques like keyword research or link building, knowing key design guidelines is a must.
Generally, the best way to create SEO-friendly web designs is by studying websites that get good search engine traffic. The design choices and templates of such websites are a good indicator of the type of web design search engines consider appropriate.
A good website design company has an SEO expert. Individual designers must know key design guidelines as well.
Read more: Latest 15 Best & Free SEO Tools for Complete SEO Optimality
Design IQ – Setting a bar to find the best website designer
Perhaps the greatest skill the best web designer can have is a high design IQ. In this context, design IQ only refers to the general creativity and design knowledge of a professional.
The ability to just make a Wix logo or a responsive design doesn’t make a website designer the best. The natural ability to create web designs that strike a chord with the audience and create real engagement is very rare. Having this ability is the hallmark of the best website designer.
However, the general discussion around web design rarely accounts for a skill like design IQ. Instead, companies are more interested in small matters like Wix logo designer or responsive design.
It is not as if these things don’t matter. Nonetheless, they are very little things when compared to the general ability of a designer to create a truly magnificent web design.
It is not wrong to suggest that design IQ refers to the creative side of web design. As we move into a data-driven world, it is difficult to comprehend a quality like creativity. And yet, the best web designer needs creativity to create the best designs possible.
How can a company measure design IQ? The obvious way of doing this is carefully studying the design portfolio of a professional. Even a normal person can spot the difference between an average web design and an authentic & engaging one.
Through a comprehensive testing mechanism, a company can indeed get the best website designer. However, the mechanism must test the creative ability of the designer. In the end, any web design company can do the job. Getting the best talent is difficult because the best is often the one who is the most creative.
Read more: Why the Decision to Redesign Your Website Could Work in 2020?
Client Management
Talk to anyone at a web design company about the kind of talent they hire. One of the most crucial skills a designer must have is dealing with clients.
This particular skill is important if your company offers web design services.
Clients are the reason an agency exists. Their money pays the bills and salaries of everyone at the company. Web designers at an agency who work for clients have to know how to keep clients happy and satisfied.
Over the last few years, the standards of client management have shifted. In the early days when the internet was a new technology, a good web design company was rare. Thus, the power rested with the agency.
The scene is completely different now. There are many web design companies in the market, as there are web designers. Many of them offer in-demand services such as web page design and responsive web design. Even a standard web development company these days offers design as part of its services.
The power, in other words, rests with the clients. Thus it is up to design professionals to maintain a sound relationship with clients.
Generally, a web designer is likely to believe that delivering a good design within a deadline is the grand sum of client management. However, this is not accurate. Clients don’t just expect delivery. They want to be a part of the process and work with designers.
The ability to keep clients happy is 50% of the design professional’s job. Whether this means dealing with Canberra web developers or an online retail group in New York, the best website designer can manage all clients easily.
Read more: What are the Important Design Elements for Real Estate Sites?
How to Find the Best Website Designer?
There are many varying hiring strategies companies use to find the best website designer for a project.
The common wisdom is to post an opening on a regular job website and wait for the results. This approach works when companies need to make up the numbers. However, finding the best website designer takes more effort.
Here are a few points that broadly explain the process of finding the best website designer.
Decide the Budget
A lot of things depend on your budget. If you’re ready to spend a ridiculous amount of money, the process is very easy. Offer the best designers at other companies double the salary they’re on.
However, this is not how things usually work. Generally, companies try to find the best website designer they can within their budget.
The budget you set should account for the average pay of a talented web designer, the job requirements, and the general condition of the market. For example, hiring a good designer is cheaper right now in 2020 because companies generally are reluctant to hire anyone.
Advertise Job Opening to Specific Segment
Simply posting a job is not enough. It is crucial that your job posting reaches the best website designers. Whether you post a job on LinkedIn or Indeed, promote the posting and target web designers with specific skills, portfolio, and experience.
This move will ensure you only deal with applicants who have a certain design IQ threshold.
Create a Sound Testing Process
You will only find good web designers if you test them well. The next step of the filtration includes testing the applicants with a series of tests. This is an important stage as an easy testing process won’t distinguish the candidates well.
Companies must make sure the testing process is able to evaluate the different key skills a website designer must have.
Don’t Be in a Hurry
You should never look for the best web design professional if you need someone working at your company within a week or two. This is because the testing process can take time. Sometimes, things may not work out with some clients which can lead to difficult situations arising.
Thus, start the hiring process one or two months ahead of schedule. This will give you the ability to explore multiple options.
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In Conclusion – Finding the Best Website Designer
In this piece, we brought to light some important skills the best web designer in New York or anywhere else in the world must have. These skills are important, but the list here is not comprehensive. There are other skills important to becoming a web design pro. However, our aim here was to bring to light certain key skills unique to top web designers.
We also laid out some points covering the process to hire the best website designer possible. For those looking to hire a design professional, this piece offers some food for thought.
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