9 Insider Tips for Aspiring Website Designers
Aspiring website designers, get ready to unlock the secrets of the trade. This comprehensive guide offers invaluable insights from industry experts, covering everything from initial wireframing to creating emotional user connections. Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your skills, these insider tips will help you navigate the dynamic world of web design with confidence.
- Start with Pen and Paper Wireframes
- Conduct Usability Tests with Real Users
- Understand Client Needs Before Designing
- Master User Experience Fundamentals
- Adopt a Mobile-First Design Approach
- Simplify User Experience Through Design
- Charge Fair Rates for Your Work
- Integrate SEO Principles from the Start
- Focus on Emotional User Connections
Start with Pen and Paper Wireframes
My best tip for aspiring website designers is to start every project with pen and paper, not a design tool. Before you open Figma or Sketch, grab a sheet and sketch a simple three-act wireframe—Problem, Promise, Proof—mapping where your headline, core message, testimonials, and call-to-action will live. This low-fi, narrative-first approach forces you to ask, "Does this guide someone intuitively through the story I need to tell?" before you fuss over fonts or animations.
The most important thing to focus on is solving a real user need, not chasing the latest visual trend. Nail your messaging hierarchy so a first-time visitor "gets" the brand in two seconds flat. Keep navigation clear, place social proof where it reinforces the value arc, and ensure every design choice answers the question "What's next?" for the user. When content flow and user empathy lead your process, your designs will look great and actually drive results—something every client (and their customers) will notice.
Conduct Usability Tests with Real Users
My strongest advice for new website designers is to prioritize usability testing from the very beginning of your career. I've found tremendous value in a simple technique: ask someone unfamiliar with your design to complete a basic task while you observe silently, noting where they hesitate or become confused. This real-world feedback reveals design problems that you, as the creator, might never notice because you're too close to your work. Watching actual users interact with your designs will teach you more about effective design principles than any course or book. Focus on creating websites that real people can navigate intuitively, and you'll distinguish yourself in this field regardless of visual trends or technologies that come and go.
Understand Client Needs Before Designing
My most valuable advice for aspiring website designers is to truly understand your client's needs before diving into design work. Early in my career, I made the costly mistake of assuming I knew what a major client wanted rather than listening carefully to their requirements, which resulted in a project that missed the mark completely. This experience taught me that website design isn't just about creating something visually impressive, but about solving specific problems for your clients and their users. The most important thing to focus on is developing strong communication skills that allow you to extract clear requirements and translate them into effective designs. Taking the time to thoroughly understand the client's business goals, target audience, and success metrics will set you apart from designers who prioritize aesthetics over functionality.
Master User Experience Fundamentals
Good Day,
For beginners who have just begun to get acquainted with web design, the best thing they can do is to concentrate on learning the fundamentals of user experience: clean layouts, hassle-free navigation, and mobile-friendly features. They shouldn't really get lost in pursuing flashy features, but perfect the skills of creating well-built, functional, and user-friendly sites. This foundation will make any project easier and more powerful over time.
If you decide to use this quote, I'd love to stay connected! Feel free to reach me at spencergarret_fernandez@seoechelon.com
Adopt a Mobile-First Design Approach
These days, it is essential that an inspiring designer has the proper experience creating designs for a mobile-first world, as we have seen time and time again while dealing with digital marketing on many websites. Despite most website traffic now originating from mobile devices, many web designers still choose a desktop-first approach. Mobile optimization has a direct effect on the user experience and on search engine rankings, both of paramount significance to business success—something that astute designers are acutely aware of.
We have seen many websites developed to look great, but almost impossible to use (causing very high bounce rates) on mobile devices. One restaurant client, for example, redesigned its website to make it especially mobile-friendly with menus easy to read and a purchase ordering system simple on small screens. The result was a 50% increase in mobile conversions because the designer realized that all hungry customers look for restaurants on their phones and not on computers.
Designing with a mobile-first approach means designers have to consider what really matters and then improve upon design elements for desktop users too. Design for the lowest common denominator first—only what is necessary—and move up from there so that pointless features are left out and we concentrate on what matters most to users. Because mobile-friendly websites have a direct impact on revenue, increasingly more business owners realize the importance of it; thus, mobile specialization will become a competitive edge among the design marketplace, providing aspiring designers more opportunities.
Simplify User Experience Through Design
Focus on viewing web design as a tool to reduce complexity and promote clarity for users. This perspective was a turning point in my career, helping me evolve from simply creating visually appealing interfaces to developing solutions that genuinely solve problems. While technical skills are important, understanding that good design simplifies the user experience will set you apart in this field. This mindset will serve you well whether you're working on small business websites or large infrastructure projects.
Charge Fair Rates for Your Work
Don't undervalue yourself. Don't give away free websites to build your portfolio, or be ashamed of charging what you're worth. If you want to build a portfolio, do it for your own projects or ideas, not for someone else's.
Integrate SEO Principles from the Start
In short, from an SEO perspective, it's important that aspiring web designers don't discount SEO. It's what ensures your designs are seen, not just created.
For these aspiring website designers, my advice is to focus on SEO foundations right from the start. A beautiful design only works if people can actually find the site. This means paying attention to fast load speeds, mobile responsiveness, clean site structure, and accessibility.
SEO shouldn't be thought of as something you 'add on later' - it should shape how you design navigation, content layouts, and even image use.
By building with search engines and users in mind from day one, you'll create websites that don't just look good, but perform well and attract the right audience.
Focus on Emotional User Connections
Website designers need to know that learning the technical features of a script is not as important as understanding user emotion. They should stand in the users' perspective and consider why they land on this website—whether it's for quality trivia or something else. Technical aspects can be tweaked, but that alone is not going to serve users properly.
When we decided to re-imagine our platform, what surprised me the most was how a simple photograph of a guide and just a few sentences about who they are worked in practice better than fancy animations or intricate layouts. To provide a real example, a table with handwritten neighborhood recommendations from our Tokyo guide received 45% more bookings on that same destination gallery page compared to the clean style we had before. I always say, I learned that the delivery of genuine content is more powerful than fancy design tactics when it comes to making actionable user experiences.
One of the most time-consuming tasks that you can do is spending a lot of time with real users to realize what their emotional journey is like through your design. See how they organically interact with the content and flag where they are able to create real connections contrasted to where they might be lost or distracted. The most effective website designs foster genuine relationships between users and brand faces or stories, leveraging tenets of visual design to deliver content that isn't generic.
Instead, start with simple, plain layouts that efficiently display real stories and actual images. Employ the fundamentals of visual hierarchy, engaging animation, and symmetry & hierarchy for creating an emotional connection with users. Your website should be designed around experiences that are people-centric and seamless.
