Web design encompasses more elements than most people, it appears, even have a vague concept of. True design involves grappling with the idea of accessible design, thinking about information architecture and at the very least considering search engine optimisation. Outside of this decidedly geeky bubble, you will quite often be tasked with copywriting and marketing, and producing eye-catching design that serves more of a purpose than “to look good”. Consider how the audience connects to the narrative of the piece; what you want them to achieve and how you’re going to accomplish this. I think if you don’t succeed in delivering more than what was asked, you fail your client and you fail at your job, because you’re not there to say “yes”, you are there to give added value to the project and business.

Generally, I can tell a web designers’ salt immediately by:

• The markup
• The visual design
• The copywriting
• The advert (if applicable)

Anyone whose portfolio page fails to pass transitional validation, looks a bit naff or sounds like it’s been written unprofessionally, will immediately get a red cross in my book, and should NOT be offering their services.

If you can’t even get your portfolio site right, you sure as hell should not be offering to build websites for other people.

“Content is king” is wielded by n00bs and professionals alike, but really just how important is original content these days? There’s so much stuff being generated, I’m beginning to wonder if it really does matter. This is a good case for links, because links can effectively rank this content and give it some order.

Think about it; if content is original and great, it will be linked to, but if it’s original and crap, it won’t. One could argue that this can be faked with intense link building, but Google isn’t stupid – it can tell most genuine links from ones designed to inflate positioning in the SERPs.

I think the most effective type of backlink is the one found embedded within content. Consider an original piece of text with a thoughtful backlink embedded – surely this is the maximum somebody can appreciate a web page – to embed it in their piece of text it must be special! These links are harder to fake because they actually require effort, and time, and are not simply paid for.

I own a leeds web design agency, and one of the services we offer is SEO. We always ensure that quality links are created, and do not rely on generating hundreds of pointless directory links that carry no weight!