1. Communication – One thing a lot of Web Designers never seem to understand is there is a time to be quiet and let the Website Design customer talk. One important fact that sometimes is hard to remember is that the site you are developing is theirs! You can learn a great deal more from listening to your customers than from asking questions. Trying to impose your ideas or sounding like your ideas and vision are more important than your customers is a quick way to alienate them. Your customers want and need to feel as if they are part of the team that is developing their website. Always take time to listen to your customers ideas. With this skill mastered you will not only have happy customers but the end result will be more to the liking of your Web Design Customers.
2. Accessible – Web Designers have a bad reputation for being flaky. What I mean by this is that Website Developers are known for not answering the phone, or returning phone calls. Always try to keep in constant contact with customers both active and ones that are in management. Nothing aggravates your customers more than to be hard to contact. Most all customers naturally feel they are your only customers. Nothing you can say short of being rash is going to change that attitude. Since the day of the first service related business being born, this has been the attitude of customers.
3. Do what you say you are going to do – Whatever it takes to follow through with commitments and promises is a must in any business. Even if you have to delegate tasks or outsource projects be aware of the commitments and follow through with then at all cost. Making this a practice is one of the secret attributes most successful business have done.
4. Always look at things from a customer’s point of view. Always try to think like a consumer. If this practice is adhered to most arguments and disagreements in business will never occur. Not thinking like this is a bad habit a lot of business owners not only Web Designers become guilty of.

By not allowing yourself to fall into the traps outlined above greatly enhances your skills as a business owner and Web Designer. You will be miles ahead of your competition in the Web Design industry and will shine in the eyes of your customers.

I have been a Portland OR Web Designer for over 10 years and I know because of practicing these good business skills; it has been very instrumental in creating my business into what it is today.

1^st Mistake to Avoid: Improper Strategy and Plan of the Website- it is very essential that the idea of the entire website is well developed keeping the target audience in mind. The identification of the audience will enable a designer to create a website that is user friendly and takes care of the usability goals.

2^nd Mistake to Avoid: Complex Designs- one of the mistakes that a web designer does is choosing a complex design for the website that is confusing for the user to understand. Selection of a feasible web design will enable the user to navigate easily and comfortably.

3^rd Mistake to Avoid: Incongruity of Design and the Theme of the Website- a website is much more than a mere representation of your business on the web. In fact, it is a tool through which you can build your company’s brand identity and therefore, having a website that has contradiction between its design and theme will ruin your chances of making a brand identity. For instance, a lawyer firm cannot have a bright colored flashy website like that of music. Hence, always keep the theme in mind while designing a website.

4^th Mistake to Avoid: Web Design Lacking From SEO Perspective- it is needless to say that you can gain most of the traffic and customers through search engines and this makes it mandatory for you to have a web design that is SEO friendly.

5^th Mistake to Avoid: Non- interactive website design- in these days of extreme technological advancement especially for communication, it is necessary that the website has a design that is interactive. This will attract more visitors and the visitor will also be able to give his or her input too in the website.

6^th Mistake to Avoid: Too Much of Scrolling- many a times the web designer overdo the length of the page and hence the visitor needs to scroll a lot. This is highly uncomfortable for the user and therefore, you must always design a website that has not much of scrolling of the pages.

7^th Mistake to Avoid: More Number of Clicks- if there are too many clicks to go a particular page then the visitor is bound to get bored with it. Thus have clicks on the website only as per requirements. It shouldn’t be too much nor too less.