Top Job Thursday

Web Designer Job Description & Career Opportunities

With the Internet constantly growing in popularity, highly-technical people skilled in web design are needed to help keep these websites attractive to customers and operating smoothly. That is where web designers come in. Web designers help businesses and individuals maintain an online presence. Millions of websites can be found online, from shopping malls to hospitals to school and service providers and everything else in between. Having a website and constantly maintaining it is an important and necessary task nowadays. Many businesses would not survive without the services of a web designer.

Web Designer Job Responsibilities
Web designers work closely with clients to gain an idea of what the site should look like. They ideally have some creativity and marketing skills, since the goal of almost all websites is to make them attractive to customers, especially the company’s target audience. Web designers need to be able to create websites that are user friendly and attractive to the company’s audience. Using coding such as HTML, XML and CSS, web designers create content, such as text, and insert images, such as graphics and photos. Since they must be able to manipulate images and incorporate video and audio into websites, they also must be familiar with other software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Java.

Once the web designer has created a draft of the site, they will usually seek customer approval before completion. Once the finalized website is up and running, the web designer’s job does not end there. They have to continue to maintain the site and fix any errors that occur, such as broken links, files not opening properly and slow download times. Per the customer’s request, they may also update the site with new text, such as company news, new photos and graphics, additional files or a new overall design.

Web Designer Salary and Wages
Web designer salary varies based on company size and location. For example, a small company in a remote area will pay considerably less than a large, well-known major corporation in a metropolitan area. Other factors, such as level of education and the amount of hands-on experience a person has, also play a huge role in determining pay. More experience and education equates in higher pay. Starting salaries for entry-level web designers range from $37,000 to $50,000 a year. The average annual salary for a more experienced web designer ranges from $51,250 to $73,750, with the average at $61,000.

Those looking to make even more money may want to consider obtaining the skills needed to land a senior web designer position. Although these roles are more technical in nature, they result in much higher pay – anywhere from $85,000 to $100,000.

Your Choice of Careers in Web Design
As a web designer, you can traverse into diverse paths. For example, as a project manager you are responsible for designing entire websites and may manage a team to help you with this task. As a design director, you are involved with supervising the works of your junior web designers; correcting and editing and improvising their works. This just goes to show that, as a web designer there is a lot of scope for you to grow.

This profession is quite demanding with irregular work hours and erratic schedules. You need to be flexible enough to deal with tight schedules and constant last minute changes and editing. However, it is a creatively satisfying job and is very much regarded these days.

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